MiFi or Wild Blue?

[LisaKinVA]

We're moving in a few weeks (God willing, as I've been hoping to move each week since August!). Our new home is not serviced by any cable company or Fios, so our choices are MiFi (Sprint, Verizon, etc.) or Wild Blue Satellite.

 

We do have some on-line classes, and have been very used to downloading movies and video.

 

Which one would be fastest? Speed and reliability is more important to me right now. I'll worry about plans (and if we have to change gears from downloading tv and movies), later.

[Alenee]

We're moving in a few weeks (God willing, as I've been hoping to move each week since August!). Our new home is not serviced by any cable company or Fios, so our choices are MiFi (Sprint, Verizon, etc.) or Wild Blue Satellite.

 

We do have some on-line classes, and have been very used to downloading movies and video.

 

Which one would be fastest? Speed and reliability is more important to me right now. I'll worry about plans (and if we have to change gears from downloading tv and movies), later.

 

The only thing I know about Wild Blue is that (at least 4 years ago) they had a download maximum per month. I'd check into that. Dh didn't like that rule so we went with a local company instead. HTH

[RegGuheert]

You should first look into getting DSL service from your phone company. With current technology, any wired internet service will be superior to any wireless technology for home internet.

 

The hardest part of being on satellite or cellular internet is that you have real LIMITS on what you do. You must work within those limits or you will be punished by slower speeds.

 

We have both HughesNet satellite service and 3G cellular internet. By way of comparison, I will say that HughesNet is more reliable than 3G cellular, but that the punishment on HughesNet is more severe. HughesNet has a limit which continuously recharges. This is not sufficient for streaming videos and the delay is too high for internet telephone, but most other activities work fine. If you drain the available bucket, the speed drops to an almost-unusable level. But the punishment only lasts 24 hours and then your are up-and-running again. Uploading is unlimited. Downloading is unlimited between 2 AM and 7 AM daily. It's painful if you have a lot of computers and devices, as we do, but we make it work. My work currently pays for

 

WildBlue and cellular plans have a MONTHLY cap on downloads. This has pluses and minuses: If you need to download something large, you can do it without having to get up at 2 AM. On the other hand, once you reach your limit, you have to wait until the end of the month to get your speed back.

 

There is one other option: WiMax or point-to-point WiFi. If you can get Clear where you are, I recommend you get that. It is not available here, yet. If that is not available, I would look into local point-to-point WiFi vendors. Their installation cost are similar to satellite and some of them provide unlimited access. Unfortunately, sometimes this means that the service can get very slow. There are REASONS for the limits on wireless services. This is the main one.

 

The bottom line is that you will pay more for worse service if you cannot get DSL, cable or FiOS. Clear will be your best bet after that. Then there are satellite, cellular and point-to-point WiFi, all of which are serviceable, at best. Point-to-point wireless CAN be the best, if you have a decent provider. I've tried to move from satellite to cellular (even unlimited cellular) on a couple of occasions and it simply is not reliable enough here. If we were closer to a tower, perhaps things would be different...

 

In any case, good luck with whatever you choose. Please let us know your experiences. Oh, and CONGRATULATIONS on your new home!!

[acurtis75]

At least in my area clear uses the sprint towers so you pay a little less but your speed is slower because you have less bandwidth. Fwiw we have sprint mifi and have been happy with it. You can connect to either 4g or 3G. 4g is unlimited but 3G is limited. Basically we only connect to 3G if we're somewhere that 4g isn't available. That doesn't happen much for us so we've never had a problem. We checked in to satellite Internet several years ago for our office because it was all that was available but at the time it was not reliable so we waited and had dsl installed.

[Shellers]

I suggest checking out Millenicom. If you are in a Sprint area, you could get unlimited bandwidth for $69.99 a month and you won't be locked into a contract. http://www.millenicom.com/page/plans

 

I have Millenicom's $59.99 plan which works on the Verizon Network (we don't have Sprint coverage). I get 20 gigabytes a month which is better than what Verizon offers, plus not being locked into a contract is wonderful.

 

We also have Wildblue.

[bbkaren]

When we move to TN we've got a similar problem, although on top of that, Mifi isn't even an option since we have scant (no bars or maybe one bar) cell signal.

 

So, Wildblue/Hughesnet (satellite internet) are our only real options.

 

I did a spreadsheet comparing the two in terms of download speeds/costs/options. Maybe you can find something useful there...

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Asi4PeJXG7WrdFdqTkVEMlpzZzZtakw0SURIOVpRemc&hl=en_US

 

Basically, when we move, we'll be paying a whole lot more, for a whole lot less service.

 

Hubby figures, even with the best package, we reach the limit after maybe a movie or two.

 

So we're going a different route (we think).

