Using mobile data as an alternative to broadband.

[Supportsneedlove]

I've been looking at an apartment, unfortunately the broadband is very expensive.

Would it be possible to use a cellphone plan, with wifi hotspot, as an alternative to cable broadband.

What is the difference between the cell plan idea, and something like a mobile wifi subscription.

 

Cheers!

[Tom_nerd]

you could buy a unlimited data plan but sometimes they still do have some data caps, so or general low use web browsing but for things like HD video streaming it would not be great.

[Supportsneedlove]

3 minutes ago, Tom_nerd said:

you could buy a unlimited data plan but sometimes they still do have some data caps, so or general low use web browsing but for things like HD video streaming it would not be great.

I've been looking at 2 mobile plans, one with 500 gb at around 20 euro, and one with 1000 gb at around 35. 

So i doubt the datacap itself will be much of an issue, but again, I haven't tested it.

I also live alone, so the data would be spent entirely by me.

[Pixel5]

the question is what you plan on doing with the connection.

While i know that Denmark has excellent coverage of 4G almost everywhere the latency is still a bit problem if you want to play any competitive games.

i recently had issues with my internet and switched over to my phone as a hotspot, connection speed was fine but the ping was spiking over 100ms all the time making playing any competitive game completely impossible.

[Supportsneedlove]

4 minutes ago, Pixel5 said:

the question is what you plan on doing with the connection.

While i know that Denmark has excellent coverage of 4G almost everywhere the latency is still a bit problem if you want to play any competitive games.

i recently had issues with my internet and switched over to my phone as a hotspot, connection speed was fine but the ping was spiking over 100ms all the time making playing any competitive game completely impossible.

Didn't even think of that, thanks! 

[Nine Tailed Fox]

Would probably have latency issues if you game at all

[Kappie]

We tried this when we moved to a new house, waiting for a fiber installation. - Gamers as we are, the stability was horrible. - Didn't watch too much video though, as the monthly cap was at only 50gb

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Networking

***

 

I'm currently working in another town, some 1.5h away from my main PC. I'm using 4G mobile hotspot as writing this. In 2 weeks I've used 55Gb of data. This is mainly Youtube, forums and some mobile gaming on my tablet. My laptop isn't really gonna go for any online games, but I've used almost this same connection to stream 720p30 at 3000kbps.

 

I'm personally bit iffy using 4G for online gaming. Haven't tested it, but in normal use there's always higher change that it will drop one notch down to HSPA+ or even to 3G.

 

Have campaign deal on the hotspot and my main phone plan as they are same plan. €27/mo total.

[WereCatf]

Mobile broadband can work great, but it all depends on where you live. Finland is great for that stuff, like e.g. my hubby and I always use mobile broadband when we travel to visit relatives something around 500km away. We actually just came back from there and we had about 19ms ping, ~50Mbps down, ~33Mbps up, with Steam Remote Play, Geforce Now etc. being serviceable. Datacaps aren't really a thing here, our telcos instead tend to limit max. bandwidth, including my husband's and mine plans: unlimited data, max. 100/100 bandwidth, so it's pretty worry-free no matter where we go.

 

This is all to say: move to Finland, you'll be much happier

[Supportsneedlove]

17 hours ago, LogicalDrm said:

-> Moved to Networking

***

 

I'm currently working in another town, some 1.5h away from my main PC. I'm using 4G mobile hotspot as writing this. In 2 weeks I've used 55Gb of data. This is mainly Youtube, forums and some mobile gaming on my tablet. My laptop isn't really gonna go for any online games, but I've used almost this same connection to stream 720p30 at 3000kbps.

 

I'm personally bit iffy using 4G for online gaming. Haven't tested it, but in normal use there's always higher change that it will drop one notch down to HSPA+ or even to 3G.

 

Have campaign deal on the hotspot and my main phone plan as they are same plan. €27/mo total.

Are you refering to a mobile data plan, that you'd use for a router? I'm thinking of using my phone for the hotspot, as getting a mobile wifi subscription (for a router), would cost more than cable.  

17 hours ago, WereCatf said:

Mobile broadband can work great, but it all depends on where you live. Finland is great for that stuff, like e.g. my hubby and I always use mobile broadband when we travel to visit relatives something around 500km away. We actually just came back from there and we had about 19ms ping, ~50Mbps down, ~33Mbps up, with Steam Remote Play, Geforce Now etc. being serviceable. Datacaps aren't really a thing here, our telcos instead tend to limit max. bandwidth, including my husband's and mine plans: unlimited data, max. 100/100 bandwidth, so it's pretty worry-free no matter where we go.

 

This is all to say: move to Finland, you'll be much happier

Those speeds are pretty incredible. Are these speeds in larger cities, on the road or in more rual areas? 

On a sidenote, I'd rather never have wifi again, than attempt to learn Finnish.

[akio123008]

Using mobile data is actually a great plan!

4G is quite fast, faster than most VDSL lines can do and in many cases faster than cable too. Latency can be an issue, but if you're not a competitive gamer you're not going to notice that. 

1 hour ago, Supportsneedlove said:

Are you refering to a mobile data plan, that you'd use for a router? I'm thinking of using my phone for the hotspot, as getting a mobile wifi subscription (for a router), would cost more than cable.  

Eeh that's not the way; there are devices you can get that you can stick a sim-card into (look for something like "4G modem" online) so that the setup would be very similar to a land line setup, except the modem has a sim card and uses 4G instead of connecting to a land line.

 

Then you can plug that box into a proper switch, which you can then wire your computers and devices up to, including a proper wireless access point.

 

 

[WereCatf]

1 hour ago, Supportsneedlove said:

Those speeds are pretty incredible. Are these speeds in larger cities, on the road or in more rual areas?

On an island, rather far away from any tower and in the middle of the woods.

[LogicalDrm]

2 hours ago, Supportsneedlove said:

Are you refering to a mobile data plan, that you'd use for a router? I'm thinking of using my phone for the hotspot, as getting a mobile wifi subscription (for a router), would cost more than cable. 

There's no difference. There are only two kinds of data plans. Mobile and broadband. Mobile has either 4G standard or deluxe, and same with 5G. And this is same for all 3 major operators.

 

I'm using my old Galaxy S5 as hotspot, so that might contribute to any drops of speed too.