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What is the best cellular solution for use as home internet?

Everyone has cut the cord when it comes to cable TV and home phone service, but it seems no one is yet jumping to do the same when it comes to home internet.

I'm guessing this is mostly due to price? Perhaps speed (throttling / data limits)?

My household uses would be:
  • streaming TV and movies (via Apple TV)
  • regular internet use (the modern internet is picture heavy)
  • occasional work use (may include file transfers of 10s-of-MB)
  • streaming music (pandora, spotify)
  • online gaming (via PS4)

All of this stuff is what people do on their phones and tablets over cellular already, so why not use cell networks for devices with larger screens?

I am considering this because the wired internet to my building is unreliable and just want to know what my other options are.

Can you still even get unlimited data plans for cellular? Trust me, if you ended up with even a 50GB cellular plan, you'd chew through that pretty quickly. My wife and I are on the computer a lot, but rarely doing anything really data intensive. She streams netflix for a couple of hours each night, but i think in low res. And our average monthly usage is around 250-300GB. Sounds like you are a heavier user of data.

That's actually not true. Cable Internet has around a 30GB monthly data cap and DSL Internet has about a 20GB Data Cap.

Say what now? 30GB is just a few days of normal usage around here, and we don't do online gaming, don't stream hi-def shows/movies, and don't stream music.

Comcast's cap is 300GB.

Reading this thread, I was curious what the average person uses for data at home. I have Time Warner Cable, and looked at my usage stats which I never even thought of looking at until now. In one month I used just north of 230GB. My usage includes web browsing, downloads (music, movies), Netflix, and streaming music. I doubt you could do that with a cellular chip for home use.

Our typical data usage since we dropped cable and have just internet is between 250-300GB per month.

We both do a lot of typical internet browsing.
She has a few iPhone games she plays, but I'm not even sure they are data games.
She streams low-def Netflix for about two hours each night when she goes to bed.
I mostly surf forums and work-related stuff.
I sometimes download work files that are a few megabytes in size.
Neither of us streams music.
Neither of us is into online gaming.
 
I do it. I have an unlimited data plan from verizon and I dropped the minutes to a 30 minute loyalty plan so the total comes to $45 per month plus tax. I put the sim in a netgear mbr1515 router and bought a proband repeater antenna and use that for my home internet. I average around 100gb per month

How would this work in a household of 4? 2 playstations running at once and maybe an iMac running with the 2 playstations?
 
The netgear router takes your SIM card and shares the internet so all your devices can access.

Yea I understand that. I'm asking if VZW LTE can handle 2 playstations, an iMac and an iPad going at once.

I can see it working if I was the only person using LTE but in my household we have a lot of stuff going at the same time.

We currently have Comcast and it handles it well.

I tried using VZW LTE in replacement of Comcast and it didn't work out cause VZW LTE couldn't handle it. Was wondering if I needed different equipment.
 
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I doubt the equipment would differ unless VZW uses a different LTE band that isn't supported by the router, in which case you would fall back to 3G

LTE can go up to 130mbit or so
 
I am using Relish Home Broadband in London very successfully. It is a 4G LTE system for £20 per month unlimited data. I get 20 Meg down and 5 Meg up on their system which is a big upgrade for me because the previous BT system was very slow. I use both Netflix and Amazon for movie downloads and never had a problem.

Not sure how widely available their system is but i have been using it for about ten months so far. It also enabled me to give up home phone which I never really needed.

My building is getting 1 GIG Internet from Hyperoptic soon. The building has already been wired and just waiting on the fibre to be brought in from the street.

This is a link to the Relish system.


https://www1.relish.net/athome/no-landline-broadband?gclid=CMjN64STgsUCFa_LtAodpzMA-A
 
How would this work in a household of 4? 2 playstations running at once and maybe an iMac running with the 2 playstations?

it all depends on your location. If you have strong signal it will work pretty well. My signal is so-so but we still run a ps3, mac mini, apple tv, 2 ipads and an mba and only have issues streaming high def video occasionally

edit: forgot to add the chromecast and 2 smart phones lol
 
That's your internet provider. Most of us have no caps or much higher caps ATM.

Actually with the introduction of the Charter Spectrum Internet Service, Charter has removed all data caps and you have high-bandwidth (60MB Residential 100MB Business) Internet with no data caps. I, however, just get my internet free from a Free public hotspot, That connection is run into a old DELL desktop too slow to even use for daily use and than has the internet shared to our Wireless router which feeds the rest of the house over wifi and eathernet. I average around 70Mbps give or take depending on the weather conditions I get 80MB roughly at night because of the 30 and 40 degree minnesota weather it can slow up to 50Mbps if its hot or humid either way.,.. internet's way faster than it was when we paid for our own charter service.

EDIT: When we paid for 30MB charter internet we averaged 12MB (that was with no other devices hooked) when they upgraded us to 60MB FREE we still averaged 12MB.......
 
It's something I considered, but in the US, doesn't quite make financial sense for my usage without having a grandfathered unlimited data plan.

I considered adding 20 GB LTE for $20/month, which should be enough for basic browsing, occasional YouTube videos, and stream a few episodes. It's not enough if you want to do HD stuff, binge watch, or download much of anything. I've cut back on those things considerably, but there's just those times when I need to re-download a huge game or a Netflix series comes out that I want to watch that I wouldn't be able to do with such a limited cap.

The wide range of data usage is funny to see. Back when I was torrenting GoT Season 1/2 episodes and doing other nefarious things, I alone was using 100-200 GB a month easily. Most months now it's 30-70 GB probably and even then I feel like I waste too much time online.
 
It's something I considered, but in the US, doesn't quite make financial sense for my usage without having a grandfathered unlimited data plan.

I considered adding 20 GB LTE for $20/month, which should be enough for basic browsing, occasional YouTube videos, and stream a few episodes. It's not enough if you want to do HD stuff, binge watch, or download much of anything. I've cut back on those things considerably, but there's just those times when I need to re-download a huge game or a Netflix series comes out that I want to watch that I wouldn't be able to do with such a limited cap.

The wide range of data usage is funny to see. Back when I was torrenting GoT Season 1/2 episodes and doing other nefarious things, I alone was using 100-200 GB a month easily. Most months now it's 30-70 GB probably and even then I feel like I waste too much time online.

I dont torrent anymore since It's no longer my internet service. Torrents are illegal so i stay away from them as much as possible. Occasionally I will Torrent a new copy of Windows 2000 but i have not done that since i got rid of the internet service.
 
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