5G alternatives to traditional ISP's

So, in the WIFI 6E thread I mentioned the potential of switching from a traditional provider to 5G with the advent of using Visible (VZW) $40/mo unlimited plan instead of continuing with the limited options in most US markets in the choice of an ISP. There are some other "fixed" 5G options ranging from $50-$100/mo from the likes of VZW/T-Mobile/ATT and probably some smaller resellers as well with caveats for monthly discounts tied to additional products. It seems as though if you were to come up with your own solution you could save more in the long run rather than take the packaged product directly. Similar to buying a cable modem for $150 and saving $10-$12/mo vs renting one as part of the package from the ISP.

I thought there might be an option of inserting a 5G modem / card into a laptop or PC that would allow using the SIM vs a "hotspot" puck. I picked up a list of devices on the market currently or coming soon that would allow this. Seems the target price on the cards are in the ~$450 neighborhood. The cards typically have a 5-6 antenna connections available on them and come in either a M2 or miniPCI format.

Has anyone used these or their LTE variants to produce a stable connection for day to day use? I know over the years some OEM's have installed 2G-4G cards in laptops for connectivity or WiMAX as an option but it doesn't seem to have caught on to be more common place.

5G Modules/Data Cards:
Huawei MH5000 5G Car Module
Quectel RG500Q 5G NR sub-6GHz Module
Quectel RG510Q 5G NR sub-6GHz and mmWave module
Quectel RM500Q 5G NR sub-6GHz module
Quectel RM510Q 5G NR sub-6GHz and mmWave module
Quectel AG550Q 5G C-V2X Automotive Grade Module
Sierra Wireless AirPrime 5G module (M.2 form factor)
Telit FM980 5G Module
Telit FM980m 5G Module
Fibocom FB101 5G Module
Fibocom FB150 5G Module
ZTE 5G RF module (series)
SIMCOM SIM8300-M2 5G Sub-6Ghz and mmWave Module
SIMCOM SIM8300 5G NR Sub-6GHz & mmWave Module
SIMCOM SIM8200G-M2 5G NR Module
SIMCOM SIM8200EA-M2 5G NR Sub-6GHz Module
SIMCOM SIM8200G 5G NR Sub-6G Module
LongSung EX510 5G/LTE-FDD/LTE-TDD/HSPA+ Module
LongSung EX520 5G NR M.2 Module
LongSung EX610 5G NR Module

5G CPE or 5G Mobile WiFi Router:
D-Link DWR-2010 5G NR NSA Enhanced Gateway
HTC 5G Hub (mobile hotspot with 5” media display)
Huawei 5G CPE Pro
Huawei 5G CPE Pro mmWave
Huawei 5G CPE Pro sub-6GHz
Huawei 5G Outdoor CPE
Huawei 5G Mobile WiFi (mobile hotspot)
Inseego R1000 5G Home Router
Inseego 5G NR MiFi Hotspot
Netgear Nighthawk M2 5G mobile hotspot
Netgear Nighthawk M5 Fusion MR5000 5G mobile hotspot
Nokia FastMile 5G home gateway
Samsung SFG-D0100 5G home gateway
TCL Alcatel 5G mobile hotspot
Gemtek WLTFDQ-154AX Gigabit LTE & 5G CPE
ZTE MC801 5G Indoor WiFi Router
FRITZ!Box 6850
Vodafone GigaCube 5G Router

@ Aivxtla @ etern4l @ WhatsThePoint @ alexhawker

 

Where there is service provider competition in an area the service price will be a lot lower than in an area where one company is the only option.
My Mint Mobile Unlimited plan is $35/mo but after 35Gb at full 4G/5G speed it is throttled to a lower speed.
Cost of investment needs to result in better performance.
Empty M.2 slot type on desktop PC motherboard or in the case of a notebook can be very limiting.Some notebooks have a wireless card soldered to the mainboard and offer no open M.2 slots.
I don't see the reward in going the 5G hotspot route.

 

My idea behind it is to find the options with full speed / no data cap providers like Visible / T-Mobile but the best price point vs the fixed 5G options that are typically higher in price.

