Internet at Home Without Cable or DSL or Dishes

How to Connect Using Cellular Networks

To make all the internet-connected TVs, desktop and laptop computers, tablets, and phones (thru Wi-Fi) work conveniently, your home needs an internet connection that will let your wireless network (Wi-Fi) connect to the world.

The average US household spends $684 a year on internet connectivity for their home, about $57 a month. Some spend significantly more, like about $1,476 a year for satellite, and some spend less at about $600 a year for DSL (Digital Subscriber Line, source). There are advantages and disadvantages to each of these, like weather can affect satellite, but satellite also works anywhere a mounting point for the dish and a view of the sky is available. But these are not the only ways.

Enter the mobile hotspot.

Mobile Hotspots

If you want to connect online, you don’t have to use a cable modem, DSL or a satellite dish, if you have good stable cellular data coverage. Cellular data is what your mobile phone uses for apps, email, web browsing and such, and there are two ways it can become your internet connection and your home’s wireless network (WiFi).

1. connect through your phone itself, though what is called tethering (or phone-as-modem)
2. connect using dedicated mobile hotspot device

The upsides of 1 include not needing to buy a new device, the upsides of 2 include not needing your phone to be at home and dedicated to accessing the internet.

Tethering (number 1 above) is a handy option sometimes, especially for occasional use or on the road, and many cell phone plans let you add a tethering option to your data plan. However, if you take the phone with you when you leave the house, then the internet is no longer there for everyone else to use.

Enter the dedicated device.

Mobile Hotspot Devices

Usually, a small device, often pocket-sized, creates an area of Wi-Fi coverage and serves as a link between nearby Wi-Fi devices and a cellular data network. The device can range in cost from $50 to more than $300, and sometimes can be paid for over time. Their usage can be paid for much like mobile phone usage: prepaid (often at a premium) or billed later (postpaid).

They can often be added to your mobile phone (or home phone or internet) plan, and sometimes there are perks for bundling them in with your other account. Like phones, sometimes their cost can be billed on your existing bill. Or they can be bought separately. Like phones, they also can come locked into a given network or unlocked and able to be immediately used on any network that uses the same technology they are built to use. It can be sort of like adding a phone line, but this is basically data only.

Mobile hotspots connect to the world as mobile phones do. They may not work in very remote areas, nor will they tend to work underground or when tons of concrete or metal are between them and the cellular towers they communicate with.

The major wireless phone carriers have different coverage maps, and no one of them is the best everywhere. The specifics of where your home is located may decide which carrier will work best for you (or work at all). Getting the mobile hotspot connected to the rest of the world is kind of the whole point of their existence, and geography and physics can sometimes be limits on where they’ll work.

Mobile Data Plans for Your Devices

Most mobile data plans for both tethering and mobile hotspot devices give a base amount of data as included and then charge more for anything above that base amount.

The average US household uses about 344 GB a month (source), but this number can vary by your family’s specifics like if anyone is working or going to school from home and how many movies and TV shows you watch.

If you’re using 344 GB or more every month, there may be an unlimited wireless hotspot plan through Xfinity as a solution that costs $540 a year ($45/month, source). To get it, you have to be a customer of theirs otherwise, which may mean this could be a way to get internet to a second home or office that has good cellular data coverage. It’s possible that even though it is unlimited (and so has no surprise fees), once you use over a certain amount of data, they might slow the connection speed down for the rest of the month. A lot of times the speed change is irrelevant, but good to know it may happen if your usage is large.

If you’re using significantly less than 344 GB a month, like maybe at a second home you don’t spend the majority of the month at, many plans from many companies can get your expenses lower, more like $360 a year ($30 a month) for a mobile hotspot. These might end up costing more than that $360/year if you go over the base level of data use. Sometimes unlimited means the convenience of not having to check how much you’ve used or getting surprise overage charges on your bill.

Is It Fast Enough

Often yes. You may wonder if the speed of cellular data will be enough to support you and all your devices (and everyone in your home too) if you switch to a wireless solution to connect to the internet. That will depend almost entirely on the coverage in your area and in your home.

In my home right now, my wireless data connection (4G/LTE) is almost twice as fast for downloads and almost 4 times as fast for uploads as my cable modem connection through my Wi-Fi. (The difference between uploads and downloads for a cable modem connection is normal. They are sometimes referred to as asymmetric connections: the upload speed is not symmetrical to the download speed.) So cellular data can be faster than wired connections but isn’t always.

Your cell phone’s data reception inside your house may give some clues whether your home can handle you connecting wirelessly through the cell network to access the internet. Wireless data coverage in the United States at 4G levels (also known as LTE) is available in over 95% of the country (higher with some providers, source). 5G coverage is increasing daily in the US, and it is significantly faster than 4G (LTE) in several ways.

Your speed may vary depending on your location and home construction. Some buildings are naturally easier for wireless signals to be available in them than others. Wireless coverage in your area and the specifics of the architecture and construction of your home will decide if wireless connections work well for you at home. If your location and home’s construction allow for good data reception, wireless internet may be a good option for you.

Is wireless faster/as fast as wired home connections? Often yes, like at my house right now. Often 10 Megabits-per-second (Mbps) to 20 Mbps is enough for a family to use their devices happily, though you may be more or less demanding on your family’s connection depending on your needs and use.

• Wired connections are often between 3 Mbps and 100 Mbps, with price and the availability for your location usually deciding what part of the range you will be in (source).
• 4G (LTE) wireless connections are often between 6.5 Mbps and 53.3 Mbps for downloads with your network and coverage for your area and building deciding what in the range you’ll get (source). Your cell phone probably already has this level of data connectivity at least.
• 5G wireless can be between 100+ Mbps and 20 Gigabits-per-second (a Gbps is about 1000 Mbps).

As you can see, the data speed ranges of wired and wireless connections overlap a lot, and increasingly: 5G wireless will surpass the other two.

Your results in your house, be it wired, 4G (LTE), or 5G, may vary. If your neighbors also use cable modems as you do, you can slow each other down since the wires are basically shared. That is a downside of cable modems in how they are designed. This is less true with 4G wireless and even less of a factor for 5G because it is “designed to support a 100x increase in traffic capacity and network efficiency” (source).

Conclusion

A mobile hotspot device might be a great way to lower your annual internet bill, and, with an unlimited plan, lets you plug your mobile hotspot device into the power outlet and use its Wi-Fi the same way you would use a more traditional connection like a cable modem, DSL or satellite connecting your home’s Wi-Fi to the internet.

© Copyright March 15, 2021, David August, all rights reserved davidaugust.com

David August is an award-winning actor, writer, director, and producer. Off-screen, he has worked at ad agencies, start-ups, production companies, and major studios helping them tell stories their customers and clients adore. He has guest lectured at USC’s Marshall School of Business about the internet.