I need someone who really knows about data plans. We have one here?

[eddie1261]

I want to find a data plan that I use until the data is depleted, and then I reload it. Who actually does that? See, because my trailer life will not be full time, and I will not even travel every month, I don't want a monthly plan that costs me money while it is sitting dormant. There are a gajillion "prepaid" plans out there but none of them are what I really want. Does anybody on here really know about this stuff?

 

[b.james]

Eddie Im over in OZ so I don't know yours but here we have a provider for mobiles called OVO that works through the OPTUS network. They have plans for mobile phones for $10 AUD a month which gives me $500 worth of calls , unlimited texts and 2 Gig of data. Thats what I use for my phone .

I use a different one for data but they have at 12 month plan in there too. I'll put the URL in here just so you can read the blurb.
OVO 365 days
Now my thought was if its available here I would be pretty sure you would have even better over there. You just need to know what to look for.

 

[Getyourbone]

I m guessing you are looking for a never expires kind of data.,,and what is out there has a 30 day frame around it...

We couldn’t find anything that fit like that and ended up adding a Verizon hot spot to our plan and I think $10 a month for 10 gig per month...not sure if that would be enough? We seem to burn through 100 -150 gig a month between our devices and stream our tv’s so I kind of which we hadn’t gotten the hotspot..better to just hotspot off the phone.

I’m curious to hear what others have...I would love to know it there are any inexpensive plans with large amounts of data?..our bill is about $200 a month.

 

[eddie1261]

I m guessing you are looking for a never expires kind of data.,,and what is out there has a 30 day frame around it...

We couldn’t find anything that fit like that and ended up adding a Verizon hot spot to our plan and I think $10 a month for 10 gig per month...not sure if that would be enough? We seem to burn through 100 -150 gig a month between our devices and stream our tv’s so I kind of which we hadn’t gotten the hotspot..better to just hotspot off the phone.

I’m curious to hear what others have...I would love to know it there are any inexpensive plans with large amounts of data?..our bill is about $200 a month.

Actually kind of the opposite. I want a plan that DOES expire and that I can reload myself. One that I can let rest in a dormant state when I am not on the road. Like say I was planning a trip starting Sep 30th that will last 6 days. I want to be able to pop a prepaid sim into my hotspot, use the X amount of data attached to that sim, and then if I find myself out of data with 2 more days to go, pop another prepaid sim into it, provision it online, and then I have Y more gigs of data. I don't want to just add it to my plan because I am then paying for it every month. My data usage in a month I am not on the road is historically 500mb or less. I have a Verizon 5gb data plan now and I usually carry 4 of those gigs forward.

I have an AT&T hotspot that someone gave me. He had bought it for his father who has since died. His father was somewhat technically challenged and when I opened the box I actually found the sim punched out into the smallest of the 3 sizes and it was stuck in where the micro SD card would be. THAT was a joy getting that sim out of there. (Bent up a safety pin and hooked it.) I got the thing to work and went online to see the plans, and I have to decide if that is how it ends up or not. I am going to visit the nearby AT&T store today and see what they have as far as prepaid sim plans goes.

Edit to update. AT&T is CRAZY with their pricing. $50 a month for 10 gb of data and $15 PER GIG after that! I am not paying $50 to watch Live PD.

 

[Deleted member 783]

Not sure if this would help, but I have a T-mobile account with unlimited data. My phone also has a mobile hotspot, which is also unlimited, so you basically have slow wifi anywere, unlimited. If you have a 4GLTE connection or better you can easily watch Netflix or Will's videos on youtube. Very simple, one device, nothing to pay attention to.

 

[eddie1261]

I am looking at a company called Visible. They seem closest to what I want, yet not 100%. I have my doubts I will find 100%. Since unlimited means unlimited to a point and then unusable speeds, I may be stealing wifi from Walmart more than I'd like to.

 

[Deleted member 783]

I am looking at a company called Visible. They seem closest to what I want, yet not 100%. I have my doubts I will find 100%. Since unlimited means unlimited to a point and then unusable speeds, I may be stealing wifi from Walmart more than I'd like to.