If you can do a $40-$50/mo unlimited 5G plan that doesn't get throttled vs say he same price point with cable for 1/3 of the speed and still end up with a 500mb-1.2tb data cap it might be a good alternative.

For those that have the need to be "portable" it's more important as travel internet plans typically are low speed and high price.

My use case would be using the available M2 slot either wifi or full M2 inside my "router" //server. It could cut the internet costs in 1/2 or be a fully functional backup solution as well.

When working for an ISP we had clients that had "cellular" backup within their Cisco devices in case the primary connection went down. While this was in a retail setting for them it provided a backup for CC processing and other ancillary network functions. The issue with the cellular backup cards tended to be latency but this was back in ~2007 when 3G was the highest option for data. While 5G is still being innovated / refined / deployed and the speeds aren't all that spectacular outside of the pockets of densest coverage the LTE fallback on theses modules could still provide a decent enough speed for average daily use. Even in a SMB environment where high speeds aren't necessarily the priority it could shave the price of service considerably vs the business rates they get charged which is typically 200% of the residential rate and usually much slower.

One company I worked for in the past got a 500mbps line from Comcast and the costs with that were going to be in the $1000/mo area vs residential being $100/mo for 1gbps. For a SMB they could get stuck with 100mbps for $275/mo or even your typical T1 1.5mbps charging $125/mo. So, $40/mo for ~100mbps+ in the instance of Visible which can hit 200mbps speed caps for 5G devices would make up for the price difference in producing their own device fairly quickly. ROI would be within a matter of a couple of months and cost reduction monthly would help the bottom line each month.

 

Problem with unlimited regular mobile/Fixed 4G/5G plans is that you get throttled even on unlimited on most carriers, and especially during congestion times you may get deprioritized earlier than others if considered a heavy user, if I recall Verizon I think even sent warning letters to some people for using too much bandwidth before kicking them off the network, granted that was like 2-4TB of use. I would assume the fixed hotspot plans would be a bit more lenient/have higher thresholds in those aspects vs a regular mobile plan.

There's no way you aren't getting deprioritized on any of the unlimited plans though, especially on smaller or third party networks that use the big three networks as the back bone, they will get deprioritized earlier/before the main networks own users, ie small ones like Mint etc, but prices may be better, so definitely could still be worth it..

Of the Big Three:

TMO fixed service is unlimited and fixed at $50 (inclusive of all taxes and fees) a month and you get as fast speeds as their network can provide in your area, they say typically over 25 Mbps... congestion based deprioritization is there.

AT&T is $60 pre tax with a 350GB cap, claims 25Mbps.

Verizon is $70 likely pre tax, unlimited but once again has deprioritization.

I have not used the mobile cards, while I do have Dell Latitudes that are capable of taking WWAN modules. As for hotspot my father did use Verizon's for work which he has since returned to his company, it was pretty decent but for a home user I still think kinda steep vs traditional ISPs, especially if you live in cities. In rural areas where traditional ISPs may charge highly for low speeds Verizon hotspot may have been better.

 

See this article from today:
https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/...-managed-5g-internet-for-home-office-workers/

 

Even with deprioritization it's still going to provide a base speed that's reliable.

MVNO's are the term for 3rd parties that lease from the big 3. I use Google Fi for my phone and they use 3 networks but primarily T-Mobile/'s network.

Having worked as a network engineer for several of the cellular networks over the years is where my insight is on the design of the networks and policies put in place for network traffic. Most cell sites have ample bandwidth allocated to them for more than the site can handle on the RF side for number of clients that can attach.

The idea behind setting up our own 5G "devices" is to bypass some of the limitations put in place when trying to prequalify for the branded services. When VZW rolled out fixed 5G as an option in my area there were lags between the GIS info being updated to prequalify and the actual roll out to the area being turned up. While handsets could already get the signal the GIS platform didn't release the area for fixed service for several months. The GIS systems need to be updated before the programs signal that they're ready for service and that's delayed by the teams that are tasked with doing the updates by hand in the DB.

For instance my OnePlus 8 Pro supports 5G on T-Mobile / Google Fi but didn't register a 5G signal until recently whether it was a sim update or T-Mobile RAN update for the site I'm connecting to. On the flip side since the 5G update occurred my car is now having an issue connecting to data services even though the signal / data link reports very good. The transition from LTE to 5G requires reworking the spectrum and seems to have disabled 2G/3G or significantly hobbled it in the process.

