Can you live ONLY with your cell phone DATA plan?

[bembol]

Times are tight these days and just thinking if you are forced to cancel your Home Internet, is you cell phone data plan enough to get you by for the month?

In Canada, it took a very long time for the Big Three (Bell, Rogers & Telus) to offer (un)limited data plans. I only got to try it for a few weeks until I switched & cancelled my account with Rogers. it was doable but no doubt it's limited to browsing and light YouTube usage. I'm not sure how it is in the U.S.

I personally can live with my data, though it helps I have three accounts (business, personal and tablet plan) that gives me 30GB a month. Honestly, lately I've been streaming Amazon Prime, Crave, YouTube, etc. because of the pandemic, otherwise, I tend to download my purchases. I have a 256GB microSD along with the internal storage filled with Movies, TV Shows and Music.

 

[Laura Knotek]

No. I'd be throttled too much to watch Netflix, YouTube TV, and YouTube.

 

[me just saying]

nope, I would be throttled within a few days because of security cams and streaming. I am a cord cutter and tend to binge watch shows.

 

[Kizzy Catwoman]

No cos I have a lot of smart home accessories and they wouldn't work if I weren't at home for everyone else in the house.

 

[L0n3N1nja]

I broke 450Gb of data this month on my home internet and I live alone.

 

[me just saying]

No cos I have a lot of smart home accessories and they wouldn't work if I weren't at home for everyone else in the house.

I am amazed as to how much those smart home accessories and devices add to your data usage. sometimes I wonder why they need so much but try not to think about it since it would cause parnoidia.

 

[bkdodger2]

Best to cut the latte at Starbucks

 

[Mike Dee]

These days I think I should get off unlimited data because I'm home using WiFi most of the time.

 

[Morty2264]

Great thread topic! At first I was thinking "yes," but now it's a huge "no." I have an unlimited* data plan with Rogers (*10 GB of 4G but after that it's down to 3G) but with the Netflixing, YouTube, music, watching online TV, etc, I'd be hitting 3G real fast. So, I guess it's a "sort of" response from me. Not that 3G is so terrible, but it would be very easy for 10 GB to be eaten up.

 

[tube517]

No. I'd be throttled too much to watch Netflix, YouTube TV, and YouTube.

Same

 

[anon(50597)]

Of course any of us could, unless you run a business out of your house. It's whether we choose to.

I could easily.

 

[me just saying]

just went to my ritter cable account and saw that I already used 274.1 gig and still have 14 days in the billing period. no way will at$t let me get away with that type of usage

 

[bkdodger2]

I'm working from home so need the faster internet and WiFi from FiOS ... Along with I'm in lower area of house so cell signal is spotty at times.,

 

[kbz1960]

I could most of the time but other months, no.

 

[Ry]

I work from home full-time. No.

 

[bembol]

I forgot about Smart Home systems. That aside, can you?

Let's pretend that it has a separate connection. LOL
Otherwise, this thread is useless.



Budget is not a problem but I was just wondering if it's doable.

 

[mustang7757]

Good question, im not sure , I have unlimited data with my carrier but I only use like 15gb a month compared my wifi like 60gb a month .

 

[ptkelly]

No. There's no way I'd want to read the news on my cell phone. There's no way I want to get rid of my Google Home Minis. I also don't want to use my cellphone as link to the internet for my laptop or my desktop.

My cell service gives me unlimited calls/messages throughout North America. For the geographically challenged that's the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. My data is 3GB. That costs me about $8.70 a month. My internet connection through Telmex, the phone company, is unlimited, of course, and costs $17 a month. If I absolutely had to cut back I'd skip lunch once a week and pay for both the cell service and the internet connection.

 

[cardboard60]

I live in the country...
Got trees all around me.

My plan is unlimited talk, text and data.
Need wifi calling to use my phone a lot.

 

[prestonjb]

I've gone totally cord cut a few years ago. it takes some thinking and working to make sure it works for you. some comments like shared connection and bing watching can break the deal. for example it took me a few years before I could ditch cable while the rest of my world ran through my phone.

however with covid and finally decided to kill cable to add extra tethering to the plan and now I'm happy to say the only wires to my house is power.

being I've been working on this for several years there are things to consider.

1 do you have a stable fast phone connection? for me att built a tower closer to my house several years back and as I bought better phones my but rate kept going up. covid seems to impact but at the turn of this year I was seeing peek rates of 210mbps. with covid I see loaded rates of 30mbps which for me still works

2 plans. when I first started I disconnected landline, internet and switched cable provider to put into my phone plan. it wasn't all I need but it was 90gig per month (2 phones and one tablet) and 30gig tethering. still had to keep cable. and had to make sure no one device went over 30gig or had to pay overage.

later with att unlimited 22gig w 10 gig tethering we were able to drop to two phones and tether the tablet. again provider and area is key. because loading on the tower was low when either or both phones exceeded their 22gig we never saw a slowdown. tethering was still a bit low.

now we are on the 100gig/30gig tethering unlimited plus with free HBO. this with covid we are seeing is about right for us. my work laptop averages 1gig/day and if I can keep away from it on the weekend then it will live in the 30gig full speed tether window. it's close but it's working. wife uses her phone to tethering her work laptop so she is in her limit also. so far so good.

I am sure others having only 30 or 60gig a month for their computers will still be a deal breaker

3 entertainment. this is the tough one and can easily be one of the first deal breakers. for us because we are already Amazon prime and Netflix users, rewiring our cable to add data to the phones made sense however then trying to play a smart TV (tethering) didn't work. we lowered video quality which helped but still a tethered tv burns that precious tethering plan quick. we had DirecTV as our new alternative cable provider and their phone app would allow playing videos away from home and I found a Chromecast like dongle that would wifi direct cast the screen and that would bypass tethering! however that won't work with movies on Amazon or Netflix with the HDMI style protection. my new phone has the ability to do HDMI over usbc and it is compatible with some of the USB to HDMI connectors that will work with Netflix and Amazon. so for now that works. the downside is I can't use my phone like to search info on the movie I'm watching while it's showing the movie. the work around is I tether a tablet to the phone while it's serving the movie.

4 home devices. while I can tether then when I'm there or she can while she is there, ring and others can't work while we are not at home. this is an issue but I'm still not a fan of 'i need the cloud to turn on your lights while you're at home' solutions. I do miss not being able to look at my cams. but in the 3+ years I've been working on this for me it's almost perfect.


in conclusion it's not there for everyone and it's not perfect even for me, but it's getting there. there are still lots of problems such as coverage, speed, plans. but I'm paying less now for my current plan than when I started down this path and I've got more total data!

I think in a few more years for me I may be able to just take an older phone or LTE tablet and add it to the plan and just use it as an LTE hotspot for home equipment and have all the bases covered. still probably not be perfect still... but good enough for all of my needs