Mine is never throttled, but it isn't fast either. Just depends on your needs. I would be VERY careful with any open, public wifi. It is wildly unsecure unless you are using a VPN (virtual private network). If you are traveling a lot and taking advantage of public wifi, a VPN subscription would be well worth the money.

 

[eddie1261]

Mine is never throttled, but it isn't fast either. Just depends on your needs. I would be VERY careful with any open, public wifi. It is wildly unsecure unless you are using a VPN (virtual private network). If you are traveling a lot and taking advantage of public wifi, a VPN subscription would be well worth the money.

It depends on what you do on the pubic wifi. I would never access a bank or buy anything where I need to submit personal information. Any of that I would do on my own data plan. I just want to watch Hulu in my trailer, and video eats data so fast I need to have a backup plan, that being a second provider. . I need to talk to Verizon and ask them a few questions. If I get the answers I think i will, all of the secondary provider stuff is moot. My big thing is that I will NOT be out in the trailer that much, except one trip in winter where I may be gone for a longer stretch. I was an IT professional for years and one of the hats I wore at a few contract positions dealt with security.

I really want a plan I can turn on and off, and one that is NOT a month at a time. If I use X gb of data in 5 days, I want to be able to put the account into a suspended mode so I can bank what data I had left. There are SO MANY videos out there that make false claims. People don't seem to understand the difference between "They don't throttle" and "I have never been throttled. Being the only person using a tower in Nowhere Montana doesn't mean the provider won't deprioritize you if you go in excess of the 22gb cap most plans have. Just because it didn't happen to Joe doesn't mean it won't happen to Sam.

You said yours isn't fast. I have been to New Mexico and been in areas where there was no connectivity and when I hit a fringe area where there was, it dragged. That's more a matter of tower density. I live in a larger city here and I have tested driving with an app running and I had no idea how many towers I have here. Moe towers means less users per tower, thus less chance of being managed after a 22gb threshold. But when I am in a place i don't know, I don't have the advantage of local knowledge, and I will be stumbling in the dark often trying to find data speeds high enough to stream Hulu. Especially now that it's hockey season again!!! GOTTA see my hockey games!

 

[rkw]

Suggestion is GoogleFi if you have access in your area. I think it's as close to pay for what you use bandwidth.

I wouldn't ignore the monthly prepaid options as they could well be less costly than metered option.

Unfortunately Verizon killed their Mifi Jetpack Prepaid deal at $65/mo. I'm not giving mine up until something better pops up.

 

[rkw]

It depends on what you do on the pubic wifi. I would never access a bank or buy anything where I need to submit personal information. Any of that I would do on my own data plan. I just want to watch Hulu in my trailer, and video eats data so fast I need to have a backup plan, that being a second provider. . I need to talk to Verizon and ask them a few questions. If I get the answers I think i will, all of the secondary provider stuff is moot. My big thing is that I will NOT be out in the trailer that much, except one trip in winter where I may be gone for a longer stretch. I was an IT professional for years and one of the hats I wore at a few contract positions dealt with security.

I really want a plan I can turn on and off, and one that is NOT a month at a time. If I use X gb of data in 5 days, I want to be able to put the account into a suspended mode so I can bank what data I had left. There are SO MANY videos out there that make false claims. People don't seem to understand the difference between "They don't throttle" and "I have never been throttled. Being the only person using a tower in Nowhere Montana doesn't mean the provider won't deprioritize you if you go in excess of the 22gb cap most plans have. Just because it didn't happen to Joe doesn't mean it won't happen to Sam.

You said yours isn't fast. I have been to New Mexico and been in areas where there was no connectivity and when I hit a fringe area where there was, it dragged. That's more a matter of tower density. I live in a larger city here and I have tested driving with an app running and I had no idea how many towers I have here. Moe towers means less users per tower, thus less chance of being managed after a 22gb threshold. But when I am in a place i don't know, I don't have the advantage of local knowledge, and I will be stumbling in the dark often trying to find data speeds high enough to stream Hulu. Especially now that it's hockey season again!!! GOTTA see my hockey games!

howdy fellow old IT geezer (well I'm old now anyway...)

i know i saw some plan like that somewhere. Ironic how that old fee schedule has kinda devolved away from what it seems ya want. I will keep my eyes open amd report anything that seems promising.

