Mobile Hotspot Data

[David Williams]

I've always used my phone as a tethering hotspot. I have a business where I teach people how to storm Chase and I teach them forecasting and meteorology. So I have to have something that the other people in my vehicle can tether to. Recently verizon decided not to allow my plan (grandfathered in small 2 gb plan) to be able to buy large gb packages. You have to have unlimited plans to use the 30 & 40 gb data month to month.

 

[Bob Schafer]

Not to peel us off track here, but for those of you who still use Jetpacks: what is your main reason for choosing them over a smartphone? Are better data plans available for Jetpacks on some carriers? Is it the ability to plug in an external antenna (which I admittedly haven't messed with in quite a few years)?

Brett's question has probably been answered sufficiently above, but since it was seemingly, primarily, directed at me I will chime in.

I started using the 5510 whenever it was that 4G became prevalent. 2012-ish? I don't have a smartphone and don't want one. The 5510 is my only internet both on the road and at home. My plan is 10GB/mo. and I never use all of it because I never download any videos and never stream anything (using it). When I want to do any of that I wait until I am someplace where I am using somebody else's wifi, which is "frequent enough". I think it's pretty cheap at $50/mo., but the cost doesn't matter much, paying more would be okay, but it has always served me well, though I have to reboot it every now and then and had to replace the battery once, apparently due to it being on 24/7. The coverage isn't 100%, of course, but it's plenty good enough IMO.

 

[Matt Hunt]

As several have suggested here, have you considered using your phone with wifi tethering on?

I used to travel with a 5510 Jetpack prepaid on Verizon (CDMA) and also my phone on first ATT and now T-Mobile (GSM). This was expensive, cluttered, and less reliable than what is possible today.

4-5 seasons ago I noticed T-Mobile start to have decent coverage just about everywhere I chase (TX, OK, CO, KS, WY, SD, NE, etc). Since, the T-Mobile phone has become better than the Verizon Jetpack in terms of coverage and data speed.

Now that 3G is phased out for 4G LTE and 5G, having one of each carrier type to talk to the nearest tower doesn't make as much sense unless your data needs are intense, in which case I suggest bonded data. There is a lot of improved overlap and more arrangements in sharing data from various carrier towers these days. It was common for a while for only one carrier to have towers in certain areas and sell bandwidth to others via roaming. There are still dead areas on each carrier, but they are greatly reduced, almost rare.

For my use case I no longer see the need for anything but a T Mobile phone used as wifi hotspot simultaneously (no extra cost). I have zero issues with this arrangement, where I had to restart the Verizon 5510 sometimes when it wouldn't move to new towers.

A couple long stories not worth repeating here, but I despise Verizon and dumped them as soon as I didn't need their coverage backup. It had become habit to use their Jetpack, and I am glad I moved away from it.

I can't remember what I did in 2019 (didn't chase in 2020), but at least as of last year, I was doing the same. Was on Sprint, which is now T-Mobile, and I recall the last time I did have the Verizon jetpack, my phone had data more often than the jetpack did. Did experience some data holes last season, but overall not too bad. I had to constantly restart that jetpack when leaving the range of the tower it had been connected to! Super annoying. So now I'm just using my phone as a hotspot, allowing use of GR3 on the laptop (gotta have that large screen for solo chasing).

 

[ericjkelly]

I used multiple wifi devices over the past few years and now am back to using my phone as a hotspot. Cheaper and connects more consistently in my opinion. I also carry a separate phone using Visible wireless. That gives me unlimited tethering data to upload videos etc.

 

[Nathan Parker]

I recently moved back to T-Mobile (I was on a T-Mobile and AT&T MVNO, but they didn’t support 5G on T-Mobile). T-Mobile 5G around town (in Hot Springs, AR) is pretty solid. T-Mobile’s “Extended Range 5G” is at least as fast as LTE and sometimes faster. T-Mobile’s “5G UC” midband 5G is pretty solid around most of the town and faster than AT&T’s 5G here (Verizon hasn’t even added 5G yet). T-Mobile is probably weaker in some areas, but where they’ve deployed 5G/5G UC, I finally feel like I can actually embrace 5G.