What's the best way to Internet on the road?

I have a smartphone and a laptop. I rarely use the laptop now. Most of my work on the Internet is with my smartphone.

Verizon has the best coverage. It's rare to be without service, even way out in the boonies.

I have unlimited data. It's expensive but worth it.

Some of our customers require a smartphone to be able to download their app. Other apps are essential tools. I receive and send photos and documents, which have to be high resolution. At least with my company you need a smartphone to join the party.

 

$300 a month. My wife uses a lot to watch Korean TV shows. By myself I probably run through 20 GB a month.

 

I pay $80/month for unlimited data through AT&T because I have uverse at home.
I also have a 2 gig plan with Verizon that's grandfathered in at $20/month. Just holding onto that until they take it away, worth it to have service literally anywhere. I can pretty much count on at least one phone connecting.

 

A friend of mine ran local/regional out of Reno. He had Verizon, but carried a backup AT&T flip phone because in all the mountains there were places one or the other wouldn't work.

 

Ive had Straight Talk for years. Ive hit a few dead areas but when I had Verizon, there were dead areas as well but Verizon costs more. The best I ever had was Sprint, I literally never hit a dead area with them but I paid a good price for it.

 

I have 2 phones, unlimited everything, the data isn't unlimited, but it's something like 20 gigs a month, and I use like 2 gig. $130 month for both phones.

 

I used to have a Verizon hotspot but I got rid of it in favor of T-Mobile.

T-Mobile coverage isn't quite as good, but it is a heck of a lot cheaper if you do it right.
With Verizon a 20GB data plan cost me $130. I can get the same amount of high speed data for $40 with T-Mobile.

Granted, it takes 4 sim cards being swapped out in the hotspot device to do it so cheaply. Each one is 5GB of data for $10 per month.

With Verizon if I went over the 20GB in that month I would be charged $20 for each additional GB - or fraction thereof.
With T-Mobile there are no extra charges, but the speed is greatly reduced.

My sister and I are sharing a Family Plan with T-Mobile.
We are allowed up to 11 devices on this plan, which include:
My sister and her son, and she has a second device.
2 of my daughters.
I have my phone and hotspot device with 4 lines.
Each device (with the exception of my hotspot lines) have 10GB of high speed data. My hotspot lines have 5GB each.

Total cost for all 10 devices is around $260 per month, including the monthly payments for several of them.
Personally, I think it is a pretty good deal.


Verizon high speed coverage is a little better than T-Mobile, but I still had roaming and slow or dead areas even with Verizon. Up here in Montana was one.
My T-Mobile connection here in Billings, MT is roaming with AT&T, so it is slower. I won't be streaming Netflix tonight.
But the cost savings more than makes up for it.

And speaking of Netflix...
With T-Mobile I can now stream all the Netflix I want at no cost to my data plan.
I don't know if Verizon has this feature, but it sure is nice.
And it works with many streaming services.

 

Yea thats what I didnt like about those conventional plan phones, you hit a roaming area and your bill shot up. Thats why I finally left Sprint. The one I have is unlimited talk, text and internet, even though internet is not that good on a flip phone. I can use it on ebay or yahoo or something like that ok. Dont have to worry about roaming with it.

 

Another problem with using your 'smart' phone as a hotspot is that the data is usually very limited when used that way.
1 or 2 GB at best.
And the data transfer will cause the 'phone' to heat up, reducing its lifespan.

OTR, the best bet is the best deal you can find on a mobile hotspot device - unless you want to do everything through that small screen of your 'smart' phone.
Personally, watching Netflix on a 19" laptop is much better than a 6" tiny screen.

That is why my phone is 'stupid'.
I use it for voice calls only - no internet, no texting... nothing else.

'Smartphone'...
Just a word to describe a very small computer that also has telephone capabilities.