On Mon, Mar 6, 2023 at 5:07 PM Ted Mittelstaedt <[email protected]> wrote:
> You are not going to get 300Mbt all day long continuously off a cell > network. It just won't happen. It's hard enough with landline broadband > but at least they know what's going on and can manage it some. With mobile > you can have a heavy user move into the cell you are on and move out and > that will impact your bandwidth. > that is a separate issue. even if it's not 300mb, it's usually enough to get by for most casual users. > My Comcast Business cell plan is $17 a month, this is limited data though > unlimited calling and text. 2GB I think. I've never exceeded it. Their > unlimited plans are more expensive of course but not that much. > $17 a month is only achievable as an add-on service to another existing service. I suppose one could find a friend with cable service and just pay them for the add-on to use for oneself. but this would not work in a vacuum. > And I have never been disconnected on data from it. In fact I've even > tethered a laptop to my S9 and driven from Hillsboro to PDX with the lappy > on and logged in over a VPN. Probably passed through a dozen cell > boundaries never been disconnected on data. > yeah, it's great, for a few hours. try that for days or weeks on end (with non-trivial data usage happening) and you will see a different experience. most of the issues I've seen with these stem from the phone (hardware and software) rather than the cell portion. > You are free to pay a lot of money for cellular service if you want. But > if you research what an MVNO is and how modern cell networks work you can > save a ton of money. They all use the same towers and the reliability is > exactly the same from the same tower. It's all branding nowadays. > > up to a point, this is accurate. but the moment utilization begins to approach capacity, the first people to be de-prioritized will be the non-native users. These router-only devices from Verizon use the EXACT same cellular network > and backbone my cell phone does. You just pay a lot more money for a > neutered cell phone that has voice and texting cut off of it. And a pretty > plastic box with feet on it and a power cord instead of a cell charger. > yes, they use the same network connection and hardware. but the software is completely different. at a minimum, re-establishing the connection after a reboot is a manual process. > > What people often don't realize with MVNOs is they sometimes will change > carriers. Consumer Cellular for example switched from TMobile's towers to > ATT's towers. So a lot of CC phones out at the coast slowly started losing > reliability, signal, etc. Replacing the sim with a new one fixes that. > You just had to call CC for one. The same issue happened with Verizon a > few years ago as well and they aren't an MVNO they just contracted with > different towers. > > this is both a weakness and a strength. if they're set up for it, an mvno can allow you to try out a bunch of different carriers with less hassle than closing accounts and opening new ones and porting your number around, etc. and when the signal landscape changes, it will be easier to adapt. -wes
