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Viability of Mobile Broadband For Home Use?

Posted by timothy on from the does-the-question-answer-itself dept.

mighty7sd writes "I am about to be released from my contract with Time Warner for my home internet service, and I am evaluating alternatives to my current cable modem setup. I would love to use AT&T U-Verse or Verizon Fios, but they are not available in my area. I have a good idea of the costs and limitations of Cable and DSL service, so I am considering using mobile broadband for my home internet connection. Most providers seems to cap the connection at 5 GB of data transfer per month. I am a relatively heavy internet user using streaming video and a web server, so I need decent down/upload speeds and a large data transfer cap. Has anyone in the /. community had a good experience using mobile broadband cards at their home, specifically with lots of streaming video or a home server? What has happened if you have gone over your data transfer limit? Cricket Wireless is available in my area for $40 per month with 'unlimited' service, but I am skeptical that it is truly reliable and unlimited. I also found products that act as a WiFi router for mobile broadband services, but it seems that this is against most carriers TOS. Can they really detect these, and are they comparable to a wired broadband router?"

4 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. Works for some by avm · · Score: 5, Informative

    I did it for a number of months using Sprint and a USB Sierra Wireless Compass dongle (not sure of the model number, but it did work in Linux).

    It worked for me, but there is a 5Gb/mo cap and would probably not fit your usage. Reliable, reasonably fast for what it is, worked flawlessly in XP and Ubuntu, and really gave me nothing to complain about.

    1. Re:Works for some by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 4, Informative

      I did it for over a year, and actually experienced service termination due to a bandwidth cap. Verizon terminated my contract (waiving the early termination fee) after I downloaded over 20GB in one month. I believe 20GB is the *real* cap. However, Verizon was later sued in a class action for false advertising. As a result, I believe they temporarily stopped terminating people.

      As for stuff like streaming video, running a server, or using P2P, that's all prohibited by the TOS but not enforced. In real life they will only terminate you for bandwidth use.

      This info is all slightly out of date though, it's been a year or so since I used this stuff. Up-to-date info about Verizon and Sprint's actual practices (as opposed to what the TOS says) is available on many web forums like EVDO Forums.

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
  2. Re:Signal strength check by sopssa · · Score: 5, Informative

    I used my phone company's 3g connection for inet access after I moved apartments and had to wait 3 weeks for the adsl to be installed.

    Unlimited 5mbit costed 30e/month and worked quite well, tho pings in online games were around 250-400ms (usually 50ms or so). After the 3 weeks period I had used 48GB of bandwidth.

    The only issue is prolly the latency, which isnt so nice in multiplayer games. I live in scandinavia, so I dont know how its in USA tho. But for people in here, its a great alternative.

  3. For ATT by moniker127 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here is the information for ATT aircards:

    Aircards: Sierra Wireless 885, 881, 881u, Option GT Ultra, Ultra Express, Quicksilver
    5 GB/month
    60 Dollars / Month
    700kbps-1.7 mbps down, ~200 ping to google (on 3g)
    75kbps-125kbps down, ~300 ping to google (on 2g)


    When you go over 5 gigs, data useage is charged at half a cent per KB, but service will be turned off as soon as it is detected by the switch (which can take anywhere from an hour to a week, or forever)

    Coverage map:
    http://www.wireless.att.com/coverageviewer/

    Phone support: 1-800-331-0500 (24 hours).