Wifi hotspot

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NY_Dutch said:
I should mention we also have a Maximum Signal Max Amp RV cell amplifier/repeater that has given us usable signals even in locations where the carrier coverage maps show no service. The Max Amp repeats the roof antenna cell signal on an inside antenna that covers the entire interior of our coach.

I see the thread has not been posted in a while. I have same maximum signal set up as Dutch and I have the exterior antenna mounted on chunk of telescopic mast so I can raise it about 9ft above our roof when parked. Makes a big difference with marginal cell signals. I just received a net buddy sim card today I am testing out with an old netgear att excite express hotspot. For true unlimited and unthrottled data for $60/month I am willing to give it a shot. I'll do some updates later this week but my first test of speeds in my RV parked in my driveway and my cell antenna not extended I was getting consistent 9mbps download speeds. The ATT Tower is a distance away so I'm pretty pleased with that speed at  6pm tonight. .
 
Believe it or not there are certain devices sold by Verizon for business use that can guarantee a 30m dowload...I use this on my design where centurylink wireline access is shoddy..its not the "mifi" hopefully when 5 g comes out which is millimeter wave and applied to mobile all this talk will be moot.
5g will be delivered to home first then mobile.
 
pz said:
We use our phone hot spots (via AT&T) whenever we travel since public wireless is so susceptible to hacking (one trick hackers are using these days is to pretend to be a free WIFI hot spot and when you connect, they are monitoring every packet you send/receive, including password information).


As an added benefit to anyone using both AT&T and DirectTV is that AT&T will allow you to stream all your DirectTV content unlimited, and without impact to your data usage. When on the road, we'll use Chromecast to stream our DirectTV programming to our rig's TV from the phone without having to worry about our data plan.
It called being onnet like " Tmobile" and Netflix..or Verizon and webex..all carriers use to charge for "onnet" service but with competition now they are free.
 
Not quite.DirecTV and DirecHDTV are in fact now AT&T so you are not "onnet" you are "In house" when yo ustream DTV via an AT&T device. this is also a political hot potato so I won't comment in that area.

T-Mobile has an arrangement with at least one Streaming provider, as does Verizon.  But with T and V it's an arrangement with the provider. not a monopoly type ownership.
 
My first test using net buddy sim in a netgear excite express. I wasn't pleased with either the reception capability or wifi transmission range of the unit. I then got the netgear united pro and that made all the difference. MY download speeds were consistent 8-10mbps thru out my Class C and 15ft outside.  The 8-10mbps was great as our ATT cell signal is pretty marginal and my Maximum Signal Cell booster increased my bandwidth almost 100%. Now I gotta get net buddy to allow me to "suspend" my account until February when we take off to Florida for 3 months.  The only downside the RV park we stay at is wifi, their in park service sucks and is badly throttled and you have to pay extra on top. Last season I upgraded our ATT cell package to unlimited but that ran over $100 more a month and they throttle the speed.  With net buddy I see our solution.
 
I'm thinking of grabbing a cheap used AT&T 4G capable tablet on eBay and using AT&T's DataConnect Pass at $30/mo unlimited with the usual "managed" limit after 22GB. I believe that's the same plan NetBuddy is marking up to $60 for resale. That plan is supposed to be for tablets only, but the SIM does work in other devices as well. No idea for how long though. If AT&T's system sees tablets as in the hotspot class, then it should be ok for a long time.

https://buyasession.att.com/sbd/Common/ShopRatePlans.action
 
NY_Dutch said:
I'm thinking of grabbing a cheap used AT&T 4G capable tablet on eBay and using AT&T's DataConnect Pass at $30/mo unlimited with the usual "managed" limit after 22GB. I believe that's the same plan NetBuddy is marking up to $60 for resale. That plan is supposed to be for tablets only, but the SIM does work in other devices as well. No idea for how long though. If AT&T's system sees tablets as in the hotspot class, then it should be ok for a long time.

https://buyasession.att.com/sbd/Common/ShopRatePlans.action

big difference is netbuddy has no cap. In my 3 days  of testing I have shot thru 36GB of data as I have it hooked up to my entertainment centers in the house via Roku and running youtube videos almost nonstop.  The netbuddy sim also works in 4g tablets as I have checked that too with LG tablet, only issue with stock software/rom in the tablet I can't use the actual hotspot function as its an ATT badge tablet and ATT does an account check for hotspot use.  Thats another issue I may address.
 
decaturbob said:
big difference is netbuddy has no cap. In my 3 days  of testing I have shot thru 36GB of data as I have it hooked up to my entertainment centers in the house via Roku and running youtube videos almost nonstop.  The netbuddy sim also works in 4g tablets as I have checked that too with LG tablet, only issue with stock software/rom in the tablet I can't use the actual hotspot function as its an ATT badge tablet and ATT does an account check for hotspot use.  Thats another issue I may address.

