Anybody using a dedicated hotspot for internet?

Long story short: Verizon is phasing out support for the hotspot we use at our cabin (supports internet use while we're there and security cams and weather station year round). The hotspots on the Verizon website pretty much suck. ATT online no longer sells home hotspots. ATT stores will sell you one, but the nearest store is two hours away (in the wrong direction), and even then they have to order them in, and when I tried to get the prepaid service set up their system wouldn't let them do it (wanted month to month only, at twice the price)
So, any of you Road Warriors using a dedicated hotspot for your travels? Any recommendations?

 

If they are covering your area and if available, t-mobile home internet might be an option.

https://www.t-mobile.com/home-internet/eligibility

 

We live in the mountains. The only company that wasn't data capped was Centurylink. They sucked. Their speed sucked. Their service sucked. The consistency sucked. They just sucked.We got Starlink. We love the Starlink.

 

Thanks BobsYourUncle, I took a look at T-Mobile and they vary between having coverage and being on a “partner network” in our area. It also looks like the hotspots shown on their website have similarly poor ratings to the ones Verizon offers.

It just seems like hotspots are a niche market nobody cares about right now, but am still hoping some of the folks on this forum are having some luck with various options, or maybe better reviews of what is available on the major networks.

Starlink would be awesome, and we’re still thinking about the RV style service option for the months when we are in close to full time, but that monthly rate is considerably more than a hotspot for the off months.

 

Have you thought about Musk's Starlink internet service?

 

Not using it personally but I know a fair number of RVers get hotspot internet through the Calyx Institute (https://calyxinstitute.org/membership/internet). You pay an annual fee and get unlimited t-mobile mobile internet.

Before committing, I would check out some reviews. It seems to work for some but not others.

 

I thought that was still in production?

 

I have Visible wireless with hotspot. Havent paid for internet in 3 years. Its slow as shit though, would never work if you wanted to stream HD video or had multiple people on it. But it works for me and i have better coverage than i did with AT&T.

 

The last I heard it was full speed ahead. I want to think someone on the this forum had it.

 

Found it;

https://www.tundras.com/threads/musk-likes-our-starlink-antenna.114433/

 

Squatting Pigeon: hotspot from phone is fine when we're at the cabin, but still need to have internet connectivity for devices at the cabin when we're not there. Also not sure the phone hotspot could hack the distance to all the security cams and the weather station.

Starlink: Absolutely, great system, but at $110/month for year round use it would be a steep upgrade from the $20/month the current hotspot has been costing us (up from the previous $5/month, just Verizon continuing to be greedy)

Calyx: first I've heard of that one, thanks. Their website shows them on T-Mobile, which doesn't have the best coverage at our cabin. Not as much as Starlink, but still a pretty good cost increase, even more for 5G service.

Visible: looks like its all phone based. Didn't see a hotspot device on their website.

This used to be easy, but we've spent a lot of the last two days on the phone and online trying to figure out what to use to replace this service. Anybody running an Orbic or Netgear Nighthawk?

 

At this point there is likely not a functional difference between a dedicated hotspot device and a phone used as a hotspot (main difference being the dedicated hotspot device is also a router). Tmobile and ATT devices are usually interchangeable for SIM cards, so you could purchase a Tmobile 5G hotspot online and then put in an ATT hotspot/regular SIM card to use the ATT network (which Tmobile piggy backs off of too). Verizon is a separate network so its possible ATT is okay there. It is bizarre to me ATT stopped selling regular hotspots, just took a look and sure enough they only sell a car version and a USB plug in version (which may work in your case to plug into a router or small PC/laptop that stays in the cabin).

 

AT&T mobile hotspot for "business" is $65 for unlimited data. Could use wifi repeaters to get the range you need.

 

I have the Nighthawk. It's a pretty capable router but has been dropping some Wifi devices for a few minutes at a time, almost randomly, for several months. I'm checking out the Ubiquiti Dream Router and have it on my Christmas list.

 

I can recommend the nighthawk M1 or for a cheaper 4g option the netgear LM1200, there used to be some cheaper options that worked well but I'm not seeing them anymore.

as far as anyone having issues with dropping signal on newer devices on wifi. make sure you do not have special characters in your wifi password, try using a passphrase and numbers instead. We were having weird drops on devices at work and we changed to a passphrase and its working much better. Some devices don't even support special characters in passwords anymore.