I've used MetroPCS since it was a T-Mobile company, something like 10 or 12yrs and used the buy your minutes model. I'm happy with yhe service. Also you can look at the other MVNO's for Verizon & AT&T prepaid. Worst case you could just activate a phone on a prepaid plan depending on coverage. Then tether to that phone either via hotspot or PDAnet+ for unlimited hotspot use (if ya haven't looked at it, it's a handy app in a pinch.

Anyway just spit balling...

 

[monty]

If Sprint is available where you travel (I know... fat chance) you could check out Ting. You have to pay a line fee of ~ $8/month and then it's all pay for what you want.

 

[offgriddle]

Aaaah the holy Grail of mobile data, good luck my son. I will tell you that I did once find the holy Grail of mobile data with a company called straight talk, whereupon for just under 60 U.S. dinero a month, not only did I have unlimited talk, text and data from my device, but also 60 geek-a-bytes of 4G speed data when tethering my device to a laptop. Alas, like anything hyper holy, this too had to pass and the corporate gits ended the program, quite recently in fact. Now, it's back to the same old routine of bending over and saying "yes mam may I buy another geek-a-byte of data"! Good luck on your quest for a non snail speed data plan that does not fleece you.

 

[eddie1261]

I ended up trying Visible. It is month to month and the structure is such that you just not pay and you have 60 days before they kill your number, so in essence that is a quasi suspended mode. I bought their phone for 19 bucks and it arrives today. I don't want get drastic and kill my Verizon account just yet until I see their performance. It is 40 bucks a month and they say you get a constant 5 mbps, but reviews and reports say that people are getting 30 to 35 mbps, plenty to stream video in the trailer. This plan is dedicated to just that. I will experiment for a month and test performance as I slowly add more and more devices to it. The caveat is that you are limited to one device but you can get around that with a TP Link nano router. Connect the router to the phone and your devices to the router and you only have one apparent connection. And if it stinks, I am only out a few bucks. If it works well, that's a bonus and I have my answer. The phone and router both arrive today and I'll let you know how it works.

 

[offgriddle]

I ended up trying Visible. It is month to month and the structure is such that you just not pay and you have 60 days before they kill your number, so in essence that is a quasi suspended mode. I bought their phone for 19 bucks and it arrives today. I don't want get drastic and kill my Verizon account just yet until I see their performance. It is 40 bucks a month and they say you get a constant 5 mbps, but reviews and reports say that people are getting 30 to 35 mbps, plenty to stream video in the trailer. This plan is dedicated to just that. I will experiment for a month and test performance as I slowly add more and more devices to it. The caveat is that you are limited to one device but you can get around that with a TP Link nano router. Connect the router to the phone and your devices to the router and you only have one apparent connection. And if it stinks, I am only out a few bucks. If it works well, that's a bonus and I have my answer. The phone and router both arrive today and I'll let you know how it works.

I would very much like to hear your review on visible. Is it unlimited data,?

 

[offgriddle]

Here's the lowdown on Verizon's secretive new data plan

The good news: It's cheap.

www.dailydot.com

 

[eddie1261]

I won't get the phone until later today and I will spend 2 weeks beating it up, drawing as much data as I can, to see if I see slowdowns. They come right out and say I WILL see them, but people I talked to that use it say they are rare. We'll see and I will post a review.

 

[eddie1261]

Good info. I will print that and refer back to it. Some of the things you addressed won't be of any concern to me, as this won't ever be "my phone". This is just for when I travel to stream, as several of the other users on my trailer forum do with no issue. I won't quit my Verizon plan on my Galaxy S7 (which is not compatible on Visible.) or port my number or anything. I just wanted this so I could NOT use my regular Verizon plan's data when I travel. Only as a backup would I use that data. And if this doesn't work out, I am only out 20 bucks for the throwaway phone I bought. It can go in the drawer with the other old phones. LOL!!!

