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[Real Knots]

I didn't see a place that directly relates to this issue so please excuse me if I am in the wrong place.

 

I have a problem that I have found solutions to but I'm not sure if they are reliable or simply worth it to use.

 

In short-I'm a teen still living at my parents house and our internet is simply terrible and my Dad refuses to even look into the issue a little bit.

 

In longer words more explained, our ISP is Spectrum and we have the 100mbps plan which is fine for everyone except me.  That reason is because I play a lot of video games like Warzone and Fortnite.  Every now and then, I get the average 20-30ms ping, but way more times than not, its all the way up in the 200-450 range which is obviously unacceptable for playing online games.

 

I've thought of getting my own 4G LTE/5G internet service, but that seems way to expensive for the money that I'm making at the moment.  I've also thought about buying some sort of modem/router that I can use with my phone plan that I am already paying for but I don't have unlimited hotspot as I do with my regular data.  I'm more leaning towards this option as I don't need to pay more per month and my latency on my cellular is usually around 40-60 which is up to my personal standards.  However, I don't know if, 1. a router like this will support my SIM card, and 2. if using this method will consume my hotspot data or my regular data.

 

I've attached an image of my latency to google.com which was tested at the time of writing this if anyone wants to know.

 

If anyone knows anything about this or has any other methods that are reasonably priced that I haven't thought of, I appreciate your responses, Thanks!

[Levent]

Most obvious question here is, how are you connected to your router and/or modem?

[Real Knots]

I'm Connected via WiFi, however, I do tracert in the command line to see that i can an average of 0-1/2ms to the router and from there it takes 200-300ms to get to the ISP.

 

Im also not in a location where I can use ethernet/LAN as my dad wil also not allow it for whatever reason

[komar]

11 minutes ago, Real Knots said:

1. a router like this will support my SIM card, and 2. if using this method will consume my hotspot data or my regular data.

1. There are usb dongles that act like "routers" and connet you via a SIM card to the network but ofc for that to work you will need 1 of those, unlocked for your ISP settings and you will need to remove your SIM card from the phone pretty much everytime you want to use it. Doubt that is very practical and they wont let you duplicate the card to have 2 working ones.

 

2. Ofc that using your SIM card will consume your "regular data". Doesnt matter how you use it to conenct to the internet -  all traffic will count towards your monthly allowed amount.

 

Your options here are either contact the ISP bypassing your parents and trying to get them to figure out the problem but thats low chance of getting you anywhere.

Second option: calculate how much mobile data your game needs - if it's doable then just use hotspot from your phone all the time when you want to game. My fav game can easily work for a whole month on just 2 GBs of traffic.

 

I personally never had wired connection at my dorm and always used the unlimited (for the first 2 years) mobile plan that I had.  Sometimes I would push 200-300GBs a month through my Huawei P10 without any issues in online games. 

Think about the unlimited plan you can get and try other operators too - maybe some have better deals.

[Real Knots]

15 minutes ago, komar said:

1. There are usb dongles that act like "routers" and connet you via a SIM card to the network but ofc for that to work you will need 1 of those, unlocked for your ISP settings and you will need to remove your SIM card from the phone pretty much everytime you want to use it. Doubt that is very practical and they wont let you duplicate the card to have 2 working ones.

 

2. Ofc that using your SIM card will consume your "regular data". Doesnt matter how you use it to conenct to the internet -  all traffic will count towards your monthly allowed amount.

 

Your options here are either contact the ISP bypassing your parents and trying to get them to figure out the problem but thats low chance of getting you anywhere.

Second option: calculate how much mobile data your game needs - if it's doable then just use hotspot from your phone all the time when you want to game. My fav game can easily work for a whole month on just 2 GBs of traffic.

 

I personally never had wired connection at my dorm and always used the unlimited (for the first 2 years) mobile plan that I had.  Sometimes I would push 200-300GBs a month through my Huawei P10 without any issues in online games. 

Think about the unlimited plan you can get and try other operators too - maybe some have better deals.

When you said, "Sometimes I would push 200-300GBs a month through my Huawei P10 without any issues in online games." that got me wondering how you did that, do you have an unlimited hotspot?  I only have 5GB and I somehow used it all up already for this month, still got 20 days left or something.  Btw, I have Mint Mobile as my carrier because of the low price and good connection.

 

Edit: I forgot to mention that I found pcie expansion card on amazon that you can plug in some cellular modual and a sim card to, but I'm kinda skeptical of it and there are so many mini pcie keyings involved that I don't know what goes with what

Edited April 20, 2021 by Real Knots

[komar]

6 minutes ago, Real Knots said:

do you have an unlimited hotspot

I had unlimited 4G mobile data at max speed in my contract.

 

8 minutes ago, Real Knots said:

Edit: I forgot to mention that I found pcie expansion card on amazon that you can plug in some cellular modual and a sim card to, but I'm kinda skeptical of it and there are so many mini pcie keyings involved that I don't know what goes with what

Even with this, you still need to sign a contact with a ISP for a service - that PCIe card aint magical you know. There is no "free" way to connect to the internet.

[Real Knots]

9 minutes ago, komar said:

I had unlimited 4G mobile data at max speed in my contract.

 

Even with this, you still need to sign a contact with a ISP for a service - that PCIe card aint magical you know. There is no "free" way to connect to the internet.

Well yes you do need to pay for it obviously, but I though i could just use the SIM thats in my phone

[komar]

1 minute ago, Real Knots said:

Well yes you do need to pay for it obviously, but I though i could just use the SIM thats in my phone

that card will still have those same 5GB a month - once you use them it's done. then what?

[Kilrah]

Yes you can, but you're going to run out of those 5GB quick.

[Real Knots]

Just now, komar said:

that card will still have those same 5GB a month - once you use them it's done. then what?

