ajGoes

A change in circumstances means I have to find the best available data-only plan for a fixed installation at my home in Ohio. My current carrier is Verizon, and I get decent LTE performance from them. According to Sprint's coverage map, I'm in a 4G LTE but not 4g LTE Plus area for them (if I'm reading the colors right. Could they have picked a less-clear set of colors for the map?).

AT&T and T-Mobile show us in a 4G LTE area.

I need wireless data because cable is unavailable here and our two 3-Mbps DSL lines (the maximum available) will no longer suffice.

I plan to plug a wireless data device into my load-balancing router.

I have a budget of $100/month for this, possibly a little more.

Thanks for any advice.

paperwastage

how much data do you need (>20GB)?
would you rather have unlimited data with no overages(throttled to eg 8mbps), or full speed?

are you looking for a specific target price (eg $5/GB?)

Reselling on Verizon wireless
http://www.viaero.com/shop/plans/hom...phone-internet throttled data for $70 up to 200GB 8mbps

http://millenicom.com/plans/ (technically verizon bought millenicom), 20GB for $60-$90

do you know if T-mobile works for you? You can get 18GB of tethering for $60 ($3/gb), can get more data

another alternative is buying (expensive) grandfathered unlimited postpaid verizon hotspots from ebay/someone else. something like $100-$500 for initial purchase, $100-$200/month for truly unlimited tethering

ajGoes

I want the most data I can get for my budget of $100/month. I don't think I'd use throttled wireless -- I'll configure my router to quit using the wireless data when it hits its monthly limit, falling back to the two shared 3 Mbps DSL lines if that happens. 8 Mbps would suffice -- in fact, that's what Speedtest currently shows my receiving from Verizon, though it was a lot better the last time I checked.

Sorry I left T-Mobile out of my OP. Their coverage map shows 4G LTE for my address. I'll edit my post.

I gave up my grandfathered unlimited Verizon plan just a few months ago when I realized we never used more than a few GB per month. I'll think about the idea of buying someone else's hotspot, but I wonder how long the carrier would honor the contract. I was uneasy about Verizon because they were notorious in the early days of wireless data for their unwritten 5GB limit on "unlimited" data.

Thanks for the tips!

paperwastage

well, you're paying $100-$500 initial, and a monthly fee... if hotspot stops working, you stop paying that monthly fee and return the hotspot to the original owner

also, (only) Verizon has to follow this FCC rule
http://9to5mac.com/2014/07/30/fcc-th...tle-customers/
http://arstechnica.com/business/2014...ttle-4g-users/
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/27.16
but who knows what happens? verizon can definitely kill the unlimited plans without issues, just can't throttle them



are you using your router to load-balance across two DSL connections? 3mbps+3mbps ->8mbps isn't that much different, unless you need 100% throughput frequently (eg uploading/downloading large files, can't load balance across multiple connections)


at $3-$10/GB "wholesale" rates, $100 will give you 10-33GB ... you could also get tmobile unlimited phone ($95/month or less if you have multiple lines), officialyl have 13GB of tethering data

IsleOfMan

Through Cricket Wireless you could get unlimited data (and calls/text but irrelivant) plus the tethering add-on for a total of $80/month. It would drop to $75/month with the auto-pay credit. Cricket is owned by and runs on the AT&T network. It's capped to 8mbps for LTE (4mbps for HSPA) and those are exactly the speeds I see.

How many mobile lines do you have? Their multi-line discount adds up to significant savings pretty quickly. In your case, the home data plan plus two 2.5gb/month mobile plans would total $130/month. Home + 3 mobile lines would total $140/month.

pseudoswede

Have you looked into microwave internet?

http://www.comwavz.com/bus_main.php

IsleOfMan

HughsNet Satellite internet also comes to mind...

http://www.hughesnet.com/plans-and-pricing

gfunkdave

It's not clear from you post, but are your DSL lines bonded or separate? If the latter, you can potentially get your phone company to provide bonded DSL, where they logically fuse the two DSL lines together to give you one 6Mbps connection, or three lines for 9Mbps, etc.

Also check broadbandnow.com to see if there might be a wireless option in your area.

ajGoes

I hadn't heard of it till now, but according to its FAQs, this service is not broadband. It offers "...average speeds that are between 384 and 768 Kbps".

ajGoes

Our DSL lines are separate. The router supports bonding, which I might want to look into again, but given that we already saturate the two 3 Mbps lines pretty regularly, I don't see this as a solution. I hadn't considered this, but we could add a couple more lines, buy the add-on license to make our router support bonding, and buy a second device to host somewhere, maybe at my office. Pricey to set up -- the licenses alone run $1800 -- but that might be a workable solution.

I like the broadbandnow.com site but in this case, it isn't telling me anything new: I've got the usual suspect wireless carriers plus HughesNet and Dish satellite. I've ruled out satellite in the past for latency and low bandwidth, but maybe it's worth another look.

Thanks again.

IsleOfMan

I'm not an IT expert, but is there a way to segregate UPLOAD to DSL and DOWNLOAD to Dish? If so, this might mitigate some of the latency issues?

Kagehitokiri

high speed satellite (satphone) may be coming, but very expensive

as mentioned, the 'resellers' are cheaper than networks themselves
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...work_operators

pseudoswede

Sorry. I didn't see that in the FAQ. A co-worker uses similar technology (in a rural area just a few miles east of me where he only qualifies for 1.5Mb DSL), and he gets a few Mbps bandwidth up and down with a 200GB monthly cap.