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Anyone Tried The New FMCA/Verizon HotSpot Plan?
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Andy,
I read about the plan on the FMCA website. It appears that the speed of the plan is reduced. From what I gather the other data plans by Verizon were faster. Did I interpret the information correctly?
Reese
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I read the about the plan on the FMCA website. It appears that the speed of the plan is reduced. From what I gather the other data plans by Verizon were faster. Did I interpret the information correctly?
Reese, based on my conversation with a senior Verizon rep, the speed is 4G LTE and is the fastest offered for hot spots today. When the monthly allocated 24GB limit is reached, it drops to 3G speeds which is around 1/10th of the 4G LTE speed.
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Chadspeer
I know exactly what you are talking about. I had to purchase my device at best buy. Most Att store had no idea what I was talking about. Needless to say all the stores I visited did not have them.
Once the device arrived to my home I had to activate it in ATT store. Manager told me there was no such thing as any unlimited plan for $20. I kept pressing because I knew what I was talking about. Finally I got him to call national. Very sarcastically he tells the person on the other end of the line, ” I have a customer in the store who thinks he can get an unlimited plan for $20 on a Mobley.” National tells him yep what is the problem.
I love the device. It gives me much faster speed than my home hard line depending where I am.
I am thinking if I can pair it with a wiboost I will almost never be without internet.
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FWIW, I never see anywhere close to the maximum speeds that LTE can do. Not at home or anywhere else I have ever been. Most of the time it is way less. This is on both AT&T and Verizon, as I have devices from both.
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FWIW, I never see anywhere close to the maximum speeds that LTE can do. Not at home or anywhere else I have ever been. Most of the time it is way less. This is on both AT&T and Verizon, as I have devices from both.
That’s not unusual. To get the maximum speeds, the stars need to align. Data speeds are like fuel mileage in that there’s too many factors in play to provide accurate information. Of course the phone companies promote fast speeds under the most ideal conditions which, for the most part, is not a reality.
I will say that I travel with hotspots from AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon and with my travels going from Florida to Michigan, Verizon has delivered the strongest and most consistent signal.
Now, to complicate matters further, I use the personal hotspot feature on an iPhone with T-Mobile (my backup phone) and while the signal is not as consistent as what I’ve found with Verizon, it does have an interesting feature in its data plan. For example, I can stream from Hulu, Netflix and Amazon (data free) without it counting against my monthly data allocation. I use this phone to mirror to the bus’s Apple TV and I can binge all night without eating data. One day I’ll take the time to put together a video to show you how I pulled this off. The techs from Marathon said it wasn’t possible…until I gave them a demo! I’ll give you a hint…
Static IP Address.
I know you’re hungry to know more, but I’m in the midst of a move and the videos won’t resume until after New Years!
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Andy
With the tech that is out there now I do believe most anything is possible. It will only get better in the days ahead. For someone to say it cant be done makes me hard headed enough to prove that it can be done.
1999 XLV X-6872, liberty #440 -
Mark
Now it depends on what my and your home speed is. My home speed is slow. When I go to town where the signal is strong the mobley speed is 5 x better.
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This is for Jon because he’s really into this data stuff.
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You all have me confused with someone who gives a damn.
How did all you manage without being connected?
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Just signed up.
Had to find someone at Verizon that could find the plan.
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I went out to lunch today with Di. We both had our phones with us.
Of course neither one was turned on. I don’t think we used any data and the speeds seemed OK.
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Jon’s flip phone data capability and speed is not near as fast as his new
Corvette !!!!!!!!!!!
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You all have me confused with someone who gives a damn.
How did all you manage without being connected?
I find it much easier to surf the net with a connection than it is without one.
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Andy,
I’m not sure you answered my question about how much data you’re allowed on the FMCA program.
Unlimited data or the 24G data is for the actual device, in my case an iPhone X. Now, when I use my iPhone X as a hotspot for my Mac or Apple TV, Verizon allows me 15G of 4G, before they throttle my “hotspot” to 3G for the rest of the month. However, my actual iPhone X data does get unlimited data for the month, although I believe it could be subject to throttling if I surpass 50G in one month.
TMobile has an “unlimited” plan for two lines for folks over 55 for $60 per month. But your hotspot is 3G unless you upgrade to another plan.
So does FMCA include LTE data for your hotspot in their plan or is it 3G like TMobile.
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Andy,
I’m not sure you answered my question about how much data you’re allowed on the FMCA program.
Unlimited data or the 24G data is for the actual device, in my case an iPhone X. Now, when I use my iPhone X as a hotspot for my Mac or Apple TV, Verizon allows me 15G of 4G, before they throttle my “hotspot” to 3G for the rest of the month. However, my actual iPhone X data does get unlimited data for the month, although I believe it could be subject to throttling if I surpass 50G in one month.
TMobile has an “unlimited” plan for two lines for folks over 55 for $60 per month. But your hotspot is 3G unless you upgrade to another plan.
So does FMCA include LTE data for your hotspot in their plan or is it 3G like TMobile.
Tim and Cindy,
The short answer is that your phone has a “personal hotspot” feature and the FMCA/Verizon plan is for a dedicated hotspot. Here’s the long answer:
Since the FMCA/Verizon plan is for a dedicated hotspot that does not have any other purpose or features (such as a phone or web browser) built into the device, it’s used solely as a hotspot that grants internet connections to other WiFi enabled devices (computer, Apple TV, Amazon Fire, tablet, etc.). So, this plan includes an actual 24GB of bandwidth per month and is not limited to the 15GB of personal hotspot data streaming of your phone.
The FMCA/Verizon hotspot data is only used when it’s connected to a device that is in turn, is connected to the internet.
Your phone has a plan that is commonly known as a “Personal Hotspot.” It’s not uncommon for a phone with a built in personal hotspot to have a lower data threshold than the actual device. This way, if you’ve reached your phone’s personal hotspot threshold, the phone still has data available for uses other than for a hotspot.
The FMCA/Verizon plan allows for 24GB of 4G LTE streaming (where available) per month. Since this thread has become a long one, I’ll provide the highlights of the information I received from Verizon:
– Unlike some other hotspot plans, there is no roll over for the unused data allocated each month on the FMCA/Verizon plan. For example, my other Verizon Jetpack device is on a $110 per month plan that allows for one month of roll over. So, if I don’t use it for a month, I could have preserved that unused month and have 48GB of data accumulated for usage. Please note that data only rolls over for one month. So, if it’s not used for three months, the maximum accumulated data amount is limited to 48GB before possible throttling to 3G.
– Unlike some Verizon hotspot devices with monthly fees that are more than double of the FMCA plan, when the monthly data allocation is reached, it MAY throttle to much lower speeds…most likely 3G. On my other device, the plan states that the carrier has the right to throttle (not their words) based on demand in that location. On the FMCA/Verizon plan, I’m to understand that when the 24GB threshold is reached, it WILL throttle to 3G.
– The actual hotspot (Jetpack) device that has been sold for $200 independent of a plan, costs $01 with the FMCA plan.
– When you sign up for the FMCA/Verizon plan, you are committing to a two-year contract.
I hope this information helps clear the confusion.
– Like any connected device, of course, speeds will vary based on a variety of factors such as LTE availability in a specific area, signal strength, etc.
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