Anyone using cellular for home/office internet?

[chazmo]

Hi gang,

Ever since I've thrown away my land-line and stopped using cable-provided TV (I'm 100% streaming), my cable service provides only internet to my house. I.e., the only connection to the miles of cable running through my house is my one cable-modem. Everything else is my home wi-fi.

The service speed for my cable internet is excellent for my purposes (300Mb download). The 10Mb upload speed is not a problem for me. And Spectrum has been very reliable and (mostly) easy to deal with. But, at $80/mo, it's still kinda pricey just for internet access.

Has anyone cut the DSL/cable cords entirely and gone purely with a cellular-based home internet? I'm looking at the availability of T-Mobile's 5G home internet (I have a T-Mobile cellular plan for my phones).

Thoughts? Experience?

Would love to hear if this is something that has worked out for people (or not).

 

[GAD]

Latency is too high for my purposes, but I do use cellular as a backup when cable Internet fails.

 

[chazmo]

Latency is too high for my purposes, but I do use cellular as a backup when cable Internet fails.

Ah, interesting, GAD. Does this affect download "speeds" (i.e. latency between packets), or is this purely and upload/download latency? Is that documented anywhere I can reference?

Oh, and I use my hot-spot from T-Mobile all the time (like right now at my bagel shop). I've even done a zoom meeting through it which worked fine (surprisingly)!!

 

[GAD]

Ah, interesting, GAD. Does this affect download "speeds" (i.e. latency between packets), or is this purely and upload/download latency? Is that documented anywhere I can reference?

Oh, and I use my hot-spot from T-Mobile all the time (like right now at my bagel shop). I've even done a zoom meeting through it which worked fine (surprisingly)!!

Latency is not something the average user cares about unless garbled calls or video come into play. Gamers can sometimes can have issues with latency. If you’ve ever tried to play guitar live with someone over the Internet you quickly notice latency, but for the vast majority of “normal people” usage, latency is not a concern.

 

[AcornHouse]

The only internet available for me is cellular, unless I go satellite. And I’m just beyond the 5G boundary so it’s all 4G. Depending on what you want to do, you should be fine. Streaming and downloads are fine, no real issues. Uploading video can take a good while, unless I drive the mile to get into 5G coverage. Sometimes I do, sometimes I just let them upload at 4G while I do something else.

 

[Wilmywood]

I have used my ATT phone as a hotspot for work, and as a backup for my cable internet when it's FUBAR, but have not as a primary source due to 'throttling' past a certain amount of data per month. Otherwise it works fine, albeit not nearly as fast as the Spectrum cable is.

 

[chazmo]

I have used my ATT phone as a hotspot for work, and as a backup for my cable internet when it's FUBAR, but have not as a primary source due to 'throttling' past a certain amount of data per month. Otherwise it works fine, albeit not nearly as fast as the Spectrum cable is.

Oooh... When you say "throttling," wilmywood, are you saying that AT&T is giving you poor download speeds or do you have some monthly limit on your data plan? I have to find out what I can get with T-Mobile as I do streaming video at my house and I need solid, sustained download speeds. I take it the T-Mobile home plan is not data-plan limited, but I'll have to make sure of that.

 

[chazmo]

The only internet available for me is cellular, unless I go satellite. And I’m just beyond the 5G boundary so it’s all 4G. Depending on what you want to do, you should be fine. Streaming and downloads are fine, no real issues. Uploading video can take a good while, unless I drive the mile to get into 5G coverage. Sometimes I do, sometimes I just let them upload at 4G while I do something else.

Who is your provider, Chris?

I hear the Elon Musk satellite internet is available at least in Washington state. I haven't looked into it from here. I don't think I could trust satellite internet here with the skies in New England.

 

[chazmo]

Latency is not something the average user cares about unless garbled calls or video come into play. Gamers can sometimes can have issues with latency. If you’ve ever tried to play guitar live with someone over the Internet you quickly notice latency, but for the vast majority of “normal people” usage, latency is not a concern.

I think I understand, GAD. So, streaming download speed should be OK, then. I'm still confused because TCP/IP requires acknowledges for each packet, and I thought that everything was round-trip... but I take it something different is done for large/streaming packet transfer. Do you know? I can't be right about each packet being ack'd because then upload latency would affect download latency. Pings take double-digit millisecond latency on my network so something's different for download speed.

But, bottom line sounds like I should investigate. I don't know if my cell service to my house would be strong enough to make it work, but I'll check with T-Mobile.

