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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. Signal strength check by NewmanKU · · Score: 5, Insightful

    First thing to check is to make sure you get a decent mobile signal at and inside your home. If the tower is too far away you'll get horrible throughput rates.

  2. No by chill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    I'm almost certain that running a server would be against the ToS, and yes it is fairly easy to detect. Hmmm...incoming Port 80/443 traffic...

    I know a couple people who've switched to mobile broadband for their main link, but they are not heavy users. Checking e-mail, searching Google, general web browsing, yes. Frequent streaming media? Not unless it is postage stamp sized.

    And Cricket's data plan isn't 3G so it would be a dog.

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  3. Er, why are you considering this? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While it has its virtues (notably the "mobile" part), mobile "broadband" is otherwise a hell of a mess. Higher latency than wired, generally higher cost than wired, almost definitely lower caps than wired, and, under any but the best conditions, slower than wired(of similar price, I'm not talking netzero dialup).

    If you are on the road most of the time, or need an ISP now, not in three weeks when the cable guy gets off his ass and install, then fine. But why would a self described heavy user even consider going with it for home use?

  4. huh??? by massysett · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have a good idea of what the costs and limitations of Cable and DSL service,

    So you are...considering getting something even more expensive, even slower, and with even tighter caps than the worse cable caps?

    ???

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