Smartphone? Hotspot? Router? - Which is Best for Mobile Internet using Cellular Data?

what are the ways to use cellular data as your mobile internet connection as you are rving and voting today we're going to talk about the options that are out there and the pros and cons of them there i'm cherie with the mobile internet resource center where we focus on mobile internet options for rvers and cruisers and cellular data is probably the most popular way that rvers and cruisers keep connected as they travel and there are a lot of options and types of devices that you can use to get online and they all come with some pros and cons and that's what we're going to talk about today is which ones might make a sense in your personal mobile internet setup so the first option and the easiest one is using a smartphone's personal mobile hotspot feature this basically turns your cellular data plan that you purchase from your carrier and you turn on a feature inside the settings of the device to turn on personal mobile hotspot and that creates a wi-fi hotspot that you can then connect your laptops and other devices to to share your data plan with you can also usb tether to a computer or some mobile routers out there and that is the same thing the carriers treat that data usage exactly the same it's personal mobile hotspot use they might sometimes call it tethering now of course the pro of this is you already probably have a smartphone and you can utilize your smartphone cellular plan it's less devices that you have to carry around you just turn on the hotspot and you are connected super simple and your cellular data plan might already include personal mobile hotspot as a feature of your plan a lot of plans these days just include it as part of the plan itself there are some out there that don't so do check the terms and services of your cellular data plan and shop for that feature when you are shopping for data plans it's also a lot of the flagship smartphones that are coming out now have dual sim maybe you have an embedded sim and a physical sim slot that means you can carry two cellular carriers with you giving you a lot of built-in redundancy right on your smartphone to switch between whichever is carrier is working best at your current location and smartphones tend to be the most up-to-date as far as modem technology on the market because they are consumer focus and new models are coming out all of the time so if you want the latest and greatest cellular modem smartphones are the way to go but these have a lot of downsides for use in a mobile internet arsenal particularly if your data needs are high or this is going to be your primary use the data plans out there they come with some caps a lot of the unlimited data plans out there actually have pretty strict caps on mobile hotspot use for at high speed so you definitely need to shop those plans and understand what you have there are some options out there and they're changing all the time so just shop those plans carefully if you're going to be using personal mobile hotspot a lot off of your smartphone also using a smartphone as a primary mobile internet connection for your household might not be ideal if you have multiple people that are using the same personal mobile hotspot and let's say one of you wants to go for a walk or go out and run errands well you've just taken the internet with you and the other person in the household if they still need to get stuff done online they're going to need to find a different way online so it's not a great option if you want something that you just leave on all of the time especially for things like remote monitoring when you're away from your rv or boat also smartphones are not dedicated to doing data as a hotspot they have a lot of other functions they you might like use them for phone calls i don't think i've done that in a while but you can you can make phone calls on them and that might conflict with what you need to be doing online you might get some degrees decreased performance on your data so if you need to be online while you're on a phone call or someone else in your household does that might not be ideal and smartphones they're because they're not optimizes data devices they don't keep an always on data connection if you haven't used your connection for a while they can fall asleep now some models might have ways to override that so be sure to look into that most ios devices don't so you have to constantly wake up your smartphone and tell it hey get to work and that can be annoying if you're used to just walking up to your computer and being online so you have some fiddling about there and because smartphones want to conserve your cellular data plan they're always going to be seeking out another wi-fi network so you might come back and it's now connected to your campground's wi-fi or maybe another wi-fi network that you have accessible from your vessel and it's going to be connected to that wi-fi hotspot so then you have to go turn that off and then turn back on personal mobile hotspot so it can be a little fiddly sometimes to be able to get a smartphone to use that personal mobile hotspot use reliably all of the time cellular phones also don't have a critical feature that we think is important for cellular data and that's antenna ports yes the antennas are inside and they do a great job when you're in a moderate signal area but if you need a better signal to get better data performance external antennas directly connected to to a device are important and cellular phones do not have those so the only option that you have to get a better signal is using a cellular booster which are pricey and not always the best option for signal enhancing for data performance so there can be some limitations there as far as if you are in a weak signal area getting the best performance for data on a smartphone and there's also some other considerations with your smartphone is it is a lot of wear and tear on the battery a personal mobile hotspot is using a lot of data especially if you are doing some intensive things it's going to create a lot of heat in your phone and that can impact the battery in there it's also going to drain it very quickly so make sure you have it plugged in if you're using a lot of hotspot use the wi-fi range that is on the smartphone that it can broadcast for your devices to pick up isn't going to be very strong you could be fine within a room or on your desk space but as you move further away from the smartphone you're going to get less of a connection so that might be a consideration in your setup as well with all of these considerations for hot spotting off a smartphone we recommend this method for solo travelers those not dependent on internet