I currently have DSL and a home phone (Land line?). I'm about to pull the trigger on an iPhone with a 2 year contract with Verizon. A guy at work tells me I can not only cut off my home phone, but the DSL as well and I can access the internet on my iMac via my iPhone as a "WiFi hotspot". Can anyone confirm this? I don't do too much downloading, but my sole source of entertainment is streaming Netflix and Hulu.
Any tech savvy folks out there?
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It's a extra service you can pay for called "tethering". With all of the American carriers, this involves small caps and big charges if you exceed them. Streaming a lot of video, you'll burn through that in no time, unfortunately.
aiptasia
Well-Known Member
Yes, and yes. However, it depends on Verizon as to how enjoyable your streaming will be. Verizon may be one of the companies that decides to throttle back it's 4G speeds or charge a lot more for unlimited bandwidth. Make sure you check that out before committing to turning off the DSL.
Jeremy_N
Well-Known Member
MalFet said:
+1
Tethering probably costs an extra 15-25 per month and Verizon has data limits. I am on Sprint with unlimited data.
I haven't done it, but I think you can "jail break" the iPhone which would allow you to install third party software that lets you broadcast a wifi hotspot (pdanet) for a small one time fee. But again, you have the data limit problem. I also heard the each new iOS makes it harder to "jail break" and maybe even not at all with the newest version.
In summary, I would not recommend using your phone for your home wireless Internet mainly do to your data limit. Unless Sprint an option and they still have the unlimited plans.
Tethering is not really for daily home use. Not to mention it murders your phone battery.
And people get popped all the time using jailbreak utilities that allow them to illegally tether their devices. I wouldn't mess with either tether options personally.
And people get popped all the time using jailbreak utilities that allow them to illegally tether their devices. I wouldn't mess with either tether options personally.
Well, it seems that my "friend" at work was wrong. Like I said in my first post, he claimed the phone is a WiFi hotspot and I'd have no worries running my desktop Mac off of it. I even asked him if I would have to get anything "extra" with my phone plan. Even if this did work, it seems like if I streamed 2 hours of Netflix every day, I would be over on data (4GB) in no time. Back to the drawing board I guess. I don't know how people can afford so many expensive monthly payments. The phone will cost me $90, and my current DSL/phone bundle costs me $90. When I drop the land line, the DSL will still cost $50 a month.
Just a fyi, it may depend on the plan. I'm on the share everything plan on Verizon with my wife and I having iphone 5's and 4GB of sharable data. It costs me nothing extra to enable and use personal hotspot on my iphone.
I have found however that personal hotspot is noticeably slower than just LTE (4G) on the phone. I can work on it, and did so while being bored to tears in the DMV today but it's not a sufficient replacement for a home broadband. Considering my household consumes 140gb+ a month in data I couldn't pay that cell bill
Just a fyi, it may depend on the plan. I'm on the share everything plan on Verizon with my wife and I having iphone 5's and 4GB of sharable data. It costs me nothing extra to enable and use personal hotspot on my iphone.
I have found however that personal hotspot is noticeably slower than just LTE (4G) on the phone. I can work on it, and did so while being bored to tears in the DMV today but it's not a sufficient replacement for a home broadband. Considering my household consumes 140gb+ a month in data I couldn't pay that cell bill
That is also helpful. I plan on getting the 4GB (or 6GB) share everything plan for my wife and I.
But like you said, the bottom line is that the phone doesn't sound like a viable alternative to my current DSL hookup.
Thanks again to all that replied. IT/cellular is not one of my strong suits!
hoppyhoppyhippo
Well-Known Member
I work for a Verizon reseller, so I've studied plans a jillion times.
I wouldn't replace your home internet. Simply because of quantity of data. I have no TV or Phone but pay 50 bucks a month for internet at my home considering I use probably 100+ GB a month, it's well worth it.
Verizon sells the home broadband thing and they start the plans at 10 GB but recommend 20.
Anyway, I would call Verizon at home (or whoever your DSL company is) and tell them you want to lower your bill and if they aren't willing ot you're considering switching to cable or something like that.
I wouldn't replace your home internet. Simply because of quantity of data. I have no TV or Phone but pay 50 bucks a month for internet at my home considering I use probably 100+ GB a month, it's well worth it.
Verizon sells the home broadband thing and they start the plans at 10 GB but recommend 20.
Anyway, I would call Verizon at home (or whoever your DSL company is) and tell them you want to lower your bill and if they aren't willing ot you're considering switching to cable or something like that.
hoppyhoppyhippo
Well-Known Member
If you have mob ties can you get them to knock down my stupid internet? It's criminal what these companies get away with. Someone who lives in an area with Fios can pay 20-30 bucks less than I do for Cable.
You can tether but you will have to take some precautions. I'm jailbroken and have a program to make my laptop "look" like an iPhone, At least to AT&T. My phone had the tethering option from the factory, I didn't have to install it. I bought the phone outright so it was factory "unlocked". I have never had any problem with them questioning my usage. I don't have an issue with data. I'm on an old unlimited plan.
DrewBrew08
Well-Known Member
I actually automate scripts to test products like this. I also happen to work for a cell phone company here in Mississippi. With our service, yes it does cost $20 for 1GB to tether. Complete rip off I know. We use a company called Openwave that directs this traffic and they detect your browser type / verison or any other HTTP agent. So if you were to connect your PC to your phone, then select the browser (on your PC) and you are running say Firefox 10 or even IE9, it detects this in the provisioning server. So.... there is a way around it, you can simply change your user agent. Example of this is going to Firefox, typing about:config and changing it there. I've noticed on my wife's Macbook Pro, there is an option to change your browser type. With hers, i can just change it to Operamini and it will work for me. Hope this helps, yet it may not since it is Verizon (depending on how they handle the traffic)
Cheers
Cheers
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