But when i use it as cellular data in my pc, wont it just pull directly from my data?

[Real Knots]

Just now, Kilrah said:

Usually you can. Sometimes "unlimited" is BS and comes with stupid fine print though, such as "no PC use" that they can't really prove but if they see you use more data than would be reasonably possible only with a phone they might throttle/cut you. 

I think i had that problem with my first and second month, I was only ever on my data and watching youtube all the time and ended up consuming 37gb or something stupid and then the next month i was drastically throttled the entire month to down to like 0.2mbps max

[komar]

4 minutes ago, Real Knots said:

But when i use it as cellular data in my pc, wont it just pull directly from my data?

exactly, and say while gaming your computer decided to update something - those 5GB will be gone in minutes. What do you do for the rest of the month?

[Real Knots]

Just now, komar said:

exactly, and say while gaming your computer decided to update something - those 5GB will be gone in minutes. What do you do for the rest of the month?

I think Im confused.  It sounds like you are saying that it will use my data but when it updates anything, it will use my hotspot.  That doesnt sound right at all.  Or maybe you're thinking i have 5gb or data, but I have an unlimited plan that comes with 5gb of hotspot data

[Kilrah]

3 minutes ago, Real Knots said:

I have an unlimited plan that comes with 5gb of hotspot data

That's weird, you should link to the exact plan you have to clarify.

[Real Knots]

Just now, Kilrah said:

That's weird, you should link to the exact plan you have to clarify.

I have Mint Mobiles Unlimited plan, currently in switch from the 3 month payment to 12 moth payment, if that matters at all.

If you're wondering why Mint, its because I'm a teen not making much and i needed a cheap plan.

[komar]

 

Okay, there was indeed confusion because in my country, my ISPs dont have "Mobile Hotspot data" clause.

I'm guessing this above is you plan right?

First of all: yes, your data is unlimited BUT "data speeds reduce after 35GB" - data unlimited but they throttle down your speeds. Technically you are limited at those 35GB because besides texting what else can you do with low speed?

This plan is a scam and a half to call it "unlimited".

 

[Real Knots]

2 minutes ago, komar said:

 

Okay, there was indeed confusion because in my country, my ISPs dont have "Mobile Hotspot data" clause.

I'm guessing this above is you plan right?

First of all: yes, your data is unlimited BUT "data speeds reduce after 35GB" - data unlimited but they throttle down your speeds. Technically you are limited at those 35GB because besides texting what else can you do with low speed?

This plan is a scam and a half to call it "unlimited".

 

Yes that is my plan,

That is true but its what i needed, and before i purchased the plan i did see that it was cut to 35, but what game uses 35gb in a month?(excluding all extra downloads)

[Kilrah]

Never seen that separate "hotspot" thing either.

 

It's possible if you put the SIM in a USB/PCIe modem they will count that as hotspot, but pretty much impossible to know since it's unclear how they'd distinguish both.

[Real Knots]

1 minute ago, Kilrah said:

Never seen that separate "hotspot" thing either.

 

It's possible if you put the SIM in a USB/PCIe modem they will count that as hotspot, but pretty much impossible to know since it's unclear how they'd distinguish both.

I think its possible, but im not entirely sure.  I did i quick google search and i found some page saying this,

 

"When you get your Mint Mobile SIM card, you will need to activate it. ... You can set up an emergency Google Voice number and use it on a phone or even a computer with a Wi-Fi connection, and this makes a great backup if you need one."

 

But im not sure if they they mean you can use Google Voice on a computer with the sim card or if data too

[Real Knots]

4 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Never seen that separate "hotspot" thing either.

 

It's possible if you put the SIM in a USB/PCIe modem they will count that as hotspot, but pretty much impossible to know since it's unclear how they'd distinguish both.

Also if you dont know, a hotspot is basically tethering your cellular connection from your phone to another device, but on my plan at least, its comes with its onw separate 5GBs of data

[Kilrah]

Yeah we know what that is, but here there is no distinction. You've got X amount of data, and whether you use it from the phone itself or through hotspot doesn't matter.

[Real Knots]

1 minute ago, Kilrah said:

Yeah we know what that is, but here there is no distinction. You've got X amount of data, and whether you use it from the phone itself or through hotspot doesn't matter.

thats nice. i wish it was the same for me

[komar]

33 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Yeah we know what that is, but here there is no distinction. You've got X amount of data, and whether you use it from the phone itself or through hotspot doesn't matter.

Curious how they detect it - unless they track the MAC address of the devices entering with the same public IP.......

 

Also isn't it funny:

Limited amount of total traffic;

Limited amount of traffic for certain things;

Limited speeds after X amount of usage;

they still call it "UNLIMITED".

 

Guess next thing will be limit to how many people can use them 5GB of hotspot internet.......  xD

[Kilrah]

I think modern phones have a way to tell the carrier when the hotspot is enabled. 

Carriers also see what device model a SIM is in, so if it's a USB / PCIe adapter they can know, whether they look at that or not is anyone's guess.

 

1 hour ago, komar said:

they still call it "UNLIMITED".

Yeah, but well... all providers do that everywhere I've been, so not surprising.  

[Real Knots]

2 hours ago, Kilrah said:

I think modern phones have a way to tell the carrier when the hotspot is enabled. 

Carriers also see what device model a SIM is in, so if it's a USB / PCIe adapter they can know, whether they look at that or not is anyone's guess.

 

Yeah, but well... all providers do that everywhere I've been, so not surprising.  

Well, if you think about it, mint mobiles unlimited plan is truly unlimited and all the other plans are not at all.  Now if we are talking speed wise, no its is completely 100% limited, but it is still semi usable if you are used to slow internet 24/7, like i am