for critical tasks as a backup to your primary internet source and to use when you're out and about away from your rv or boat for more on selecting smartphones look at our guide at mobileinternetinfo.com smartphones cellular embedded tablets are also a great option for using cellular data in your setup there's a lot that you can do on your tablet they have a microphone and video camera built in so they're great for doing video conferencing because you can get apps for them for most of the major conferencing systems out there and you can get unlimited data plans pretty affordably for these especially if you have a post paid smartphone plan with the carriers you can then just add on a tablet to that plan for usually somewhere between 10 and 30 dollars a month which makes it a great option for using a lot of data legitimately on device of the tablet itself and there's a lot that you can do with a tablet you can get an external keyboard on it and use it like a laptop for composing emails doing creation of content um all the things you can do on a laptop a lot of things can be done on the tablet itself so consider if you can use one of these in your setup like smartphones they also don't have antenna ports so signal enhancing can be a problem on tablets because if you need to get a better signal again you're restricted to using cellular boosters in your setup so they're not going to be a perfect solution in all situations but they can be a great way to offload a lot of data usage in your setup so that you can get online and get the things you need to get done we recommend cellular embedded tablets for those who have a lot of data needs especially around video conferencing and streaming or those that can do a lot on a tablet itself kind of taking the place of a laptop and the mobile internet needs all in one device we have a lot more on selecting tablets in our smartphone's guide at mobileinternetinfo.com smartphones the next option that a lot of people go with is a mobile hotspot device you might know these as jet packs or mifi's those are just branding terms kind of like puffs or kleenex are terms for facial tissues mobile hotspot devices are self-contained units that usually have a battery inside of them so that you can take these with you they're portable and they are dedicated to the task of taking a cellular connection making it a data connection and creating a local area network for your devices to get online they're super simple nice plug and play options that don't require a lot of fiddling to get a connection going so they are very popular for that reason and they are consumer price you purchase these directly from your cellular carrier they're usually optimized for the cellular carrier that you purchase them from and they are priced anywhere from fifty dollars to five hundred dollars for flagship models so they're in the realm of affordable for a lot of people to have a dedicated cellular data connection because it's dedicated you don't have a lot of those dropout issues that you might have with using a personal hotspot off of your smartphone because this is an always-on data connection it's not going to fall asleep unless you tell it to fall asleep when it has inactivity so it can always be available you can leave your rv or coach and still have this data connection going so it's great for remote monitoring and things like that they also tend to come a lot of the models have uh antenna ports but you do need to shop the models out there to make sure that the model that you have has that option we highly recommend it because that gives you the option to use external cellular antennas to get a better signal and better data performance and not have to rely on cellular boosters which have limitations in how well they work for data connections some of the new flagship ones coming out like this verizon and t-mobile and seagull 5g hotspot don't have antenna ports so make sure you you shop for the for them with antenna ports if that's what you want in your arsenal hotspot devices also tend to be fairly up-to-date technology at least the flagship models they keep fairly up-to-date as far as technology is advancing so if you buy the flagship models you tend to have the latest and greatest that is out there at the current moment now disadvantages of a hotspot device is you do need to have a separate data plan for these and there are limited options out there for data plans for these devices that are going to give you a lot of data and we're constantly tracking those options so check in with our top data plan picks for those you will also of course have a separate device and data plan that you have to keep uh in service so if you have a hotspot already or a tablet in your setup this is going to be an additional device to purchase an additional expense and of course a monthly recurring data plan just for the device itself the wi-fi range on these can be stronger than what your smartphone can provide but it's not going to be as full as what you might be used to with a residential router that you might be using on your current internet connection so it's going to be somewhere in between and there are settings on these a lot of them come with the ability to broadcast over 2.4 or 5 gigahertz giving the option for long range and short range and you can adjust the settings inside of them sometimes as well but it's not going to give you much more than let's say a typical standard room size of connection maybe a little bit out into your campsite but don't expect really long range wi-fi oftentimes and because these have a battery inside and when you're using a lot of data that can create a lot of heat especially if you keep them plugged in to keep charged so you do need to keep on top of the battery health thankfully most hot spot devices come with removable batteries so you can inspect them and replace them as needed so make sure you keep on top of that because you can decrease your performance as your battery gets unhealthy and you can even present a fire risk if it gets really bad we recommend hotspot devices for those that have a multi-person or multi-device household and those who need a dedicated data connection but maybe have basic networking needs these are simple all-in-one solutions at consumer pricing for more on selecting hotspots go to our guide at mobileinternetinfo.com hotspots [Music] and cellular embedded routers have become a much more popular option as more of these are become available in consumer pricing levels not as inexpensive as a hotspot device but they have come down in price a lot in the recent years what these are is a full on router with all of your local area networking needs and it has modems built in so you can get a cellular