You do know that AT&T's "management" after 22GB only amounts to brief slow downs on congested towers, right? I have the same "limit" on my Connected Car Plan and have never noticed any slow downs that were any different than the normal slowdowns we typically see on any busy tower. I really don't know which slowdowns were due to managing and which were normal, since the same thing happens even before hitting the 22GB limit.
 
Dutch,

ATT management doesn;t control net buddy's access and why I can have unlimited, unthrottle data only.  The only slow down would be from cell tower congestion that would happen to all cells accessing that tower
 
Willandgiselarv said:
Believe it or not there are certain devices sold by Verizon for business use that can guarantee a 30m dowload...I use this on my design where centurylink wireline access is shoddy..its not the "mifi" hopefully when 5 g comes out which is millimeter wave and applied to mobile all this talk will be moot.
5g will be delivered to home first then mobile.


4G LTE is good for 150 mbps down and 50 mbps up with the right modem.

The OP might like to checkout the AT&T mobley and $20 per month plan if still available.

I replaced my mobley device with a netgear lb1120, average down is 40 to 60 mbps and upload is around 30 mbps
huge improvement in performance. before switching I contacted at&t to see if changing device would be a problem and they said it was ok as the device is a data modem and not a phone.. if i put the sim into a phone they would suspend my account.. !

 
Bob. While I do not know how NetBuddy or AT&T do it I do know they use the same technology T-Mobile uses.

Your phone or device is assigned a "priority"  IF the tower is not congested. it's full steam ahead no matter how much data I use.

But if the tower is congested.. and I hit my "Limit" of 100 Gig.. I slow down BEFORE those who have yet to hit the limit... Only happened to me once so far.
 
John From Detroit said:
Bob. While I do not know how NetBuddy or AT&T do it I do know they use the same technology T-Mobile uses.

Your phone or device is assigned a "priority"  IF the tower is not congested. it's full steam ahead no matter how much data I use.

But if the tower is congested.. and I hit my "Limit" of 100 Gig.. I slow down BEFORE those who have yet to hit the limit... Only happened to me once so far.

That's what I thought, too.  So I bought two Mobleys for redundancy, activating both of them to get them grandfathered in at the $20 a month rate,  since I suspected AT&T would only offer it for a limited time.  The idea was to use one as the primary unit each month, leaving the other in reserve with low data usage in case the primary unit got throttled.

A couple of times I've noticed slower than normal speeds on the primary Mobley and switched to the backup.  It made no difference in the speed, suggesting that a congested tower is a congested tower for everyone.

When the congestion eased later in the day, both units returned to normal speeds.

As such, my usage plan changed.  I have a WiFi tablet that I use both in the car and in the RV and I planned to move the Mobley back and forth with it.  Instead, I keep one Mobley in the car, the other lives fulltime in the RV.
 
decaturbob said:
Dutch,

ATT management doesn;t control net buddy's access and why I can have unlimited, unthrottle data only.  The only slow down would be from cell tower congestion that would happen to all cells accessing that tower

And that congested tower slow down is all we see as well, Bob. Or at least we can't tell the difference between the  normal slowdowns and slowdowns "management" might be applying. Here's a link to a related thread on Reddit about Netbuddy, although I have no way of verifying the "benaiah" posts. I really do hope Netbuddy works well for you over the long term, but their site domain being registered from Columbia is not encouraging.

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/8x486n/any_experience_with_netbuddy/
 
NY_Dutch said:
And that congested tower slow down is all we see as well, Bob. Or at least we can't tell the difference between the  normal slowdowns and slowdowns "management" might be applying. Here's a link to a related thread on Reddit about Netbuddy, although I have no way of verifying the "benaiah" posts. I really do hope Netbuddy works well for you over the long term, but their site domain being registered from Columbia is not encouraging.

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoContract/comments/8x486n/any_experience_with_netbuddy/

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/courtney-boyd-myers/a-new-domain-extension-co_b_655851.html

.co domain doesn;t mean columbia
 
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