No wifi or home internet connection

[nouveau_redneck]

I'm disconnecting my home internet connection as it's complete garbage and not worth the money. It works far less than 50 percent of the time and when it does, it is maybe 600 Kbps down at best.

That means I'm going to use my Verizon LTE Above Unlimited plan as my only internet connection, using hotspot from my iPhone to MB and MBP. Public wifi is 20 miles from my house and very limited, good wifi is 100 miles away. The LTE is good and reliable with typically 6 Mbps down and about 700 Kbps up.

So far the only limitations I've found are:
- iPhone updates larger than 150 MB are not possible on LTE.
- Photos synced from my phone to iCloud will not sync down to my MacBook on hotspot. I can work around by syncing with a cable.
- I don't know if large macOS updates are possible via hotspot yet. If they don't this will probably be my biggest issue. Anyone know about this?

Is anyone living with only cell phone hotspot for internet? How has it worked out for you?

 

[eyoungren]

I'm just going to be that guy in the room that brings up the dreaded acronym- ToS.

As in Terms of Service. Most wireless carriers don't want you using tethering as your home iSP so write some legal terminology into their ToS that prevents you (legally) from doing what you intend to do.

I don't know Verizon, never used them. But I'd check your ToS.

If that's already a non-issue to you because you don't care about violating the ToS then one option is jailbreaking.

With jailbreaking you could install 3G Unrestrictor, allowing you to get around those restrictions. Further, you could install one of several tethering tweaks that mask your tethering as phone data.

 

[nouveau_redneck]

I'm just going to be that guy in the room that brings up the dreaded acronym- ToS.

As in Terms of Service. Most wireless carriers don't want you using tethering as your home iSP so write some legal terminology into their ToS that prevents you (legally) from doing what you intend to do.

I don't know Verizon, never used them. But I'd check your ToS.

If that's already a non-issue to you because you don't care about violating the ToS then one option is jailbreaking.

With jailbreaking you could install 3G Unrestrictor, allowing you to get around those restrictions. Further, you could install one of several tethering tweaks that mask your tethering as phone data.

Thanks, that's definitely something to think about. I haven't read the ToS yet, and I will, but at first glance I don't think it will be an issue. The plan overview is below, showing 20 GB of hotspot included at full speed before it becomes throttled.

 

[eyoungren]

This is where being on Verizon may benefit you.

On my carrier, 50% of all data must be used by the device itself every month or T-Mobile can terminate you (this is on the latest plans). Which is why I brought up the ToS.

 

[nouveau_redneck]

I'm definitely glad you brought it up. Verizon is the only game out where I live and I certainly don't want to mess it up. I read the full ToS and did not see anything that will be a problem.

I can live with 20 GB hotspot at the full LTE speed and I've used it while over that amount, and even while throttled most of what I do on the internet is not an issue. Obviously, large transfers are a pain, but knowing my usage pattern, the amount is fine. I do plan on moving most of my YouTube viewing to my iPhone with an external monitor hooked up so that it does not count towards my hotspot amount.

I think my biggest problem will be large OS updates that Apple prevents over hotspot or LTE. I guess those will mean road trip.

 

[nouveau_redneck]

I just discovered another thing to add to the list of things that won't work. iPhone cloud backs are no longer possible. The good news is iCloud notes still sync properly. I live by them.