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Ask Slashdot: Best Option For a Touring Band With Mobile Data?

Posted by BeauHD on from the magical-mystery-tour dept.

New submitter SEMLogistics writes: I'm working with a well-known rock band, that is not based in the U.S., and has an upcoming U.S. tour this fall. The issue they always run into, however, is when renting a tour bus and traveling with 12 to 14 people, they consistently blow through data allowances set by the bus company. This leads to tremendously expensive overages, and greatly throttled data. "When chartering a Nightliner tour bus, travel companies only typically allow for 10GB data a month. With 12 people, downloading music and streaming movies, we can easily exceed 12GB a day! This leads to thousands of dollars every month in overages!"

Slashdot, help! Are there any good mobile hotspot options with unlimited data, and monthly contracts (I haven't found any), or other alternatives than to simply be held a data-hostage?

1 of 203 comments (clear)

  1. buy your phone and data at walmart at 4am by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm in an Indy band from AU that is touring the US again this year (toured last 4 years), and we're definitely not famous/well known and we don't get a bus, we get a u-haul :-) We have to keep it cheap because airfare is $$.

    We go to walmart, we all buy SIM and cheap phone packages, generally AT&T cos they have better coverage where we tour.

    There's unlimited data on a few plans, but they can't be tethered (bummer) but 1 month unlimited phone calls and data was like $70 last year. Not bad. Speed was good and alternatively, WIFI is ubiquitous. We spent the first tour in carpark at McDonalds comping their wifi to contact home, so you have options.

    Considering that a bus costs a crap load per day (yes I know the figures) and you've got 12 people on the move, it's hard for me to imagine that your Data costs are a Tour Killer, but yeah you don't have to get ripped off and the Yanks are deffo a Caveat Emptor bunch, if you don't know better, you'll pay more.

    If you're blowing through that much data, may we also suggest looking out the window for a bit instead of downloading Fap Content :-) Turns out the US is quite pretty in places, especially if you like Corn.