 

We're looking at signal amplifiers for the cell - on the roof, we get 3 bars steady. If we can get strong signal on our phones, maybe we can hook the TV up to the phone using the HDMI jack and play that way.

 

It's a roundabout method and we haven't fully investigated it, but the amplifier people have a 30-day "didn't work for me" warranty. And once we've spent the money for that ($600), if it works, there'd be no further charges for internet because it'd be using the data plan on our phones.

 

But in the meantime, I'm :bigear: here for other ideas! :)

[RegGuheert]

We're looking at signal amplifiers for the cell - on the roof, we get 3 bars steady. If we can get strong signal on our phones, maybe we can hook the TV up to the phone using the HDMI jack and play that way.

 

It's a roundabout method and we haven't fully investigated it, but the amplifier people have a 30-day "didn't work for me" warranty. And once we've spent the money for that ($600), if it works, there'd be no further charges for internet because it'd be using the data plan on our phones.

We've done all of the above and it all works as you describe. We have an $800 antenna and cellular amplifier to get good coverage throughout the house. We have Android phones which can each create a cellular hotspot. We even have this wireless bridge to allow us to stream video to the Blu-ray player. And it all works.

 

So what's the problem? To my knowledge, there is NO carrier in the US which truly offers UNLIMITED 3G internet. (Millenicom may be the exception. I've had them and they were good to do business with. But I had problems with the service and eventually dropped them.) My carrier provides "unlimited" internet, but after some amount of data, the speed drops. With Sprint, you will pay for each MB after you reach the limit. With AT&T, they will detect that you are "tethering" and send you a cease-and-desist letter or make you pay the extra $25/month tethering fee (and you still have the limits). On top of all this, the service is extremely unreliable here. When it works, it tends to work well, but all of the elements in the system seem to add their own little quirks.

 

I wish you luck with this. I really do! It can be made to work, but it is very hard to stay within the limits of cellular. With HughesNet, we can do a LOT more by taking advantage of the unlimited period of 2AM to 7AM.

 

4G (WiMax) service seems to be the real answer many of us need. It's not here yet, but I just looked at Clear's maps and it looks like they are FINALLY putting in service here. I can see coverage all around us now, but they are not yet selling it here. Maybe sometime next year...

Edited October 15, 2011 by RegGuheert

[RegGuheert]

...a limit of 5 Gigs. It works fine for all 3 of us; we watch videos/you tube but no move downloads.

YMMV.

 

There are currently seven of us here. I think wireless devices like iPads, etc. drive up usage a LOT. DS13 has a phone with a 5 GB limit (really unlimited with speed reduction at 5 GB). Only MomsintheGarden and he use that for internet. The rest of us use the satellite. We are one-half way through the month and they have already consumed 6.5 GB of data from the cell phone. It's still usable, but the more they use, the slower it gets. This is true even though we went to McDonald's the other day to download the 800 MB update for the iPads.

 

We have moved our iPad's to the iCloud since it is set up basically to simply do backups. I've had to explain to our son that on the cell phone, transfers both UP and DOWN count against your limit, but with HughesNet, there is no limit on uploading. So he will need to be careful to put his iPad on the satellite if he wants to perform a backup. Most of our largest downloads of movies, etc. are done on the satellite between 2 AM and 7 AM. We only use the cell phone for large downloads if they are needed at other times. In a sense, we use the cellular link as a backup to the satellite. It is also our fallback plan in case I lose my job. Our plan in that case is to keep the cell phones and ditch the satellite dish. Hopefully 4G (WiMax) will be here before that happens.

[LisaKinVA]

DSL through our phone carrier is not yet available (AT&T or Verizon). Cable internet is not available (Comcast, Cox or Fios...aka Verizon).

 

Our neighbors have dial-up... it just isn't going to work for our classes.

 

We'll probably have to go the mifi route, a regular (cheapest) phone service we can get, and if downloading tv doesn't work... go back to Dish for television. There is a cap on the WildBlue, and that's $80 a month. The mifi is "unlimited" but only $50/month. We may be able to download some television (no streaming, though). Maybe we can get a signal boosting antenna :D

[RegGuheert]

The mifi is "unlimited" but only $50/month.

Who is the carrier?

 

Sprint offers such a deal, but as mentioned by a PP, on Spint the unlimited is ONLY if you have a 4G signal. If you only get a 3G signal, then you are limited to 3 GB of data for the month, which each additional MB (NOT GB!) costing you $0.05! Hopefully a 4G signal is available to you.

[Random]

I suggest checking out Millenicom. If you are in a Sprint area, you could get unlimited bandwidth for $69.99 a month and you won't be locked into a contract. http://www.millenicom.com/page/plans

 

I have Millenicom's $59.99 plan which works on the Verizon Network (we don't have Sprint coverage). I get 20 gigabytes a month which is better than what Verizon offers, plus not being locked into a contract is wonderful.

