Community Forums

Bomberguy · 07-28-2022, 08:13 PM

I live about 40 miles south of Fort Worth TX, in a rural area with DSL as my on available wideband. Speed is ok, but not too fast. Worse, the provider keeps raising the rates. While I travel, I rely on my Verizon hotspot...again, not too bad, but the rates keep going up.

Saw a story about Dish's new Project Genesis. They were under a gov't deadline to initiate their service by July 15th (I think) or loose their bandwidth they had contracted for several years ago. At the July Las Vegas tech show Dish announced the initiation of their unlimited 5G service...for $30 a month for the 5G phone, or $20 a month for their unlimited 5G hotspot service.

I checked into it, and my address was supported by their 5G...so I bought their hotspot (a requirement)...a NETGEAR MR6400, and signed up for the $20 unlimited data plan.

About 5 days later it showed up, and after a few hickups, it is working like a champ. Compared to my DSL service, this 5G is blazing fast. I plan to run it hard for a few days to see if I can use it for my whole house system. I am also hoping I can replace my Verizon hotspot that is also getting more and more expensive to operate and it only provides 4G at its best. The challenge there will be the new Dish 5G coverage....it is obviously going to take a while to build out....but at $20 bucks a month for unlimited 5G I'm willing to take the chance.

Have a few trips planned over the next few months up to OK, then SC, and then MS. We will see how the coverage works.

Since they are just rolling this system out I fully expect limited coverage as I'm traveling. I will keep my other hotspot and use as necessary. My goal is to ditch my Verizon hotspot, kill that monthly bill and live large on my savings!

dpickens01 · 07-29-2022, 07:26 PM

It is my understanding that it is only available in 120 cities so curious to hear how it works for you when traveling. Please keep us informed.
I did sign up for when it is available in my city.

Bomberguy · 07-29-2022, 10:28 PM

Will do!

Bomberguy · 08-01-2022, 07:49 AM

Just flew to Minneapolis and then on to Ft Myers Florida. Turned on and used my NetGear 5G and it worked perfectly at both cities. 5 bars and unlimited data. So far, so good.

Bomberguy · 08-04-2022, 05:28 PM

Flew into LaGuardia airport and while waiting on the next aircraft, turned on and used the hotspot. I had 5 bars but only got 4G service. Seemed solid, just not as quick as 5G service. On to Detroit at the airport there, and again 5 bars, but only 4G service. I will admit I was surprised at the results from both the NY and Detroit locations.

For clarification, in the previous post above I mention Ft Myers along with several airports. All my reports were from those specified airports. However, my test in Ft Myers was while I stayed in a condo at the zip 33919 for about a week.

Camper25 · 08-04-2022, 07:29 PM

Not available in my area, but even 4G unlimited for $20 sounds like a good deal to me.

rdavis0521 · 08-15-2022, 10:34 AM

I too am roughly in the DFW area (just north of Fort Worth in Denton) and got on the plan shortly after it was announced.

I just returned from 6 weeks on an RV trip around many states. I used the Project Genesis service many times during that 6 weeks (along with Starlink RV) and for the most part it worked reliably well. I didn't do a lot of speed tests, as my goal was to be able to stream TV while on the road, and I've had issues in doing just that previously.

The best speed test I saw was about 90 Mbits down. I just got the Netgear out today, and fired it up, first time in a couple of weeks. Only getting 4 Mbits down, 0.1 up here inside my home.

Overall was happy with it, as it served the purpose I wanted. A little disappointed in today's speeds, I will admit.

Starlink RV worked wonderfully well on the trip too.

I wish the was a support forum or FB group for sharing experiencers with PG, but I was lucky to find this thread today.

Ray

quick edit: ran a couple more speed tests and got between 25-30 Mbits down up to 3 Mbits up..

Bomberguy · 12-08-2022, 01:49 PM

I've been traveling on and off for the last 4 months and have had good results with the Project Genesis Hotspot. It is a Netgear and has worked as I rolled down the interstates of I-40 east from Shawnee OK, to Nashville ending up on I 20 on our way to Florence SC. From Myrtle beach where the hotspot worked fine for a week stay, we headed back to Dallas/FW via I20 the whole way...again, the hotspot worked well while traveling. About two weeks later we headed east again to Biloxi MS taking I20 to I10 and then used I-10 to Biloxi. all the way. Internet on the road was just fine. I have been here about a week and it has 5 bars and 5G the whole time. I just leave it turned on continuously, plugging it as necessary to keep it fully charged.

About once a day, if I am not using the hotspot, (as I mentioned, I just leave it on) it will seem to go to sleep and I have to restart it to get it active again. Otherwise, it works about as well as my home wifi system.

I have been able to stream the Thursday prime video football game each of the last few weeks with no problem. If I don't update my local channels on the road, I can go to my home dish satellite system and watch any of my home channels or recorded shows....streaming them through my hotspot. I have to use Chrome to do this...a dish requirement, but it works fine. Thursday night Amazon Prime video streams just fine with my normal Firefox internet browser.

Bottomline, so far I have been please with my Project Genesis hotspot....unlimited data for $20 a month. Have yet to find a spot where it didn't work in the Southeast US....from DFW east to SC.