PHONE/INTERNET TECHNICAL QUESTION

Granny

Granny

One day at a time...
Joined
Jun 12, 2007
Location
Cabarrus County (Rimertown)
I live out in the country. I get my home phone/internet service via Windstream (landline). During the mornings, when kids are in school, internet service is decent. When the kids are home, the internet speed drops to a point of being worthless. Screen grab below shows an example: (this was done in the evening this past weekend)
windstream.png


There is no other provider in my area. Windstream is the only choice we have.

My wife and I have cellpones covered by Verizon, but Verizon is weak at my home. Go a mile in either direction and service gets pretty good.

I recently discovered my son uses Virgin Mobile and, much to my surprise, he gets both good voice and data quality even inside the house, and it only costs him $35 a month for the plan he is on.

Based on the above here is my question:

Is there a way I could use this same type service and be able to get two laptops connected to the internet with it? I know the inlimited data is throttled after so much usage, but I cannot help but wonder if Virgin's throttled data wouldn't be better than what I am getting from Windstream for $70+ a month. I have no doubt that some of you guys/gals out there can figure this stuff out... and I will be grateful for any advice! ThanX!!!
 
Virgin is a whole owned subsidiary of Sprint these days. That means Sprint should work at your place same way Virgin does.

From there its just a matter of getting a Sprint or Virgin plan and then either a wifi hotspot or tethering trough a smart phone.

Sprint is doing some aggressive marketing with bill rates right now so they may save you a bundle.

Now you might find that Sprint doesnt work anywhere but your house, in which case you could keep verizon and have a separate sprint phone just for home internet.

Sprint still has unlimited data plans without throttling as well, I think.

But to answer the basic qustio what you want is called a wifi hotspot. It can be a standalone device or many phones can do it built in
 
OK... here's a follow-up on this. I think it cost him $3 extra to test it out, but anyway, my son set his phone up as a router and connected to his laptop. The connection speed was actually worse than what I get with Windstream. However, when the data was going straight to his phone the speed was great. So... I guess this was just another of those brilliant ideas that just doesn't work. Looks like I will just have to be happy with Windstream. :(

Thanks, Ron & Ben for the replies! :beer:
 
Granny said:
OK... here's a follow-up on this. I think it cost him $3 extra to test it out, but anyway, my son set his phone up as a router and connected to his laptop. The connection speed was actually worse than what I get with Windstream. However, when the data was going straight to his phone the speed was great. So... I guess this was just another of those brilliant ideas that just doesn't work. Looks like I will just have to be happy with Windstream. :(

Thanks, Ron & Ben for the replies! [emoji481]
Click to expand...
What was he using to tether? I bet that was his limitation. A wifi Hotspot is a different animal.
 
paradisePWoffrd said:
What was he using to tether? I bet that was his limitation. A wifi Hotspot is a different animal.
Click to expand...

He didn't tether. His phone was set up as a wireless router. I could see it as a wireless network on my laptop, but didn't connect to it as I was already well into a download.
 
Granny said:
He didn't tether. His phone was set up as a wireless router. I could see it as a wireless network on my laptop, but didn't connect to it as I was already well into a download.
Click to expand...

Depend on who you ask, that is still tethering. Some of the bandwidth could have been lost through his phone. Whatever speeds he is seeing on his phone, you should also be able to see with a hotspot device. If he hasnt yet, have him run a speed test on his phone to see the speeds he is getting.

If all you use your internet on is the laptop, an air card/dongle is another option.

Here is a hotspot from Virgin and their rates: http://www.virginmobileusa.com/shop/mobile-broadband/broadband-2-go/netgear-mingle/features/#plan
Heres what Sprints plans would run with a wifi device: http://shop.sprint.com/mysprint/sho...pt_data_plans_tab&INTNAV=ATG:HE:DataOnlyPlans

The biggest difference with mobile wifi service, they have limited data usage. If all you do is surf the web, you will likely be ok. If you watch movies online, it wont last long.
 
^^^ Appreciate the info... I am going to investigate this a little further before dropping the $$$. Even though my son seems to be getting pretty good service on his phone, the Sprint/Virgin maps show that my address is in a non-coverage area. Right now I am hoping I can bump into someone in our area who has a Sprint/Virgin hotspot who would be willing to see what it will do at my place.
 
Keep in mind that hotspots only have to do one thing well, where smartphones are a compromise of 10 & what can be crammed into the package. Several times I've seen excellent signal & speeds from a hotspot in the places that numerous brands/models of phone were dropped to 1x (phone only) signal...

Also, fought the same Windstream crap for the past year. *Used* to have decent bandwidth 99% of the time, but starting back in May '14 was near unusable, dropping totally out 1-2 times EVERY day 1200-1400 and "when the neighborhoodlums (kids) were home". They made good on refunding the up-charge for 5MB tier... when they decided after a year I was 100' "out of bounds" and dropped it back to 3MB. Several dozen tech calls running all the lines with T-birds, swapping modems, running diags back to the vault/CO... pffft! They refused to admit over-subscription... the only explanation, given the results of their testing.

Back in November, pulled in an Earthlink cable circuit (20MB/2MB) to "test"... Windstream was disco'd 4 weeks later. Has been rock solid for 4 months *and* is HALF what WS charged for their crappiness :D
 
Followup... Finally, a solution! My grandson was visiting a couple weeks ago, and had a T-Mobile phone with him. We were all outdoors and he had the phone laying on the picnic table. I gave it a quick glance, then did a double-take as it was showing 6 bars of 4G LTE. That is/was unheard of in my area. I immediately told him to grab that phone and follow me! We went indoors... 5-6 bars in every room. The following Monday morning I went to the T-Mobile store. I now have a 4G LTE Hotspot with 7 GB of data, and a small, cheap phone to replace our house phone. It is prepaid with unlimited talk & text. I am paying $15 more than I was with Windstream, but to us it is worth every penny. If I go over my 7 GB of 4G LTE I will get throttled, but I honestly believe the throttled T-Mobile will still be of a better speed than what Windstream gave me during the evening hours. Presently, we are just waiting to get the home phone number switched to the T-Mobile phone, then it will be "bye-bye" to Windstream.
 
Don, seems you have made your decision, but just wondered if you have checked Dish Net., or others. It's sent by satellite. I Did check reviews on Hughes Net, a while & the reviews were terrible. As for internet, I started & still with AT&T.
Started as a DSL, but last year they switched me to U-Verse. Same price, 6.0 speed, $37 mo. I don't know my limits, but I've been happy with it.
 
^^^ Satellite TV in my area comes bundled with Windstream for internet... the same sorry-assed service I am now getting rid of. Windstream tech-support tells me, "thank you for being a loyal customer for 30 years, we're sorry you've never had good service, but maybe in about 3 more years we can do better." In the mean time, "you are stuck with what we give you, and NO, we are sorry, but we can't lower your rate just because we are unable to provide you with the service you are paying for." Any more questions? :)
 
Satellite is typically one-way (downstream) which is high-latency, or two-way (which is expensive). Not really a good option unless there are no other options.
 
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