Decision time: hone cellular internet act now or wait?

[56ok]

I assume the saving spot is a place to talk about comparing deals of visible versus the rest of the cellular community.  If it isn't, the months have a permission to retitle it and move it to the mire appropriate "let's chat". 

I was wrong. Luckily my phone kept everything I spoken to it and let me instantly change the category to let's chat.

I currently live in a data desert.  The family DSL only goes 1.6 megabits in 400 KB out and cost $35 a month.  Before,I took matters into my own hands and got a $25 visible line and getting unlimited 5 megabits in 5 MB out hotspot Internet.

As far as land-based competitors by definition a data desert has zero connections over land-based communications that are 25 megabits and 3 megabits out or better.  Frontier DSL is the only landline connector and their speeds weren't even legally Broadband in 2013 when it was first offered.

I'm considering moving from visible to an alter ego of visible AKA Verizon since visible has an article saying visible is just the more web friendly and more economical mask that Verizon wears.

Their deal for unlimited internet only the prioritized by usage, is either $80 a month on a jetpack bought alone, or $20 with a regular cellular phone subscription.

Our family pays $140 for four lines using the blue package which gets unlimited talk text and internal phone data but zero hotspot.

I heard that the red package from Verizon is exactly the same except also throws in Unlimited deprioritized hotspot data.

The blue Network said they were going to add hotspot in less than a month, but after their premium data the basic hotspot data is speed limited to 128 kilobits per second. 

I could see a tenable plan moving my visible to be the data line and the four blue network phones going red, plus we could quit DSL which is a $35 a month drain.

The other option is to wait for one of the two alternatives to come through.

Alternative one: quasi government fiber from the county.  The problem is at the state level of legislation the the power in the state wants to get rid of quasi government fiber and leave it up to private companies to wire us up.

That's right Spectrum wants to fight for the right to protect our area from other cable companies so they could continue to ignore us and leave us high and dry unless it gets six figures to install cable.

The other option is actually my responsibility, and could be an option for many people besides me.

Visible said I uniquely came up with the idea of being stationary as a clause that would speed up your hotspot. I said admittedly should be in people in data deserts first  but if the network could afford it, for more than just data deserts then stationary hotspot use anywhere would be kind of cool.

Both visible and Verizon have done the math and the map work and said that as far as their concerned the plane is okay and would be offered pending all the forces agree.

The last of the other forces is the FCC.  Since cellular is a federal issue I've been writing to my federal House and Senate members representing my state and district.

As far as money is concerned: I cannot afford paying $80 a month over month over month.  If I were to get it for trial month I would have to make sure that a I could go back to having the same telephone number and username on visible.  I have developed a decent enough reputation and visible where I don't want to lose it chasing after cellular internet.

Well I guess I could get a temporary number from Verizon and then once we all agreed to keep Verizon 5G home cellular I could transfer the number and quit visible. I don't want to lose my current visible number because it's my old home number that I transferred to various companies along the way and I want to keep it so that identity thieves don't use it and pretend to be me accessing different accounts.  Plus I don't want to memorize a new number to give people or to change all my online accounts that are tied to my home phone number.

It would be helpful to know how soon the FCC will come with the decision to offer Visible Home.

As I heard one guy say to documentary about William shatner's tripping the space when you have a dream or a goal you do not compromise on that dream or the goal but you can compromise on the details and the routes in getting there.

My main goal is to have home internet good enough speeds where I don't have to leave my Xbox on overnight for 50 GB downloads of updates.

If the Visible home plan is not exactly what I envision, which would be a combo Home Road plan where the home portion kicks in when you're stationary for 30 minutes or more and then the road portion kicks in when you're on the road, if I have to choose between a mobile plan or a Home plan exclusively I'll be willing to give up my mobile plan and turn it into a home plan.

Of course that would mean sacrificing playing Nintendo switch online on the road but I rarely do that anyway and mainly did it just to show that I can do it, not that it's the most convenient thing to do.

Having information about what the FCC is going to decide about the visible home plan and whether or not it is exactly as I envisioned or whether I'm going to have to compromise would be helpful to me making a decision about whether to push with the Verizon home cellular or not.

By the way I heard that true home cellular is a separate bandwidth from Mobile Cellular and is a different form of 5G that is more close to the old Sprint 4G Wimax, which then had close to Cable speeds when stationary at the cost of being barely better than regular 3G when in motion.  But it's pretty easy to make a mobile plan be a stationary plan: just don't move while you're running the internet.  Turn on the GPS and let it show that it's comfortably resting in the same house.  That should be easy enough proof that I'm living up to my terms.

So do I wait for either government fiber or visible home plan or do I take action and try Verizon 5G cellular hotspot being used as home internet for a month or less.

And I would like to know if I'd still be welcome as an honorary ex member of visible who came up with the idea of the GPS-enforced stationary Clause to activate the home portion of the plan.

[upstate-SC · Accepted solution]

You might have a novel idea. But I see technical challenges in implementing them. Here are my thoughts.

