LCDC is literally around the corner, so I will be doing all the head scratching this week in terms of wrapping up the first phase of the live stream build (front/drivers POV/moving office and figuring out internet connection), and phase 2 will come in august (building office/gaming area in back).
Stay tuned here if you want the long version of my quest for affordable and unlimited internet with reasonable speeds, and skip all this and stay tuned for the short video if you want it in layman terms.
currently 3 routes I can take, or rather 1 route but different phases/different budgets/demands, and I’ll leave the gist of it here:
1. 1 unlimited data through cellular plan with hotspot feature, plug compatible sim into a 4G/LTE router (this will mask hotspot as cellular usage)
pros is I can get up and running with only 1 plan, con is I’m limited to only Verizon’s coverage area (if I had to pick just 1 for the US, Verizon is a step ahead of everyone else for cellular speeds, will be testing this live for everyone to see)
2. multiple plans with hotspot feature and bond them directly to laptop, skip router
Pros is faster speed when bonded, in areas when 1 signal isn’t enough, and just better coverage all around. This is for really remote places when even Verizon isn’t fast enough.
cons here is cost of multiple data plans as well as susceptible to throttling if traffic does not pass through a router that masks hotspot usage first
3. Multiple plans with multiple hotspot routers,
cons is the obvious cost of multiple plans and multiple routers, or 1 router that can accept multiple sims with different bands and carriers
pro is that this is how we get the best chance of having a good connection just about everywhere where even the smallest signals can reach
Keep in mind bonding can not only bond WiFi with cellular, but multiple different connections of each.
In addition, it can connect to one connection multiple times, then merge the signals into 1. Take for example if you only have 1 built-in WiFi adapter connecting to a campground hotspot, and you get 5mb download through that. Then you add a USB external WiFi adapter, and that gets 10 mb from same campground WiFi. Now with bonding, you have 15 mbs total download to work with. Add more adapters for theoretically faster speeds, although there will be diminishing returns with more connections to same network.
Like I said, if you want the short version wait on the videos for YouTube. If you want to join me in some head scratching, then you are welcome to follow along here this week. Things will get very technical but I promise I will go back at the end of everything, and lay it back down in layman terms for everyone. No one needs to know most of the things I am figuring out, and most only need to know the bare essentials to put the internet issue to rest.
I Have very tight budgets and very high demands, and my hopes is that if I find something that works for me, that chances are it will work for just about everyone else. Wish me luck boys, and I’m pretty sure I will be sprouting another gray hair this week from this, but it will be worth it.
As always, any advice is greatly appreciated, and thank you for helping me get here as well.
@grinchy I watched the video, and what I gathered is that maybe I should give the ATT plan a try to see if my mileage will be the same, because I have a feeling they will be targeting me hard with the throttling once they realize I am trying to build a live mobile stream (and trying to help others save on internet cost).
I am looking at visible right now as that is the only plan without hotspot data limit, only catch is 5 mb limit on hotspot speed (which is great for bonding since slower data is better than 3g/throttled/basically no data after hotspot limit). Cellular data Speed is good enough as well.
