Cellular hotspots

Vanity | 12-4-2009 | Huskrrrr

[Huskrrrr]

I have a cellphone with 4G capability. I also have the unlimited data plan. I use my tablet to hook in ot my TV, using AT&T direct. I dropped X-finity a long time ago but still use Comcast cable. Adding a hot spot to my Verizon plan would cost an extra $10 per month. The hotspot would allow 30G of data per month to my tablet, when connecting to my cellphone. Any Freepers try this?

[Huskrrrr]

Question. Can I get rid of cable?

[kingu]

The things to know about hotspots... Most are speed limited if they’ve got nearly unlimited data. There are ways around it (I’ve got one of the unlimited hotspots for my car from AT&T for $20 a month, which is unlimited speed and data...) but usually it’s not fast enough to stream more than a 480p image. Good enough for watching on a tablet, not the best on a TV.

It sounds like you’re using the video out on the tablet to hook up to your TV, a smart move. That sidesteps the bandwidth limiting.

[Buckeye McFrog]

I am curious about this as well. I have a cabin in a rural part of central Pennsylvania. It is only used seasonally during the Summer and Fall. You used to be able to get 3 TV channels there back in the analog days, but now that they’ve gone digital nada. I do have strong cell signal there and the place isn’t used enough to justify paying for cable. Was thinking of hotspot to stream to the TV in there.

[Pearls Before Swine]

IMHO, no.

You’d hit the data cap in an hour or two, depending on what you were watching.

Full-Def MPEG-2 takes 20 MBPS, according to Wikipedia.

Let’s assume you’re taking 5 to 10 MBPS for your good quality HDMI.

You have 30 GBits/month.

So, how many seconds can you watch with 30 GBits?

If I divide 30*10^9 by 10^7, I get 3000 seconds, which is 5/6 of an hour, or 50 minutes.

You might get several times that if compression is used in the datastream, or if you’re not using full HDMI or full color depth. It depends.

But, you would almost certainly hit the data cap. After that, you’d probably get throttled instead of billed. But, with throttling, you can browse, but can’t really watch good quality video.

[bk1000]

I just switched to Sprint. Their unlimited data plan comes with subscriptions to Hulu and Tidal. Plenty to watch and listen to, but no live sports events. Many of those, particularly major events, can be seen on TV for free with the use of an antenna.

[bk1000]

Also, you can burn through that 30G pretty quick streaming hi-def movies and hi-res FLAC audio.

[rlmorel]

I do it on occasion when I want to provide support or browse the Internet with my laptop instead of a phone or tablet. It works okay for me.

[Tell It Right]

"You used to be able to get 3 TV channels there back in the analog days, but now that they’ve gone digital nada."

Assuming you still like the 3 TV channels you can probably get a digital antenna to pick up the digital broadcast from the same channels.

I live in an area that has great wired internet but is rural enough to have a so-so cell signal (even with Verizon). If I didn't have the strong wired internet signal I could probably watch streaming from hotspot'ing through my phone to my Roku, but only with a little bit of caching. For instance, the Sling TV app on my Roku doesn't cache well for hiccups in the internet service. But the Netflix and Hulu apps do and would probably handle the so-so internet service I get through my phone (if I turned my phone to hotspot and set my Roku do get internet from my phone).

That's assuming how well my laptop picks up the hotspot from my phone when I use my laptop in my nearby church for leading small groups (I'm big on security so I don't use the church's public wi-fi, using my phone's hotspot instead).

[eyeamok]

calyxinstitute.org

$500 per year gets you a Sprint Hotspot with True Unlimited and Un-throttled 30-50mbs, enough to stream to 2 tv’s. I have had mine for 2 years running 300-500 GB per month and is great, we don’t have internet or cable in my neighborhood

[mmichaels1970]

Question. Can I get rid of cable?

Not on a 30gb plan.

Verizon has great coverage and the hotspot works well when traveling when my goofball T-Mobile family members can't get a data signal.

Unless you watch less than a couple hours of tv per month, you're going to hit that 30gb quick.

Also a lot of providers throttle down at some point when the limit is reached or close to it.

[jonose]

If you can get digital tv over the air, a great way to share and DVR is with a HDHomeRun. Works great with Roku app and really great with Plex.

[mmichaels1970]

I am curious about this as well. I have a cabin in a rural part of central Pennsylvania. It is only used seasonally during the Summer and Fall. You used to be able to get 3 TV channels there back in the analog days, but now that they’ve gone digital nada.

That MIGHT be worth a try. In that you are currently getting NOTHING. So anything you CAN get would be an improvement.

Not sure how strong your data signal would be out at the cabin. But you might be perfectly ok with the occasional freezing/buffering or running out of data if you are starting out with nothing in the first place.

[Wuli]

“I have a cellphone with 4G capability. I also have the unlimited data plan”

and I stress the “unlimited data plan”

So you need a local “hot spot” because????

Or do you just want to open aother security issue??

[mmichaels1970]

Their unlimited data plan comes with subscriptions to Hulu and Tidal. Plenty to watch and listen to, but no live sports events.

I'd assume if you were willing to pay the difference, you could upgrade your Hulu plan to Hulu Live to get your live sports and local channels.

Never had good luck with Sprint. But that was years ago.

Our family T-Mobile plan comes with a free Netflix basic plan. If I want, I can add a couple bucks to my bill and get an upgraded plan.

[Hootowl99]

You’ll go broke with that 30GB cap. If you’re throttled, video streaming and probably general browsing will be nonfunctional as well. Email will work though. You probably need a no cap plan that will be quite a bit more expensive but would likely have the hotspot bundled in.

[FreedomPoster]

Have you played around with https://www.antennaweb.org/ ?

Good info on getting a digital TV signal at a given location. You might be able to get those local OTA stations after all.

[\/\/ayne]

Check out Foxfi / PDAnet

[ConservativeMind]

Sir, look into the Marathon antenna on Amazon. It’s great for pulling in distant digital stations.

We are 55 miles from the closest antennas and get them clearly in full definition with the antenna properly directed and set in place.

[Vermont Lt]

I used to use the hot spot when I worked as a photographer to send low res web sized images to editors.

I am not sure how long 30 GB would last streaming TV video.