 

[AcornHouse]

Who is your provider, Chris?

I hear the Elon Musk satellite internet is available at least in Washington state. I haven't looked into it from here. I don't think I could trust satellite internet here with the skies in New England.

StraightTalk/Verizon. Their unlimited plans are fairly inexpensive so no throttling. And satellites usually have limited usage plans. And I don’t intend to give muskrat any of my money if I can help it.

 

[Wilmywood]

Oooh... When you say "throttling," wilmywood, are you saying that AT&T is giving you poor download speeds or do you have some monthly limit on your data plan? I have to find out what I can get with T-Mobile as I do streaming video at my house and I need solid, sustained download speeds. I take it the T-Mobile home plan is not data-plan limited, but I'll have to make sure of that.

By 'throttling' I mean they'll slow it down. I have unlimited usage but throttling takes place after some astronomical number

 

[chazmo]

By 'throttling' I mean they'll slow it down. I have unlimited usage but throttling takes place after some astronomical number

Thanks for the heads-up!

 

[fronobulax]

We have a basic cable tv package with our internet. We do that to get the broadcast stations we watched for 40 years. In the overall scheme of things the money we save would not improve the quality of life so we continue. That is the set up for me being exposed to broadcast tv commercials. There are several, from various providers, that focus on someone who switched to a cellular provider for home internet and regrets the decision. While the commercials are not unbiased they are based up a couple verifiable facts. One is that your service will be highly dependent on your local cellular coverage. Another is that you are in some sense sharing bandwidth with everyone around you so if your neighbors are using it you might get a degraded experience. Lastly it is an explicit published policy of some providers that voice and text traffic has priority over internet. Whether those would be factors where you are (or in five years when you get new neighbors) is for you to decide but it does suggest some questions.

I have looked at tweaking my phone service to replace internet at home. AT&T has a lot of fine print designed to manage performance expectations based upon usage and network load. They will throttle your home speed if the network gets busy. There is also a soft cap on the unlimited plans. After some amount of traffic (maybe 20Gb) during a month they will reduce the speed for the rest of the month. Another kind of data throttling. Also AT&T was picky about equipment and you had to buy something from them for a couple hundred bucks and they noted that the service, with their equipment is not appropriate for home monitoring or alarm systems. May have changed in the past year but it was enough to convince me not to do it and to look at vendors besides AT&T if I changed my mind.

 

[chazmo]

Fro, thanks for that!

AT&T cellular sounds right out. Although what you're talking about doesn't sound at all like it was designed for home internet. Maybe this is the upshot of being a phone company in their past?

I'm going to look into T-Mobile. And to be clear, this isn't really an augmentation of my cellphone service with them, although obviously we're talking about the same type of cellular technology to provide it. All your comments about sharing the phone tower and the bandwidth are relevant. So, far, according to the T-Mobile web site, the service is available here! I'll keep you guys posted.

Since I live in a relatively rural area, by the way, fibre has never been an option for me. I would probably go that way if it were available, even though cable has been great for 25 years at my house.

 

[chazmo]

Looks like some of the complaints are not issues with the T-Mobile plan. I guess we'll see. Doesn't say anything about throttling.

 

[Wilmywood]

I'm actually going to go Starlink if anywhere in the near future, if the costs come down some.

 

[chazmo]

Starlink is cool, wilmywood. I would be wary, though, about the same issues that affect any satellite service. I'm pretty certain that would not work well in my area. Not at all sure how it'd be for you.

My friend outside Seattle has been on Starlink for about 6 months so far. He's very remote, and I haven't heard back from him since January to check up on him.

 

[Stagefright]

I have T-mobile home internet and the it serves the purpose. It can be flakey at times, but the only other option on the farm was 1 MB dsl. Streaming, multiple devices, it’s all good. I recommend it for those living in semi-civilized rural areas.

 

[chazmo]

T-Mobile is offering a 15-day free trial period. I think that's great!

So, I'm talking to them now about what's involved, and what the actual price of my plan would be.... Will report back when there's more to say.

 

[chazmo]

I have T-mobile home internet and the it serves the purpose. It can be flakey at times, but the only other option on the farm was 1 MB dsl. Streaming, multiple devices, it’s all good. I recommend it for those living in semi-civilized rural areas.

Stagefright, are you using T-Mobile for cellular phone service? Mind if I ask you how much more the home internet is costing you monthly?