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I was in Hilo Verizon store yesterday getting the new iPhone and found out some interesting info. They have new "share" plans if you have an iPad and a smartphone or a couple of smart phones the new plan is less expensive and gives you unlimited text and talk minutes. You sign up for plans depending on how many gigs you will use per month.
The thing that seems really great is to be able to use the iPhone as a "personal hotspot".
You go to settings on your iPhone and under usage is option for the phone to become hotspot for your computer. So, it seems I can drop my Internet service and use my iPhone personal hotspot to get Internet connection for my laptop and desktop computers. This would really be a savings. You can use it with your older iPads that only run on wiFi too.
Has anyone done this? I would love to let go of the monthly Internet bill if this really works.
This is Puna related because I specifically want to know if anyone in Puna has used this new iPhone personal hotspot successfully in Puna area. Thanks much
hawaiideborah
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Deborah,
This is just another iteration of the wifi service we've offered at our vacation rental for the past 3 years - instead of the MiFi card that we have, similar technology is wired into your iPhone. It works great as long as you can get a good signal and are cautious/cognizant of the amount of bandwidth you are using. One of our renters ran up more than $200 in excess usage charges watching online videos, so just be aware of what you're doing online. Verizon does offer a free notification service that alerts you via text message when you are hitting pre-set limits, which helps (I have mine set to ping me when renters hit 50% and 75% oo my monthly allocation).
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yah this verizon new plan is a total rip off. the amount you are going to end up paying if you use it as a hotspot for your computers will be astronomical if you watch any videos/movies. they know it the greedy pigs and they are out to rip us all off with their little convenient plans. with lte technology it is now cheaper for them to provide data yet they are charging like the Helco, another bloody monopoly strangling this island.
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The personal hotspot is nothing new to Verizon - I've had it for a while. I use it mostly for travelling - still have my internet service at home. It does work as wifi around the house (my wifi unit broke).
I wouldn't consider using it as my sole source of internet at home because I work at my computer several hours a day and need internet access to get anything done. THe personal hotspot is my back up if my regular internet has issues.
The personal hotspot sucks a ton of power from the battery of the phone and it's best to keep your phone plugged in while using the hotspot.
I don;t watch a lot of video or play games.
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Thanks for the good information. Given your posts, I am keeping my Internet service from Oceanic Time Warner cable. It seems the hot spot could work well as backup as needed. So far I have never lost cable service tho.
Thanks for the info. I don't want to worry about my use going over. But it is a neat feature that is on the share plan and is included in the plan even if you don't use the personal hotspot, it is there if you need it. Maybe when traveling and using a laptop away from wifi. Guess you keep the phone plugged in, but at least you could get on the web with your laptop. Pretty cool to have your phone be a hotspot.
hawaiideborah
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Agree that the Verizon data caps for 4G LTE are a total ripoff. Being off grid we are dependent on wireless for internet access and Verizon has the only reliable signal in our location mauka of Pahoa (surprisingly AT&T is quite marginal as evidenced by our son's iPhone experience here). We don't look at videos, much less movies and stick with the news and information sites that we are interested in. However, with 4G speeds allowing more rapid surfing and with modern web pages overloaded with images and videos, it is very easy to build up Verizon's 5 Gb cap (associated with the $59 base rate). From then on it's $10 per Gb over the cap! But we do upload pictures and documents for a couple of web sites and we do get occasional big software updates and the data cap fees go up and up.
Bottom line: if another wireless provider with quality service and either a big data cap, or preferably no cap, were to come on line, we would drop Verizon like a hot rock. We simply do not believe that maintenance of cell towers compares with maintenance of a cable company's wired infrastructure. Yet the cable companies seem to routinely offer either no data cap or a very large one at lower prices than Verizon! And it's not only that we could actually watch a few movies online without further surcharges, but that the next big computer OS update download wouldn't severely reduce down our internet usage for the rest of the month.
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FWIW, AT&T now has similar shared data plans that include using the device (iPad, iPhone) as a hotspot.
Previously they charged separately for the hotspotting.
Expensive, though comparable to Verizon...
Cheers,
Kirt
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Virgin Mobile is what we use off grid for unlimited Internet. They have a capped service through their wireless hotspot, but we use the hotspot feature through the HTC Evo so I get unlimited Internet plus y text and phone service for $50. I just turn the hotspot on and hook my computer right up to the Internet with no problems.
I can watch Netflix, Hulu, etc. with no problems either. They use the Sprint network which might not work well in some places- we are in middle of Hawaiian Acres and it works fine here most of the time.
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Pete,
I don't think maintenance of the towers is the main reason why cellular broadband is so much more expensive - it's more of an issue of the limited capacity of the technology. Before LTE was installed, I recall hearing that 3 or 4 customers using a Slingbox video streamer could overwhelm the capacity of an entire cell tower, and with everyone and their brother wanting to stream more and more videos on more and more mobile and tethered devices, I can see capacity again being a concern. Cellular broadband is primarily marketed as a convenience, allowing access to the internet while on the go. We in Puna only consider it as a primary broadband option because in many cases it's our only option. I agree that the service is expensive and I will drop Verizon Cellular MiFi the minute a more robust and efficient competitor comes along, but until then I'm not inclined to bash companies like Verizon and AT&T that do invest to serve my neighborhood when other, locally regulated players like Hawaiian Tel and Time Warner apparently couldn't care less about our needs.
Disclaimer: I retired after a 26 year career with Verizon
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Frankly, I'm not impressed with Verizon. They are in it to make money (over $1.5 billion profit at 32% margin according to StreetInsider site) and to do so they, much like the banks and credit card companies, tack on as many fees as they can. They made a good bet on LTE technology and like any well-funded technology company they want to be first to implement and maintain a standard. The complaint is that we are getting less than we should and paying more for it as shown in international comparisons, much like the health care financing debate. But it's not just Verizon's profit greed, it's also a non rational and political process in which corporations and political figures go for power grabs and mo' money rather than produce a rational and technocratic solution that actually serves the wider population. This is most exemplified by the slicing and dicing of the EM spectrum as fewer companies try to control more and more bandwidth by paying ever larger sums to spectrum hoarders and the FCC is apparently little able to regulate what's there.
In my opinion, several areas of commerce should be regulated much like the public utility districts we are familiar with from the Pacific Northwest. We simply do not believe that private corporations that control limited resources (bandwidth, electricity, petroleum, etc.) have the broader public's best interest in mind. In the PNW the PUDs focused on providing electricity (and good jobs) efficiently, basically at cost with additions for investment and improvements. Nobody made a profit (rentier) and we had great service. Does HELCO have our broadest interests in mind when they set rates with the PUC? Many don't think so. In our personal case, HELCO seems to have no interest in marching poles 2.5 miles down the road to our local community of probably over a hundred households, all currently off grid. Rural electrification happened on the mainland in the 30's. Not so much here. Do BP and Exxon have our broader interests in mind when they provide $4 a gallon gas? You guess.
Not that any of this will do much good. I'm sure I haven't moved Verizon to provide good service at reasonable rates. But broadband-based communications are more fundamental to society now then ever before. We should be careful about entrusting those capabilities to entities whose only basic purpose is to extract more profits from us.