 

Before my house had a good ISP I had to use an LTE-based gateway with a weBoost amp. You can select the carrier based on geography. Unsure of pricing now, but this was around $80/month a few years back.

If you're tech inclined, I would also consider making a device using a Raspberry Pi and a USB LTE modem. This allows you to select your pay as you go SIM supplier (I've used KeepGo in the past). Neat thing here is you only pay for what you need, and if you aren't streaming your camera feeds but only checking in on them, you could really limit your uplink usage when away. When there, if you wanted to pipe that device to a commercial router you could, or use the in-built radios. If range is the issue, run an ethernet with an access point or setup a mesh.

 

If you want to remain carrier agnostic, I would recommend a Cradlepoint device - https://cradlepoint.com/ They are used in many industries (i.e. ATM machines) and are very reliable devices. The latest CP has a 5G option (really an aggregate of 4G), with decent latency and bandwidth.

I would avoid Starlink for reasons I do not want to get into since this is not a political forum....

 

No special characters. Just alphanumeric. And this didn't always happen, but it does happen more on my work laptop when on the VPN, which is required for 75% of my work stuff. My Nighthawk 8500 is a few years old, but it's not "old" yet.

 

Are you using more than one VPN device at the same time? I ask because a lot of VPN clients will use the same MAC address for the virtual adapter when installed. I’m wondering if the Nighthawk is having a problem with different devices having the same MAC address. You could also try putting another “dummy” switch between you and the Nighthawk which would then give your connection learned on a different MAC.

 

No, just one VPN, Cisco AnyConnect on my work Dell. I do occasionally use NordVPN on my personal laptop when on banking sites, and my wife uses a VPN (Cisco again, I think) on her work laptop. I would say it's only when VPN's are in use but it has happened on my personal laptop with no VPN as well. I think the Nighthawk is just dropping the 5 GHz wifi signal. My wired devices do not see any interruption.

 

Sorry for the hijack! That was not my intent!

 

We battled using a Verizon hotspot at our vacation spot but it was terrible. Now using StarLink and it’s been awesome.

 

I've got an ATT hotspot we no longer use. I could hook you up

 

Man i had such problems with the Nighthawk M1, thing just wouldn't charge and when it would charge, it would overheat and give me warning. I really liked the eithernet port on the M1 so i could hook it up to a cheap router and be an easy backup for if/when comcast goes down.
I bought two off ebay that were "for parts" and made it into one, but couldn't get past the charging issue and didn't feel like throwing more money at it for trying a fresh battery.

I went back to old trusty Unite Explore and it just keeps chugging along. I'm still on my "Mobley" plan from ATT, $20 for unlimited.

 

That's good to know, I've only had one of each and they seemed to be ok. there used to be a lot of options on Amazon for small plug in routers with sim card slots around $50-$80. No battery, that would probably be ideal for OP.

 

After a three day battle and ten phone calls we finally spoke to somebody at ATT that got us what we were looking for (though the final phone call to get everything set up took an hour and twenty minutes!). Plan is set up and modem/router is included (Nighthawk M6 Pro). Will see how it work, lots of good reviews, but a few that aren't so great either.

Got all sorts of answers on hotspots from ATT along the way:
1. We don't sell them anymore.
2. We can order them, but its $349, but then couldn't figure out how to get us the data plan.
3. We can order them but they're over $500, call back tomorrow and I can get you an actual price.
4. Just buy one off Amazon then call us back and buy the data plan (the M5 and M6 models are tough to find even on Amazon unless you opt for a "renewed" one or one that's "unlocked" for a premium at $800).
5. Modem is included (Score!).

Our old 4G LTE modem that's no longer being supported was bulletproof. It hasn't faltered in the fifteen months we've had it at the cabin and worked great for several years at our previous house. Apparently the newer ones are a lot more hit and miss.

Obviously some concern with ATT. If it was this difficult just managing to get on board with their service, is it going to get any better once they have our money? Then again, some of our experiences with Verizon over the years were lacking also.