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iPhone X Can you not stream Netflix using a hotspot on your phone?

T

TH55

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Nov 5, 2011
3,328
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I recently upgraded my AT&T wireless plan to the Unlimited Extra which gives you a hotspot of up to 15 gb a month. I tried to watch Netflix and it wouldn’t load, and when I called Netflix they said a hotspot wasn’t strong enough to support streaming. Is this true? I was really hoping to get out of paying $50 a month for internet.
 
Not usually, no, and Netflix would blow through a 15gb data plan in a few days.
 
26139 said:
Not usually, no, and Netflix would blow through a 15gb data plan in a few days.
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Lol that’s what I figured. Bummer, you think $50 is the cheapest I will find internet?
 
Yes, you absolutely can. BUT, you will eat through that amount of data in no time at all (days).
 
Cable modem and access, router, Netflix, gauged by AT&T plans.

Netflix needs 25Mb bandwidth. You can test from inside the app, good idea, as well as traditional tests.
 
26139 said:
Not usually, no, and Netflix would blow through a 15gb data plan in a few days.
Click to expand...
Lol, that would barely last us a day. According to the home router, our daily usage is 15-70 GB. Monthly usage is ~1TB.

As for hotspot not being fast enough, depends on the carrier, location and network congestion.

It seems to me hotspot traffic on AT&T gets deprioritized. At the office, at busy times of the day (e.g. lunch and break times), connection speed is much slower when I hotspot the iPad to iPhone than if the iPad uses built-in LTE.

Verizon's much better. It's the fastest carrier at the office (and I've tested AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint). No issues with video streaming over hotspot on Verizon (granted, I think I'm limited to 480p).

You don't need 25Mbps for Netflix unless you watch 4K. Iirc, their 1080p streaming tops at around 8Mbps.
 
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26139 said:
$50 for monthly home internet seems well priced to me. I pay almost double that with my provider.
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Yea depends on where you are and if there are multiple options. We can get 50Mbps internet for around $50 here.
 
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It might be carrier specific. I have unlimited data on my iPhone plan. I’m able to set up a hotspot and connect my iPad mini to it and stream Netflix.
 
TH55 said:
I recently upgraded my AT&T wireless plan to the Unlimited Extra which gives you a hotspot of up to 15 gb a month. I tried to watch Netflix and it wouldn’t load, and when I called Netflix they said a hotspot wasn’t strong enough to support streaming. Is this true? I was really hoping to get out of paying $50 a month for internet.
Click to expand...
Try using a VPN on the Hotspot.
 
dangerfish said:
I don’t think I know what you are referring to. But if I said something offensive or that came off as rude, I apologize. That would not have been my intent.
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Fair enough.

I asked about deleting unwanted wifi addresses upon logging in to my mac.

Apology accepted.
 
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