WIFI hot spots

[ennajean]

has anyone bought a no contract WIFI hotspot. I see them advertised at Walmart and a few other stores. Just wondering if they actually are worth the money.

[darr]

i use the internet on the go mifi from wal mart..have had it over three years now and only use it when i have no wifi....and you buy a card and use it till its gone the buy another....so far im only on my second card after three years....i love the internet on the go from wal mart

[ennajean]

gerrym51 wrote:
I have the straightalk 4gLTE hotspot that accesses verizon towers. i have it in a wilson sleek. as with all hotspots signal is the key. it does work fine so far as long as it can detect a verizon tower.

it works no differently than a verizon jetpack. its the way you pay for data that is different

i ordered mine directly from straighttalk. got it in 3 days

Bought this one from our local Walmart, only brand they had with the 30 day plans......now using it for first time in a campground that we can't even get a radio station in. But this hotspot is working. Thanks all for your input.

[gerrym51]

fj12ryder wrote:
We last used ours in mid September of last year. I bought some data: 1 gig, on May 6. We used it shortly thereafter with no problems. I also didn't really think about the telephone number, but it didn't seem to affect the operation of the hotspot.

I have a question about this. did you buy more gigs online BEFORE you turned on the hotspot. as far as the hotspot itself unless it was turned on it did not know gigs were done. the hotspot although it will show the date the latest card will run out does not do calculations itself . it reads straighttalks computer when connected.

my wonder is when the hotspot actually knows time has run out. does buying more time online and then starting hotspot again avoid setup=just wondering

[ralphnjoann]

lryrob9301 wrote:

ralphnjoann wrote:
When do they start counting the 30/60 days, when you buy the card or when you activate it. I would like to carry a spare with me.

With Straight Talk, the time starts when you activate it. However you do not need to carry a spare. You can go to their website and purchase more data any time you need it and put it into reserve to be used when you run out.

Thanks!

[lryrob9301]

ralphnjoann wrote:
When do they start counting the 30/60 days, when you buy the card or when you activate it. I would like to carry a spare with me.

With Straight Talk, the time starts when you activate it. However you do not need to carry a spare. You can go to their website and purchase more data any time you need it and put it into reserve to be used when you run out.

[ralphnjoann]

When do they start counting the 30/60 days, when you buy the card or when you activate it. I would like to carry a spare with me.

[fj12ryder]

We last used ours in mid September of last year. I bought some data: 1 gig, on May 6. We used it shortly thereafter with no problems. I also didn't really think about the telephone number, but it didn't seem to affect the operation of the hotspot.

[MrWizard]

It's I the cellular system, it connects to cell towers, everything on the cell systems has a phone number, that is how the towers locate them

[gerrym51]

Gene&Ginny wrote:

gerrym51 wrote:
straighttalk says if not used for over 6 mos will lose phone number
it's in the fine print

Since it is a data hotspot I don't think keeping the phone number is an issue. For some strange reason they do assign a phone number to the data hotspots.

i don't know. if you lose the phone number you might have to reset everything.

when i was looking at getting a verizon hotspot they assign a phone number to it.

i don;t know if a hotspot would work without some kinf of identifier

[Gene_Ginny]

gerrym51 wrote:
straighttalk says if not used for over 6 mos will lose phone number
it's in the fine print

Since it is a data hotspot I don't think keeping the phone number is an issue. For some strange reason they do assign a phone number to the data hotspots.

[mikeleblanc413]

To follow up on a previous post as to speed; for what I do, email, Facebook, searching for local info, I found NO problem with the speed. In fact, it worked as good as the Millenicom hotspot I used before they went belly up.

[gerrym51]

straighttalk says if not used for over 6 mos will lose phone number
it's in the fine print

[Gene_Ginny]

Yes you can leave it inactive and load only when you want to use it. The last time I used mine was last fall. It just sits in the account as inactive. Before a trip I will add a $15/1 gig/30 day card and then try to use up all that data. 🙂

[bgum]

Can the hotspot be inactive for several months between uses? Can we then purchase and load minutes then?