iPhone personal hotspot

[sk!mom]

Looking for opinions on using an iPhone as a personal hotspot. How well does it work? Is it a viable replacement for wifi?

 

[Marionnette]

Looking for opinions on using an iPhone as a personal hotspot. How well does it work? Is it a viable replacement for wifi?

My son uses his for this purpose all of the time. It's as good as your cellphone service is. He can stream movies without buffering problems in most locations. However, if you do not have unlimited data, it can prove to be quite costly. I certainly would not use it as a replacement for wi-fi but it does make for a good alternative to buying 3G devices (like iPads or Kindles) and paying monthly fees for cellular data.

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

If you have the old AT &T unlimited data plan enabling this feature allows them to dump you off your data plan. And once it is gone you can't get it back

 

[englishteacha]

We used our hot spot on vacation where we otherwise had no internet. Sucked up data like crazy. I wouldn't use it for that purpose exclusively unless I had an unlimited data plan, which I guess are hard to come by these days.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

If you have the old AT &T unlimited data plan enabling this feature allows them to dump you off your data plan. And once it is gone you can't get it back

Yes, I would love to set this up, but I have an unlimited data plan that I just can't let go!

iPhone hot spots work very well, at least in my experience.

 

[sandyplayer]

It works best in 4g areas, butbitbstill works with 3G. I only use it for "emergency" stuff...I don't have wifi plan for my iPad, if I want to search the net briefly for a book to download, I use the hotspot. But I found it can be inconsistent and slower depending on where you are.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

I used to use an iPhone as a personal hotspot for a while when I had Verizon. It was a bit expensive for me, it was like $20 a month... I think with the new "share everything" plan it is included in your service.

It was dependable and worked well. Every now and then it would have a fit with me, and my computer wouldn't connect to it. I would have to turn off my phone and turn it back on to get it to work. Easy enough fix for the problem. I do not think it could be a wifi replacement unless you are very light user. Tethering can really roll up the amount of data you use.

 

[MichelleVW]

We use the personal hotspot on vacations because seems like every time we use hotel wifi we get hacked.

I wouldn't use it as a replacement for home wifi since we are constantly on our computers.