• You are assuming that accuracy of GPS is so precise. Public GPS is accurate to few meters. But that is true when you are outside and connectivity to the multiple GPS satellites is established with no obstacles. If you are inside home then forget about making connection with roof above for accurate measurement. That's why there is assisted GPS. Meaning your device uses nearby Wi-Fi networks, cellular networks to spot you quickly.
• Cellphone networks are literally made of cells (here cells means an area of land/water where the network coverage is established). Meaning they put towers (to broadcast radio waves) with variable coverage. Some towers have long range coverage of many miles and slow speed. Some towers have short range coverage of few miles and high speed coverage. It is why there are like many bandwidths in spectrum. Even when you are stationary at a point, your device's connection to towers vary. Sometimes your device is connected to tower A, sometimes to tower B depending on how many other devices are communicating to that particular tower. These switching happens so fast in micro-seconds/ milli-seconds.
• Speed of internet with Visible is always de-prioritized. Because that is the strategy by red carrier, to sell the unused bandwidth for cheaper price. Why would red carrier establish Visible brand if they provide the same exact premium service? It makes no economical sense. You compromise on few things for the price you pay.
  • I can think of an example, Apple makes iPhone SE a budget phone ($450). Apple also makes iPhone 13 Pro Max (their 2021 highest end phone, costing whopping $1200). Will customers of Apple buy iPhone 13 Pro Max if it is exactly identical to iPhone SE?

The last point makes absolute sense to me.

However I understand that you want affordable internet with Whitehouse signing up Affordable Connectivity Plan (ACP) there is light on the horizon.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/getinternet/

Until then cheers! 

~ Upstate-SC

[56ok]

Actually because I'm in a data desert as recognized by the federal government. I'm eligable for Verizon Home 4g.  It has a special modem which is designed to pick up cellular signals as well as confirm the fact that it's stationary.

And my status as both a data desert customer and a relatively financially poor customer allowed me to get a normally $50 connection for $20 a month.

I mean mainly mentioning this for other people who live in a Data Desert. Because 8 weeks from now the local quasi government fiber company will go down our street.  How do I know because I see evidence of a switch box that's unlabeled on the first street corner to the south of us.

So if it's not the local quasi government fiber company it's somebody else trying to service us.

Now the only question is do I stick with visible until fiber comes, or do I get the red Network made for home cellular box for literally 2 months before the final connection comes?

Currently visible is not ACP eligible as far as I could tell.  

I think I'm going to wait 2 months because of a very weird restriction that Verizon has and a very weird circumstance where I can't fulfill it.

The question is is it worth the infighting for at most 8 weeks of a temporary boost in between visible and the local quasi government fiber company?

One thing is for sure we are more likely to subtract family members than add in this case.  My dad got a blue plan where he says if I were to go off the blue plan and go to visible with my other phone he would actually pay more money per month in absolute terms for three phones than he would four. 

Since you're limited to only acp plan per household I'd spend the credit on home fiber for $20 a month for 250 Meg in and out, and then I go back to a Visible group of friends, and get an unsubsidized line for 25 bucks so for 45 bucks I get both good home and Road phone and network service.

But I can't do that for at least a year.  My blue plan has about a year left before we could switch freely.

By the way I understand the organization and I understand getting a home Cellular in motion would still be subject to the depriotization versus the proper Verizon service, but dropping the artificial speed limit one at home in a data desert would be kind of interesting.  

Besides, in 8 weeks this will no longer be a federal data desert.  But I still think it's an important issue out of empathy even though I personally felt the thing of it.  So I'm telling anyone that's reading that if you live in a day to Desert you're free to go to any cellular company you want for a 4G hotspot made for specifically for the home that has a better plan than one that is flexible as both a home and a road data plan.  You're getting a higher speed limit at unlimited data quantities, and all you're giving up is mobility on your phone plan.

I understand I'm the square peg in round hole that is using a mobile phone as primarily a home data modem.

I'll just say it says a lot about both visible and about the local DSL company that the DSL was considered sub minimal in 2013 when the minimum definition of broadband was 3 megabits in 1 MB out and visible is the only company that voluntarily gives you unlimited legal Broadband by that definition on a hotspot yet at the same time be a regular mobile phone.

Of course it comes at the cost of deprioritization and a maximum hotspot speed limit of 5 megabits in 5 megabits out.

So probably in 8 weeks this means goodbye but not necessarily sayonara. (In Japanese the word sayonara stands for "goodbye for possibly the last time". It's something you say to someone when you're going off the war and don't know if you're coming back, or you say it if you want to be cool when finishing off your enemy because you know he'll not be coming back if you do your job right.)

I might need one final month to transition my current cell phone number to a home voice number so that identity thieves don't take my number and use it in bad.  So just two to three more months of visible and I'll just be in the Visible Hall of Fame for fighting a good new use for visible which is a mobile hotspot modem of unlimited quantity of 5 MB data that's perfect for road trips and data deserts.  You saved our family a lot of bickering over the Internet over the past 2 to 3 years.  And for that I'm thankful that I could get good enough gaming internet at home without disrupting dad.

[upstate-SC]

If i read your words, you have made a decision for yourself. I wish you figure out things and things work out well for you.

[56ok]

Sorry haven't answered this in a long time.  I got rid of Visible and moved to Verizon 4g because I was primarily using it as a stationary  data source in a data desert anyway.

Turned out I needed that for 6 months exactly how long I needed to keep it in order to keep the cellular modem.

Then we switch to the local fiber company which came through. 

And I have the cellular phone on my dad's  plan that I recently took off from the blue network and came back to Visible.  

What helped was because I was on food stamps You're allowed to get one connection for each food stamp member on a cellular phone and get reimbursed with food stamps for what you pay with it, so I paid $25 in cash, and get $25 in food for free.  I know that's actually saving Dad 25 bucks on his cell phone plan and me getting food money for money I'd be spending on food anyway.