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Old 04-28-2020, 06:28 PM   #1
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Wifi Help

Greetings all. We have a Verizon MiFi for the RV which is throttled after 10 GBs which allows for emergency business on a laptop and works adequately, kinda. Our sticks & bricks is rural with only 2 options, satellite (no thanks) or our wireless provider that charges us premium for service one tier above dial-up which throttles after 30GBs which we use 10X that per month. I was hearing good things about the Netgear Nighthawk but am to understand that recently Verizon, AT&T, etc have shut that down. Researching 4GAS.com antenna company. I've found there availability map and product PDF's but can't seem to find a website to actually purchase or talk to anyone. I need suggestions please. We live in rural AZ just south of Sedona.
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Old 04-29-2020, 08:28 AM   #2
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Since you live in an area served by Verizon, I suggest looking at Visible by Verizon which is a low-cost unlimited service that's been operating for ~6 months. Rather than using hotspots, you use the hotspot and/or tether feature of a phone. Hotspots can only be connected to a single device but that's easily overcome by using a router. The cost is $40/mo. There's a very long thread on IRV2 about Visible that you can find here: https://www.irv2.com/forums/f53/40-m...ed-442091.html
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Old 04-29-2020, 11:07 AM   #3
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TY I'll talk with Verizon when I go to town. I've read a number of threads here and they are either older or require some understanding of the subject. Unfortunately I'm a techtard.
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Old 04-29-2020, 11:21 AM   #4
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Visible is an On-line only service. All communications is Chat, eMail or phone call requested by eMail or Chat. Verizon won't be able to help you with it.

Visible uses Verizonwireless LTE and doesn't allow roaming or fall back to 3G services.

This winter I used it very successfully all over Arizona. I can highly recommend it.

With Party Pay you can get Unlimited data for $25/month

https://www.visible.com/
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Old 04-30-2020, 06:56 AM   #5
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As you said John H, the folks at Verizon knew nothing of visible. I did find it online. I'm looking at it know and will research more before I ask more questions but am currently confused on whether this will work for our needs. We generally run 1-2 laptops plus a smart TV. I'll get back to y'all in a few days.
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Old 04-30-2020, 08:23 AM   #6
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As you said John H, the folks at Verizon knew nothing of visible. I did find it online. I'm looking at it know and will research more before I ask more questions but am currently confused on whether this will work for our needs. We generally run 1-2 laptops plus a smart TV. I'll get back to y'all in a few days.
Visible is like all the "low cost unlimited" plans. They are network managed and rank lower on the prioritization schemes than the postpaid plans. In my experience they are adequate for web-surfing by a couple of computers and you can stream on them "some of the time."

If you require streaming 24/7 then you may want to consider having more than one internet connection. For example, I use three low-cost, unlimited cellular connections along with my park's wifi in a load balancing router. This, pretty much, assures me of the ability to stream all the time.

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Old 05-01-2020, 08:59 PM   #7
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Visible reviews are fairly sketchy. A lot of unhappy people.
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Old 05-02-2020, 09:38 AM   #8
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Visible reviews are fairly sketchy. A lot of unhappy people.
With all due respect, IMO Visible is no better and no worse than most other "network managed" low cost plans. At times there are very good speeds and at other times it can be pretty bad.

There's a very lengthy IRV2 thread on Visible in which there are lots of pleased subscribers and some unhappy ones. Rather than simply casting aspersions on Visible, you can read some actual user experiences here: https://www.irv2.com/forums/f53/40-m...ed-442091.html

As I have stated multiple times, IMO the "trick" to living with low-cost unlimited cell plans is to have a couple of them and to use them in a router capable of combining them by load balancing or by bonding. I'm not touting one particular brand of router; there are a number of brands that can perform these functions.

The bottom line is that if you try load balancing several connections you can achieve success with streaming even when your download speeds are relatively slow. I currently use 3 cellular connections load balanced with my RV park's WiFi. The other night we were getting a pretty decent (~SD) video even though each of the connections had speeds <1 Mbps.

Essentially, what load balancing does is make my four 1 Mbps connections look like a connection with a speed greater than any of the individual connections. It's not quite as good as connection bonding, but neither is it quite as complicated.

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Old 05-02-2020, 11:21 AM   #9
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Will this method work with NO provider, just phones? I have heard of equip' that allows you to be your own IP address. Another idea is if anyone knows of a knowledgeable person in N. AZ that could be hired to implement a solution.
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Old 05-02-2020, 12:16 PM   #10
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Will this method work with NO provider, just phones? I have heard of equip' that allows you to be your own IP address. Another idea is if anyone knows of a knowledgeable person in N. AZ that could be hired to implement a solution.
This approach will work with any phones that can be used as hotspots and/or be USB-tethered, which is most of them.

I don't know what you mean by "not having a provider"? A working phone, by definition, has a cellular provider.

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Old 05-02-2020, 06:41 PM   #11
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Forgive my ignorance. What I meant was our current internet provider to the house, similar to you mentioning the service at the RV spot you're at besides the phones you employ. Bottom line is I'm looking to replace my current service and am concerned that as bad as it is I don't want to replace it with something that doesn't improve that service. Adding 2-3 phones and still having to keep our current internet provider is not something I wish to do.
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Old 05-02-2020, 07:47 PM   #12
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Our sticks & bricks is rural with only 2 options, satellite (no thanks) or our wireless provider that charges us premium for service one tier above dial-up which throttles after 30GBs which we use 10X that per month.
Have you looked at - AT&T FIXED WIRELESS INTERNET
https://www.att.com/internet/fixed-wireless/

I used the this plan "it was not rural, so was limited to 100gig per mt" for 6 to 9 mts. It's for home, but I used it on the road. Could be an option if your house it out in the sticks. If I could have gotten the rural options with 250 gig limit, I would have kept it.

Likely DOCJ can add to this - I think he was on it also at one point.
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Old 05-03-2020, 08:40 AM   #13
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With all due respect, IMO Visible is no better and no worse than most other "network managed" low cost plans. At times there are very good speeds and at other times it can be pretty bad.

There's a very lengthy IRV2 thread on Visible in which there are lots of pleased subscribers and some unhappy ones. Rather than simply casting aspersions on Visible, you can read some actual user experiences here: https://www.irv2.com/forums/f53/40-m...ed-442091.html

As I have stated multiple times, IMO the "trick" to living with low-cost unlimited cell plans is to have a couple of them and to use them in a router capable of combining them by load balancing or by bonding. I'm not touting one particular brand of router; there are a number of brands that can perform these functions.

The bottom line is that if you try load balancing several connections you can achieve success with streaming even when your download speeds are relatively slow. I currently use 3 cellular connections load balanced with my RV park's WiFi. The other night we were getting a pretty decent (~SD) video even though each of the connections had speeds <1 Mbps.

Essentially, what load balancing does is make my four 1 Mbps connections look like a connection with a speed greater than any of the individual connections. It's not quite as good as connection bonding, but neither is it quite as complicated.

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Docj, my apologies. My comment a little too off the cuff.
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Old 05-03-2020, 08:48 AM   #14
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My Visible works just fine... well worth $25 a month and much more.
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