[TheNamelessPoet]

Does it HAVE to be thru OnStar?

I ask because I have Straight Talk and they have a cheap monthly plan.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[leeG]

I moved my hotspot to my ATT family share plan.

 

[llninja]

I moved my hotspot to my ATT family share plan.

Why pay extra to get the car to be a device on your share plan when you could just use one of your phones as a hotspot?

 

[NickHark]

Why pay extra to get the car to be a device on your share plan when you could just use one of your phones as a hotspot?

Convenience.

 

[PilotAlan]

Why pay extra to get the car to be a device on your share plan when you could just use one of your phones as a hotspot?

In areas with marginal coverage, the in-car hotspot's better antenna placement (and presumably antenna size) makes a significant difference.
In my case, my phone was Verizon and the hotspot was AT&T. So diversity of carriers was also a consideration.

 

[llninja]

In areas with marginal coverage, the in-car hotspot's better antenna placement (and presumably antenna size) makes a significant difference.
In my case, my phone was Verizon and the hotspot was AT&T. So diversity of carriers was also a consideration.

Yet everyone who pays more for verizon is convinced it's worth it as Verizon supposedly has better coverage. Don't know as I'm and AT&T customer. I quite honestly have never had a coverage issue with my smartphone. The only problem I encounter is when visiting big cities at a big event where way too many smartphones are all concentrated in a particular area which overloads the network. The 4th of July celebration caused all my family's smartphones to not work well.

 

[TheNamelessPoet]

Yea, the at&t vs Verizon is nonsense. 10 years ago it really did make a difference. Honestly unless you have 3 or more phones go with straight talk. If you have an at&t phone, you use their towers, if you have a Verizon phone, you run off Verizon towers.

Anyway back to my real question, ty for the answers. I often use a considerable amount and if I need to use my laptop it is infinitely easier to connect to a real Hotspot than my phone.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[llninja]

Yea, the at&t vs Verizon is nonsense. 10 years ago it really did make a difference. Honestly unless you have 3 or more phones go with straight talk. If you have an at&t phone, you use their towers, if you have a Verizon phone, you run off Verizon towers.

Anyway back to my real question, ty for the answers. I often use a considerable amount and if I need to use my laptop it is infinitely easier to connect to a real Hotspot than my phone.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

Must be something with your phone then because connecting my laptop to my phone is no different than connecting my laptop to a hotspot. (Oh no, so instead of the AT&T vs. Verizon, it's now Samsung vs. Apple).

 

[aspomwell]

I've been using Google Fi for the last 6 months. Less than half the cost of Verizon and the hotspot isn't an extra cost. Not worth it if you use a lot of data but we have 3 phones and use about 3GB a month for about $80. You pay for data at $10/gb flat rate whether it's for your phone or as a hotspot.

 

[PilotAlan]

Yet everyone who pays more for verizon is convinced it's worth it as Verizon supposedly has better coverage.

Yea, the at&t vs Verizon is nonsense.

Depends entirely on where you are, and what you're doing. In some states, AT&T has more spectrum and better coverage (like most of TX). In other states, it's Verizon.
Out west here, Verizon is king. I do disaster work, so I must have diversity of networks. Phone and MiFi on Verizon, iPad and car on AT&T (able to be a hotspot). You never know which sites will be up and which will be down.

But generally speaking, Verizon has much better coverage out here. Also, generally speaking, Verizon spends more to put up towers in small towns and on rural highways away from Interstates. Even in TX (where AT&T has more spectrum) the little towns where my mom lives have three Verizon towers and one AT&T tower.
There've been many more times I could get Verizon and not AT&T than vice versa.

 

[Insight Refugee]

I've been using Google Fi for the last 6 months. Less than half the cost of Verizon and the hotspot isn't an extra cost. Not worth it if you use a lot of data but we have 3 phones and use about 3GB a month for about $80. You pay for data at $10/gb flat rate whether it's for your phone or as a hotspot.

For comparison's sake, my wife and I each have an iPad plus the Volt (i.e., three devices) on an AT&T family share for $60 per month. That's 4 GB with up to 5 GB of rollover data. Unless we go on a long trip, we use a little less than 4 GB per month (e.g., 3.6 this month) so we usually have a full 5 GB of rollover data when we go on vacation or have a business trip where usage spikes.

The inefficiency comes in where both of us have phones through work (she has T-Mobile and I have AT&T), so when we are using the car's hotspot, we are "paying" for data that could have been subsidized by our employer. So far it has not been a problem and the convenience of using a better antenna on the Volt is worth the hypothetical cost of using our paid data.

YMMV