data plan for them and have this be your cellular connection mobile routers are kind of like hot spots on steroids in some respects they have a lot of the same features and they go further with it so they'll tend to have antenna ports on the back with larger antenna ports even so that you can get external antennas up higher on your roof to get a better signal the embedded modems inside tend to be carrier agnostic because these are not just for a specific cellular carrier they the modems tend to cover the frequency bands that all of the carriers use so that you can use these for different carriers they're not locked to a specific character's carrier so that's a great option for redundancy to have multiple data plans and different carriers on the same device some of them even come with multiple modems inside so that you can use multiple carriers at the same time which is great for redundancy and some even have multiple sim cards for each modem since you can switch between plans rather quickly usually a couple minutes in between on the same modem routers also allow you to bring in other internet sources so maybe you want to use your campgrounds wi-fi network or your marina's wi-fi network or maybe you're thinking into the future of integrating in starlink or other satellite options into your mobile internet arsenal this allows you to plug those into one of the lan ports by ethernet and use that connection as well as the other connections in there riders also give you a lot more advanced features for optimizing your connection they might have things like band locking so you can select which frequency bands you want to use on the carrier if one isn't performing as well in the area you're at hot spots and smartphones don't typically give you those functionalities riders also come with more networking advanced features you can create a more robust local area network you might build create a guest network and all sorts of other things for creating a wired network and a wi-fi network over both frequency bands at 2.4 and 5 gigahertz wi-fi you also have more advanced features for managing your internet sources so because you can have multiple internet sources coming into the device it gives you the ability to manage them they might offer features like auto failover if one is going down it'll automatically switch to the others you might be able to do load balancing which allows you to send data down to different connections and split your loads up and you might be able to do bonding allowing you to combine your internet sources into one connection for increased reliability those are features you might want to look for when you're shopping for a router if those are important to you and of course because these are more small office and industrial grade things the wi-fi network that they can create is going to be a lot stronger than what you're going to be able to get off of a hotspot or smartphone so if you have a larger area you want to cover a mobile router might be a better choice for you now of course they come with downsides they are a pricier option to go into instead of a starting place of fifty dollars like for a hotspot device you're probably going to be starting somewhere in the three hundred dollar range for entry-level base models or lower end models and go all the way up into the multi thousand dollars for very advanced stuff but there's a lot of options in the 700 to 1200 range that you can acquire and of course keep in mind that you're probably going to want an external antenna to go along with it as well these are also more advanced uh routers they're designed more for an it staff to manage of a large corporation maybe a fleet deployment going out there they're not designed for end users necessarily to manage but they're not unapproachable especially as more and more models are being targeted towards consumers and mobile travelers they're getting friendlier and there's a lot of resources out there to manage them but you will have more of a learning curve to get into it and get used to it and once you have things set up it should still work but if you want to really get into the weeds these do allow you to do more tweaking and things to get your network and your performance better but you're going to have to learn how to navigate the user interface and those features within the device so keep that in mind if you're considering a router if technology intimidates you this might not be the best choice but if you're willing to go in they are accessible these days now remember cellular routers like hotspot devices also come with limited data options for them so keep that in mind we recommend cellular embedded routers for those who need to connect many devices to the internet those who need a reliable and redundant system those are more advanced networking needs and those are a bit more tech savvy for more on selecting routers go to mobileinternetinfo.com routers there are a lot of options that we just went over and of course within each category of device there are a lot of options and variations to go and research and dig deeper and we offer a lot of resources for going in for selecting routers selecting hotspots and selecting smartphones and tablets and the things that you need to be on the lookout for selecting them as an internet source in your connection and of course we have a lot of other content on selecting those data plans to help you out and keep in mind you might not just choose one of these approaches you might find that a mix of these approaches might make sense in your setup and there are options that are changing all of the times and the different approaches and what makes sense for you is also going to change so it is with the support of our premium members that were able to create content like this offer it free to the community to help you get a grasp on the basics for their support we do go further with deeper content reviews vendor discounts classrooms if you want to learn more about this stuff so if mobile internet is going to be an important component of your lifestyle consider becoming a member help us make this all happen and get more resources and interactive guidance from our staff so thank you for joining us today keep on top of the news as more options come out and may the bandwidth be with you these videos are brought to you by our premium members our mobile internet aficionados they make it possible for us to track this news and create these videos if you like this video 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Channel: Mobile Internet Resource Center

Views: 134,188

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Id: oby2uzAJnf4

Length: 19min 46sec (1186 seconds)

Published: Wed May 26 2021