Best High-Speed Interenet for OTR?

Nov '23, I was at the TA in Commerce, CO when I saw a sign that said " Unlimited High-speed internet for your truck $50" from Verizon. It was my first year, so I shrugged and thought that was a good deal. And for about a year, it was. I had 25-80 mbps in most places, and I was able to play any and all games I wanted. But then last Nov, I got messages saying that they detected my modem was not at the assigned Billing address of my apartment in PA, and therefore was Geolocked. Suddently, I was down to barely 10 mbps. Even when going to a Verizon store, they said they could do nothing but offer me a hotspot with only 100 GB/month. I eat that kind of data in a week.

So, I am now on the hunt for a new internet provider that caters to OTR truckers, and won't screw me over with locations. I have been looking into Nomad Internet and OTR Mobile, but I'd like to hear what others have. Be specific as possible, including monthly fees, average bandwith and download speeds, and any locations where the service wasn't available.

Also, bonus if it's a device I can pick up on the road. Due to my company no longer having OTR runs on the East Coast, I can't go home and pick up a package without paying for a flight out from Chicago (that's as close as they will get me). I mostly drive the central time zone, so if I am able to just go into a store, start a plan, and take the modem or router with me, that would be awesome.

 

T-Mobile has a new Away plan for $100 a month or $160 for unlimited data you can move the box anywhere you go. It for RV they seem to have lots of 5G coverage. I use their home internet and it the same box but it $50 if you don’t move the box around.

I see this YouTube video guy that lives in RV and move around he uses this has this internet ConnecTen internet

I get 300+ MB download on TMoble on their 5G Ultra Capacity signal. If play online game it not the best because ping is high



if you can use cell phone Hotspot data that probably the cheapest deal
Not sure if Space X satellites internet is good option for truck stop set up but they have new smaller mobile satellites dish. Seems like setting it up one pain plus you have get good signal from satellites.

 

What are doing to eat 100gb in a week . That's insane.
You could always try Elon musks starlink internet. There was a thread on here somewhere of guys having good success with that.
I have no idea when it comes to gaming tho. I just use my mobile Hotspot from t mobile and it works fine for internet .but they throttle me after 50gb during peak times . Don't usually use that much per month amyways

 

Starlink mini with the 50g roam plan.

 

Isn't it 13GB per movie? I'm so out of the loop I have no idea. So, if you watch eight movies per month, that would eat up 100GB right there.

 

Youed be amazed how fast you can shlurp down a hundred gigs. With data caps going up the way they are there is no incentive for compression anymore. So watching 1 SD (standard def) movie will eat around a gig easy. Some of the more agregious ones are as much as 10 gigs in SD. Some of the HD or even 4k movies can be upwards of 40 gigs. Think LoTR was nearly 75 in 4k. Watch a couple big movies and welp there went your data cap.

Ontop of that a lot of the game devs are INTENTIONALLY making their games as large as posible to lock you out of your HDD space or because its cheaper then making a well coded compressed game. So a single game download can be as much as 100 gigs hell CoD is almost 300 now on its own with all the DLC. Some single games are pushing 150+ Even a normal game is ususally 5-20 gigs and a lot of "streamed" games can blow through a gig+ an hour. Single video call with family can piss away 50gigs easy if you have a high enough resolution.

100 gigs is fine for email or pedoflix (no i will NOT forgive them for the little cuties thing) even youtube. But anything more then the minimums, its easy to blast through the data caps.

As for verizon. Get the business router if you can. They offer a package where you can move around and its about $200 a month. So not great but works great 99% of the time. Otherwise starlink is the only real alternitive anymore and that gets spendy in a hurry.

 

I've been real happy with a 100gb data only plan (sim card) from Red Pocket Mobile. Been using it for about a year and have never burnt through 100gb in a month. I don't spend 34's in the truck though. I also don't watch movies often or game but I'm on Youtube perpetually.

I bought a Pepwave Mini cellular modem recently and am really happy with it. This is just what it sounds like. It's a modem/router but uses a sim card instead of a typical home wifi connection. It allows you to have a true wifi router in a mobile setting without a phone and is powered by AC or DC. Has 2 slots so you can run 2 sim cards from different carriers if you want. I paid about $300 for it and am happy to not be tied to a phone for hotspot anymore.

 

Focus on the plans that connect to Verizon and ATT.

 

Even T-Mobile unlimited home internet has a limit. They claim at1.2 TB they will slow you down. I hit 1.4 TB in a month and never noticed a slow down. If your using lots of data your probably going to have to pay for that and moving around. $160 on T-Mobile for the RV Away plan. I was surprised to Startlink is also $165 for Roaming and unlimited data. They have 50GB a month for $50 plus you have to buy the satellite dish and set it up at truck stop

The hotspot plans don’t seem to be a thing anymore were you buy separate hotspot devices. They have them but 150GB seem to be the limit for 1 month

 

Verizon suspended my account yesterday, so I quickly ran out and got the T-mobile away plan. So far, I am enjoying it, and I like I have over a month before my first payment. I don't believe I will use anywhere near a TB of data, so I don't see there being a signal problem though. We will see moving forward.