Mobile internet for $30 monthly - Tmobile

[offroad]

So please watch this video of a person who has basically set up his use of Tmobile 4G LTE as a home network. You could spend as little as $30 monthly. You do need to be near a tmobile cell tower.

You could replicate this in your van-RV-car.

1) 5Gigs of data limit per month at 4GLTE speed (typically 10GB speed test result download).
2) The tmobile simm cards work in android phones. Cost is $30 per month. (simm cards are a penny if you order through a referal link)
3) Yes you need some routers that will throttle your bandwidth (that use the tomato third party OS on the router). This is to stop Tmobile from throttling you.
4) One movie is 1GB usually streamed via Netflix as an SD quality movie. Dont use HD as that just means more of your monthly data allotment used up.

 

[RVTravel]

Against Tmobile terms of service.

 

[offroad]

The terms of service are against SUPREME COURT decision. Think you are referring to TETHERING without paying a fee. Verizon got into trouble a couple years ago, and to satisfy the Supreme Court ruling they made tethering no cost on all their accounts. You buy the data, you get to do what you want, on verizon.

Yes I know many will just say NO TETHERING without paying. Yes you are at risk to have your $30 per month account terminated. Where you only get 5gigs data.

*******

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Would like the discussion to focus on low cost 4G LTE data distribution. Whatever is within TOS as vetted through Supreme Court rulings. If that's possible.

 

[PastTense]

The number one criteria for buying mobile internet is if you have reception in the areas you are traveling in. T-mobile is poor in this criteria in remote rural areas--the places most here want to travel.

 

[compassrose]

just got back from Wal-Mart. Tracfone has a no contract hotspot. $15 per month for 1 gig. You may want to look into it. I didn't catch how much data. I'm running Netzero hotspot... $20 for 1 GB. I only use my hotspot for when park wi-fi is down (like right now). I try to use it once a month since I pay whether I use it or not. I don't like that. I will probably look into the Tracfone and unless my data needs change, I will change over to the Tracfone.

 

[offroad]

What cell phone towers to TRACFONE and NETZERO use?

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Maybe this article helps http://www.prepaidphonenews.com/2011/12/how-to-get-tracfone-net10-or-straight.html?m=1

 

[Lucky mike]

Verizon...sprint .....Tracfone and walmart are the same , I use tracfone for calls , cant beat 7 bucks a month!

 

[offroad]

They are not the same. Please look at coverage maps. Verizon and Sprint are not the same at all.

 

[compassrose]

Tracfone/Net 10 and Netzero rent "space" off the main carriers cell towers. That means in some places they are running on Sprint, other places Verizon and in many places on more than one carrier. In Roswell, Tracfone is on Verizon. I know this because the Sprint tower went down and everyone on the south end of town with Sprint had no cell service. My daughter has Net 10 monthly plan (also Tracfone under a different name) and her system runs on Sprint towers. She has great service in Socorro, but 150 miles away in Roswell, it's non-existant. And coverage maps lie for western states. We use Tracphone cells (double minutes for life of phone) and buy a 60, 90, or 200 minutes card every so often. We do not use our phones much. We have gone for over a month without getting a single call on them. Our kids tend to use e-mail as we all work all kinds of hours.

 

[Lucky mike]

They are not the same. Please look at coverage maps. Verizon and Sprint are not the same at all.

Walmart and Tracfone are the same entity......walmart even states it on its paperwork....website....and all there brochures.

coverage maps mean nothing....they buy airtime bulk from all the major carriers , so it will depend on where your at as to who the carrier will be.

Tracfone is on the market under 17 different names depending on the region your in.....

in fact if you are in the southwest Tracfone has a plan for smoke signals by the minute......Cell service sucks anywhere in the dessert!!

 

[offroad]

Well lack of customers, mountains, and distance is kind of limiting to installing cell towers in the desert.

Then you start thinking wifi and satellite.

 

[Lucky mike]

I have a satellite phone on board for emergency use....but now I dont go further west than the Mississippi River......seen all I needed to see over there and my money making adventures are better over here.

I have found alot of secluded boondocking spots along the east coast...not to mention theres a walmart about every 20 miles!!!!......and cell service is available everywhere

 

[highdesertranger]

walmarts every 20 miles. cell service everywhere. no thank you, to many people, to civilized. highdesertranger

 

[compassrose]

Sorry, the hotspot I saw in Wal-Mart was not Tracfone but Straight Talk. 1 gig for $15, 2 gig $25, 4 gig $40 & 5 gig $50. Gizmo itself is $79. It will not work in Roswell, NM. Look at the map and see where it will work. Since we are heading back east, there is a good chance it will be what we end up with. Maybe.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Straight-Talk-WiFi-Mobile-HotSpot-3G/30824075

 

[Lucky mike]

the hotspot from Walmart ....the black square one on straittalk is verizon.....the small credit card silver one is sprint.......I have the sprint one its not a bad deal if you use alot of WiFi and use it for back up...a 50 dollar card has 90 days and rolls over unused portions .....it works real well in a wilson cradle with the external trucker antenna!!!

 

[offroad]

Have to look for the black one on eBay. Sounds like a great alternative.

 

[skydivevandweller]

A word of warning: tmobile service SUCKS outside of major metropolitan areas. I'm in Charlotte, NC (a large city) right now and sometimes I don't even get service in parts of the city.

I'm going to be switching to verizon as soon as the next iPhone comes out. I'm fed up with the coverage of tmob.

 

[jeanontheroad]

Watch Tmobile if you move around in the west. I have tmobile and loved it ... when I was stationary in a major urban area in Florida. Out here, it's the pits. A lot of their coverage out here is through subcontractors. They consider you to be roaming if you are on a sub's system. You get 500 MEGS roaming per month, whether you are actually paying for 8 GIGS a month as I was or not. When I told them that was not acceptable, they offered to up my highspeed limit for $10 A DAY! Fortunately, I can use Wolf's Verizon hotspot. I am going to take a beating on the trade in ($150 for a Samsung Galaxy S4), but as soon as we get near a Verizon store, I am switching to Verizon.

 

[offroad]

This is something I keep having a hard time understanding. Roaming. It's tmobile towers everywhere. Is that what the coverage maps show? Actually I think not. The maps show what the local coverage will be in your local area. If your travel beyond your local county coverage, you are now roaming. Which is effectively outside your county and not allowed. Typically your data connection is dropped to non useful slowest speed.

You might be able to still have voice coverage. And text. But that's it.

 

[LeeRevell]

Got my Galaxy SIII for $50 two years ago, just after the S4 came out. It has more features than I will ever use. Could not justify the extra C-note for the newer phone. I'll use it til it doesn't work any more. My Verizon plan is okay, only find a few low spots out in the woods here that give me no service. And forget using it in the concrete & steel parking garage - but in less than a week I retire so that is of no concern.
I am on a 3-Gig plan now. Had 1 Gig, nearly topped out one month, so I opted to go to 2 Gig, Verizon offered to add another Gig free. No worries, as I don't stream video or music.
I used to say "I don't need a Smart Phone, just need it for emergencies!" Thought only making calls was necessary. Now I hardly ever use it for calls, but I do a LOT of e-mail and forum surfing! And a lot of Wiki and Googling! I love this gadget.