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Darin Heath

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Sierra Vista, AZ
  • Interests
    RVing, Solar, Internet, Hiking, Camping, Gardening, Homesteading

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  1. You could play online games for 8 hours a day and you wouldn't break past 1GB of used data for the most demanding title. So if you want to use the internet on the road without breaking your data caps, maybe take up the hobby. A game like World of Warcraft uses up about 45MB an hour. That wouldn't even cover the data usage of a single commercial on Hulu. Watch one HD episode of a 30 minute show on Netflix? You've just used up almost twice as much data as any online gamer would in 4 hours. Its important to understand your usage, how impactful certain activities are on your usage, and what your needs are. Based on 4 hours a day you claimed above, if you can keep your streaming to SD instead of HD, you should only use about 4-5 GB a day. Triple that if you need to watch something in HD. This isn't directed at the original poster or anyone here, but I've actually had conversations with people claiming if we could just get rid of all these "Gamers", it would free up so much bandwidth for streaming videos. Online gaming is less than 10% of all internet traffic. Amazon browsing and ordering alone is 15% and over 20% near Xmas. Sorry, this is a sore spot I guess...lol. If you look on Ebay or from goggling, you will find people selling "grandfathered" sim cards, primarily for ATT, Sprint, and T-Mobile that will work for unlimited data with no throttling. This is what data hogging streaming media users need. A decent article, although a big "negative Nancy" can be found at: https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/gear/t-mobile-unlimited-rental-plans/ . I don't endorse or have experience with any of the services listed, but the terms they use on their websites should help you shop around or use Ebay sellers. You can either do as some have said, put that unlimited data sim into a compatible phone and tether it to a TV, or you can buy a 4G LTE router that will work just like your home wifi router and link to all your devices in your RV. Up until recently that's how I provided internet to my home, as I'm too rural to use standard broadband options. These routers are often called "MIFI" routers. Just make sure you match the 4G router to the Sim card you are using. Some work with GSM, some with CDMA, etc. My personal experience is 50mbps average connection speeds with a T-mobile unlimited data sim card. I never saw any downthrottling while using it. I am using a Netgear Nighthawk M1 mobile router. (Yes, they are very expensive, but there are cheaper options that will be only a little bit slower). The way this all works is that T-mobile, for example, sees my 4G LTE router as a phone. This is a better option that using your wireless hotspots that limit you to around 10-15GB a month. EDIT: This 4G LTE Router is no longer supported on T-Mobile networks, hence why I can't use it anymore. But other options are out there to do the same thing). Keep in mind that in a few years, 5G will essentially wipe the board with all of this, there is no way they can maintain data throttling when your transfer speeds exceed 150-300 mbps. Its assumed that within 8-10 years, 5G will provide 85% of all data to users, no caps. I have the advantage of being a trained network engineer and have worked for internet service providers, I can tell you that there are many businesses out there ripping off customers. Unfortunately the RV community usually isn't well informed on the subject, and they have the added disadvantage of all the viable companies operating at the same inflated profit margins because they are just resellers who are being overcharged as well. Your phone data works exactly the same if you are sitting still at home, or on the road. It should not cost extra simply because you move around in an RV and stay on the same network.
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