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Comment by kibwen | Hacker News Reader

I wonder at what point we'll start seeing people simply stop paying for in-home internet via WiFi in favor of relying solely on their mobile data package, in the same way that people stopped paying for corded phone lines and are starting to stop paying for cable television. For some reason I'm frightened at the prospect... is it because I trust my ISP more than my wireless carrier?

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Lots of people already do this. If you're a light/occasional internet user it makes way more sense to buy a 5GB/month dongle and use that instead vs getting hard wired broadband. This doesn't even include the fact loads of people only access the internet through a smartphone and not a computer, which means they probably won't bother with hardwired at all.

The more difficult is heavy internet users. Considering an LTE cell site has between 100 and 1gigabit of capacity across all of it, and there is hundreds/thousands of customers connected, it's hard to see how this would work for more heavy internet demands (HD video streaming, etc) without it all grinding to a halt.

Several years ago, Clearwire had a WiMAX network which they marketed as an alternative to home broadband in addition to the usual mobile applications. They sold a home modem that looked a lot like a standard cable modem, except there was no cable. They had an unlimited plan and advertised speeds that were not great, but acceptable. (I think 3Mbps? I had 6Mbps from Comcast at the time.)

I was so fed up with Comcast at that point that I gave them a try. Turned out they overpromised a wee bit. Before long, my speeds were throttled into the ground, in the neighborhood of 50kbps during peak times. Worse, they gave me the runaround when I tried to get it fixed, and it took me quite a while to get a straight answer about why my speeds sucked so hard. Before long I was back to Comcast. No surprise, Clearwire and their network eventually failed.

The idea of wireless broadband good enough to support routine home use is really attractive. It feels like the technology is almost there now.

I know a few foreigners here in Japan using in home units like that. They arnt heavy users, so Hardline just isn't worth it for them.

They never complain about speed to me when I ask (then again I doubt they would even notice, unless it was really bad, not exactly techs).

I have considered it, but then again the price of a 1gb/s is so damn cheap here . . .

Yes, Relish in London tried the same thing. Unlimited plan, advertised up to 50mbit/sec speeds, quickly fell apart, as you're saying sub-dialup speeds at peak times and a mobile operator bought them for the spectrum.

I've been doing this for the last 5 years. These days, we average about a 1 TB / month on 4G LTE. Somehow, we've avoided carrier throttling. Although we live in a rural area, so there is little congestion anyway. A single hotspot is sufficient for all our home internet devices. If you're going to do this, it's important to have a (preferably grandfathered) unlimited data plan.

Which carrier is this? Verizon has promised to kick anyone going over 200GB/month off completely. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/01/11...

I am being pressured by my significant other to give up my two grandfathered lines since it works out to $60/line + $80 for the plan every month, and they now offer other "unlimited" options.

> I am being pressured by my significant other to give up my two grandfathered lines since it works out to $60/line + $80 for the plan every month, and they now offer other "unlimited" options.

Can I ask why you're not giving it up? That price sounds really high.

There are a number of advantages to the grandfathered unlimited plans that are kinda complicated. Basically, there are fewer restrictions on the kind of devices you can use the SIM cards in, and the scenarios where they can throttle you are different. Some plans also include subsidized device upgrades every two years.

> I wonder at what point we'll start seeing people simply stop paying for in-home internet via WiFi in favor of relying solely on their mobile data package, in the same way that people stopped paying for corded phone lines and are starting to stop paying for cable television.

I'm surprised there hasn't been more movement in the other direction. There are very inexpensive WiFi-first phone plans ($20/month + data), which in combination with the fact that WiFi exists in the places where many people spend 95+% of their time means that the plan ends up just being the $20/month, because you so rarely actually have to use any cellular data.

It's true that many people spend 95+% of their time on wifi, but we still need to be reachable when in transit. It would be interesting if there were a super-light cellular package that only offered minimal data/calls. I think this is basically what Comcast is rolling out, using the Verizon network as a fallback. The primary method of routing calls is over your own wifi, and over xfinitywifi hotspots at many broadband customers' homes. As a result, the price is much lower than Verizon.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/17/16159084/comcast-xfinity-...

The plans exist. Google Fi is $20/month with unlimited calls and texts but metered data. You can also buy prepaid minutes and data from several carriers with no monthly fee, you just pay for it as you use it, but then you're paying for minutes as well as data.

When it's cheaper than traditional wired networking systems.

In many developing countries, this is the norm. No fast internet access, maybe DSL if there's a land line but "pocket wifi" for all.

I live on the east coast, and I already cut th e cord like that. I have no ISP anymore.

It started as an experiment. I still have several mobile devices, each with own unlimited plan, through different operators. AT&T is providing access to the TV doing Netflix/amazon/hulu. Sprint is providing access to my tablets, laptop and iphone. My main phone is a windows phone dual sim with AT&T for data, and Tmobile prepaid for voice service. I am comparing coverage, costs, and see what fits my needs.

My conclusion so far: I don't miss my ISP, and hardly feel a difference. I plan to cut service further. It will force me out of my home to socialize more, which is a good thing.

I think I will be keeping unlimited access only for my laptop, likely through sprint (because you get routable IpV4s with the right APN!) and Tmobile prepaid service on my windows phone for the rare occasion I need to be called even when my laptop is turned off.

I am not sure the current capacity of mobile networks could handle a majority of people going mobile only. Since mobile bandwidth is shared the experience could be quite bad in population dense areas. Imo wired Internet will be around for a while, unless 5G changes things a lot, but I don't know enough about that.

This is not uncommon here in Turkey. I end up using my iPhone as a modem via USB tethering often. Mobile internet is much faster in Turkey (100+ mbs for cheap) than the wired network. It only adds ~10ping and can handle anything.

I'm willing to bet this will be the norm worldwide when 5G rolls out. Here in Turkey we have '4.5G' which is a marketing term for the latest generation 4G infrastructure. We only got 4G last year here, so we have the latest hardware.

Really? I just returned from a 2-week vacation in Turkey (Izmir, Cesme) and I was lucky to get working internet at all roaming on Turkcell. When it did connect, the speeds were ~4 mbps (iPhone6s - Verizon). Not sure if that's just because I was roaming.

If you were roaming then all your data is being tunneled back to the US to Verizon's network / a US IP.

It's very possible that Verizon is limiting your bandwidth so that they don't have to pay the Turkish providers as much for the network usage.

In addition, you are probably getting QoSed by the provider itself.

Did you think to walk into a Turkcell store and buy a SIM card + prepaid bandwidth? 6GB LTE + 500 minutes/texts is 50 lira (~$15)

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