 

We also have Wildblue.

 

 

Can I ask why you have both?

[LisaKinVA]

It wasn't Sprint or Verizon... it's Virgin Mobile

[RegGuheert]

Oops. Double post.

[RegGuheert]

It wasn't Sprint or Verizon... it's Virgin Mobile

O.K. Virgin Mobile limits your speed after only 2.5 GB of data.

 

As PP suggested, you might want to check out Millenicom. They have a 3G plan with true unlimited data for $69.99/month.

[Shellers]

Can I ask why you have both?

 

I have the biggest plan with Wildblue and we still manage to get monthly fair access warnings from Wildblue for exceeding 90% of our bandwidth so I decided to get Millenicom as a backup.

 

My husband has a Verizon mifi he uses. He got this before I knew about Millenicom. He's locked into a contract for another year.

 

I have four kids 21, 15, 14, and 11. I have many websites and am online quite a bit although, sometimes I think Wildblue's bandwidth numbers are screwy.

[Shellers]

It wasn't Sprint or Verizon... it's Virgin Mobile

 

Virgin throttles.

 

Virgin Mobile reserves the right, without notice, to temporarily limit throughput speeds when monthly data usage on the $50 Broadband2Go Plan exceeds 2.5GB

 

Virgin works on Sprint's network, so you could get the unlimited plan from Millenicom.

[8filltheheart]

I'm resurrecting this old thread in hopes that someone who understands this will be able to help me. We are moving to an area with no cable and no dsl.

 

I followed the links provided in this thread and Millenicom has coverage but does not have the unlimited plan. It has Hotspot Plan: 20 gigabytes monthly of 3G/4G data transfer.

 

I am completely ignorant of what that means. (I'm not even sure what the difference is between 3G and 4G)

 

Based on my conversation with a sales rep, I'm sure that for my needs it would be ok as long as our Roku becomes a dust collector. BUT, I don't understand how it will impact my kids. Like how much data does Skype use? XBox Live? Streaming music or radio stations (not videos)?

 

I'm really in overload right now b/c everything about this move has become very complicated, so if someone can have mercy on me and explain this like I am a 2 yr old, I'd appreciate it.

 

(Or if there are other options beyond the ones listed in this thread for me to investigate.)

 

Thanks

[Random]

I'm resurrecting this old thread in hopes that someone who understands this will be able to help me. We are moving to an area with no cable and no dsl.

 

I followed the links provided in this thread and Millenicom has coverage but does not have the unlimited plan. It has Hotspot Plan: 20 gigabytes monthly of 3G/4G data transfer.

 

I am completely ignorant of what that means. (I'm not even sure what the difference is between 3G and 4G)

 

Based on my conversation with a sales rep, I'm sure that for my needs it would be ok as long as our Roku becomes a dust collector. BUT, I don't understand how it will impact my kids. Like how much data does Skype use? XBox Live? Streaming music or radio stations (not videos)?

 

I'm really in overload right now b/c everything about this move has become very complicated, so if someone can have mercy on me and explain this like I am a 2 yr old, I'd appreciate it.

 

(Or if there are other options beyond the ones listed in this thread for me to investigate.)

 

Thanks

 

Have you used the various data calculators available? You can search "Data Usage Calculator" and then use two or three to give you a good idea if you will go over 20GB per month.

 

I've found streaming radio to be a significant drain on our available download limits.

[Cynful]

Another option is to choose the unlimited plan, which you'll have to have or purchase an aircard and then you can buy a router that takes the aircard. Let me explain better, we have a Sprint device and we have this router: http://www.amazon.com/Cradlepoint-CRADLE-MBR1000-MBR1000/dp/B0013MTPC8 - the usb device fits in the router and uses it's internet connection but broadcasts it just like a regular router so that all can use it. We've done this several times on the road in our RV when we couldn't get WIFI. I don't think this is the latest router from them that works this way but you can look into it further or let me know and I can get the information on the latest version.

 

The difference between 3G and 4G is simply the download speed with 4G being faster (in theory) than 3G. Everytime you view a webpage, receive an email, stream music, facetime/skype, etc., you are downloading data from the internet. The faster it comes in, the more pleasant your viewing experience can be. Also, if the speed is not fast enough, Roku/Netflix/Etc. won't work well and will be jumpy.

 

If I can explain anything further, please let me know.

 

Good luck,

[8filltheheart]

Thanks for the explanations. No unlimited plan is available in the area. After talking to our oldest ds who has Ben living for the past yr using wireless, he ha s convinced us to reconsider it as an option. So now we are changing our geographical boundaries.