And I can't see me loading any apps on that phone, though I will probably pop a micro SD in there anyway. I have about a dozen of them laying around. Like I alluded to, I am not replacing my regular phone plan. I just want to have this as a travel phone, and I will let it go dead when I don't have a trip coming up. I only plan to travel maybe every 5th or 6th week for 5-6 days, with maybe one longer trip in winter. An according to their support I can go 50 days without paying and not lose the phone number. (AND, that phone number doesn't matter at all to me. I will never make or get calls on that phone.) We'll see how it goes.

Good info about the company though! I have to ask, though. If they suck, why do you have them?

 

[offgriddle]

I am freshly mourning an extreme loss that occurred to me yesterday. Let me explain, for the past two or three years I have enjoyed unlimited text, talk and data on my Android but I have ALSO availed myself of 60 geek-a-bytes of tethered, video streaming quality data for my laptop. I enjoyed this cornucopia courtesy of straight talk, on a $23 dollar Android, at the cost of $58 dollars per monh. This Holy Grail of plans ended abruptly yesterday, (straight talk customer service had informed me during a telephone conversation with them a few months earlier that they were no longer supporting tethering and that it would be ending), so it wasn't a total surprise to me, but when the shoe finally dropped, I was nonetheless "data-stated", (see what I just did there)? Now, the party is over and I have a huge affordable data hangover and it's back to cruising free wi-fi if I want to use my laptop instead of my puny Android. Still, hope springs eternal, and the search for the Holy Grail of data plans will begin anew, once a sufficient mourning period has passed of course.

 

[eddie1261]

My issue now is finding the right mode on my TP-Link N300 router that allows me to connect my devices to the TP-Link so the phone only sees one connection. The only thing I have found online so far is an older version and the language is not the same. Online PDF files say to connect to "Hotspot router mode", and that is not what this firmware calls it. The PDF also keeps telling me how I can hook an ethernet cable from the TP-Link to teh internet source, but I want it to do that wirelessly. I thought it would be in repeater mode but that still gives me nothing to configure to put in my phone's tethered name as the SSID to connect the TP-Link to, unless, again, I didn't see it because it is in terms I don't normally use. I will test more Friday when I can disconnect my existing home network from the WAN so everything stops being confused about where the DHCP comes from. My Dell 2 in 1 has hotspot mode and I can make it work that way, but I have this tiny router that I want to use. I think I know what to do but it's football night, so.....

 

[offgriddle]

Who watches football anymore?

I think the issue you are running into is the WR802N's repeater mode is a bridging mode, like a pass-through signal strength increaser, but doesn't do routing in that mode, or you haven't turned it on. I looked at the model: it's a USB-powered mini-router. I've used an older version but I doubt the firmware features have changed much. It does client w or w/o routing, AP w or w/o routing, and bridging repeater. N300 is a marketing term; the actual model is probably WR802N.

ANYWAY, the very simplest solution which is better, which will give you peak performace and no headaches, is another WR802N, or a cheaper thrift store router, and an ethernet cable between them.

Setup one in client mode, setup the other in normal AP mode. Make sure you have set a specific channel for your phone hotspot, it's in the advanced settings on your hotspot on your phone. Use channel 1, 6 or 11.

The client WR802N will connect easily to the hotspot phone, with just it's setup wizard.

Setup your second WR802N or other router - tonit's factory default, as a router, so you almost don't need to configure it. Tweak as necessary: SSID, password, and if you can, set the channel, instead of Auto, to be one of the unused of the 3: 1, 6, or 11.

There may be an option for a 40mhz wide channel, use 20mhz. 40mhz under 2.4ghz is almost cumpletely unnecessary: most phones/clients don't support it. If you did 40, make sure the router /2nd WR802N is not using the same channel that the phone hotspot is using. If using channel 1, then 6 & 11 are available, and so on.

The bandwidth in 20mhz is probably in excess of what your phone hotspot can churn out, from either the cell towers, your plan, or the phone's processing capacity.

Any thrift store these days has a capable router for a couple of bucks that will do what the WR802N will do, and the majority run off 12v. They may use a few more watts than the WR802N but that shouldn't matter.

What you need the WR802N you already own for, is it's client mode. You need it in client passthrough: where it does not do routing, acting instead as a straight wifi-to-wired ethernet adapter.

Well written!