Tips for using Mobile Hotspot

[csdude55]

I'm hoping to eliminate my home DSL and just use my mobile hotspot, mainly because the speed is about 5 times faster!. Only problem is that the most data my provider offers is 100G /month, and I currently use over 200G through my DSL Once I go over 100G, they'll throttle my speed, probably to less than 1M.

Can you guys and gals suggest any ways to save bandwidth?

My biggest hogs are going to be Netflix, YouTube TV, and Pandora, all streaming through my Roku. I found that I could turn Netflix down to "Low" through the Settings and not have any noticeable quality loss, so that'll help! But I can't find that YouTube or Pandora offer anything like that. So I'm trying to find ways to throttle bandwidth through the phone.

I've also found that when I take my phone with me away from home and then come back, my computer (running Windows 10) changes the setting back to a "Metered" connection. Which would be fine, except that Outlook doesn't work well with metered connections and starts throwing errors after a period of time. So it's a bit of a nuisance, every time I come home I have to change it back to "Unmetered". Any thoughts on how to make it permanently recognize it as Unmetered?

Any other tips to improve my Hotspotting experience?

 

[me just saying]

not going to happen unless you drastically cut back on your streaming. the only thing I suggest is to use whatever public wifi you can find and download your movies and shows from there. netflix and the others does offer off line watching for some shows and movies.

 

[csdude55]

That's too bad I live in a rural area so there aren't any public wifis around or anything. The only DSL provider that comes to my home is CenturyLink, and the highest speed they could offer is 6M... but it often drops down to 1M (or less), so I'm constantly buffering. At least once a week I would have to call to get them to "rebuild" something, but it would take at least 30 minutes because I have to go through the Level 1 tech with the same canned instructions.

I've been using the hotspot for about a week now, and it would be perfect if not for the data limit!

Can you suggest an alternative to Pandora that does let me limit the bandwidth?

 

[me just saying]

That's too bad I live in a rural area so there aren't any public wifis around or anything. The only DSL provider that comes to my home is CenturyLink, and the highest speed they could offer is 6M... but it often drops down to 1M (or less), so I'm constantly buffering. At least once a week I would have to call to get them to "rebuild" something, but it would take at least 30 minutes because I have to go through the Level 1 tech with the same canned instructions.

I've been using the hotspot for about a week now, and it would be perfect if not for the data limit!

Can you suggest an alternative to Pandora that does let me limit the bandwidth?

I think a lot of people would love to have mobile data only. Users get tired of paying for two internet services, mobile and home. I would also love to live in rural areas but if online access is extremely limited. Surprised you are able to even get dsl. I cannot think of any other way or any service that can help you any further.

 

[csdude55]

I'm testing out something that might work... but I'm still in the early stages.

First, I set up my Windows 10 computer as a Mobile Hotspot, then connected all of my devices to it instead of my phone. Then I connected my computer to my phone's mobile hotspot.

Then I had to go to Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network Connections, right-click on my WiFi connection (that shows the phone's hotspot), then Sharing, then check "Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet connection".

So now I'm more or less using my computer as a router.

Then, I started looking for rate-limiting software for my computer. I found one, but I don't want to give the name because I don't want people to think I'm spamming. It has a free version that'll let me stream 10G /month, but if I need more than that I'll need to pay $3 /month. It also acts as a VPN and would let me bond multiple connections (which doesn't really apply to me), so if it works out then it's well worth $3! I'm still trying to find a free option, though.

For now, though, I set my rate limit to 3M and everything seems fine. If I need something higher to watch a movie or something, though, it's a simple thing to change the rate limit to something higher and then change it back.

I also found that Spotify has a data-saver option that Pandora doesn't have, so I might switch over and see if I can save some data.