Deprioritization is somewhat of a scare tactic to get people to sign up for the branded service i.e. more $$$ vs the wholesale MVNO option or rebranded in house options like Visible, Cricket, etc. Why would you pay 2X the price for VZW vs Visible? There really aren't any differences in how the network performs and the "perks" added on to the VZW plan aren't worth the extra monthly fee costs. You might get $20-$30/mo in added subscriptions like Netflix / Spotify / Disney+ but end up paying another $50/mo for "unlimited" service that's capped before being throttled to 3G speeds.

SOC's (Service Order Codes) are used to determine what options/features are applied to your service whether SIM / Cable Modem to provision things to devices. Because the MVNO gets a single SOC applied to their SIMs it's tagged with a lower priority service level. If the primary provider were to significantly impact the use of services with this tagging their profits would drop requiring them to spend more on marketing and acquisition of new customers. So, while they reduce the priority they don't hobble the service down to a 2G experience. They may impose speed limits like 200mbps vs their branded service being capped at 500mbps (Visible vs VZW). When there's congestion they might drop MVNO speeds to 50% which still gets you 100mbps if your max is 200mbps.

https://www.tutela.com/blog/best-mvno-us-2018-consumer-cellular-xfinity-mobile-cricket

https://www.bestphoneplans.net/news/mvnos-explained

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_mobile_virtual_network_operators

So, the whole "unlimited" plan issue as discussed in the links comes down to the data pricing in their contracts with the incumbent provider vs the reseller (MVNO). The MVNO hobbles speeds to reduce their costs after the allotment to stay competitive in pricing and hedge their profits. When the incumbent releases a pseudo MVNO product label they still get to pocket the profits directly and only trim the fat from their mass marketed plans. Since they own both sides of the business they don't restrict things as much as a true MVNO would to keep profits up. The instances in which the incumbent decides to be incompetent as with ATT / Cricket experiences you see more of a variance in the resulting product. Back when Sprint / Boost were under the same umbrella there wasn't as much difference in the products as you would see with ATT/Cricket. Now that Boost is under DirecTV though the network changes TM is making is going to kill off Boost as a brand unless DTV kicks in some $$$ to save customers by replacing outdated handsets to keep them using the underlying TM network to retain revenue.

 

Kind a hard to go after regular ISPs with these plans just yet unless maybe you live in a rural area.I mean even Google Fi for example on unlimited will throttle to 256kbps after 25GB on unlimited, T-Mobile fixed and mobile service I believe is 50GB before the drop. As I said previously an MVNO might be fine if they offer cheaper prices vs the big ones for your needs, but maybe I have't looked at enough MVNOs to truly judge limitations. Even among the big ones there have been cases of "deprioritization" for repeated "excessive" usage.

 

There are always going to be caveats and one off situations when you have power users involved.

TM just released a non-capped option for ~$85/mo or somewhere in that neighborhood.

GFI is good for capping billing after 6GB/mo ($85/mo) but the 25GB limit plays into the hobbling mentioned as profit. I like GFI for the reduced cost as I'm limiting my data to WIFI only and use a 2nd sim in the car up until recently where it's no longer providing data correctly and is pushing me down a rabbit hole of modem replacements for the car to open other options for data.

For my typical data use per month though is usually 300-700GB/mo.

The car doesn't warrant a full data plan / 2nd line situation it's more convenient to have but not worth $20/mo. Google maps doesn't use that much data after the initial download while in use for the overlay it's mostly just traffic info being updated which is very little data in terms of KB's per trip while in use. I used to use another MVNO SIM for it in the past until they shuttered the doors a few years back but with them you could pay as you go by the MB instead of paying for a data plan through the OEM @ $20/mo.

 

Dish doesn't have the cash for a rapid or even proper, infrastructure roll out in a meaning full size, they've been hogging spectrum for a few years possibly for leasing and if they don't use it they'd be in trouble possibly having to return the unused spectrum if they squat too long on it. Looks like they may actually be finally interested in actually doing something with the spectrum now and might get funding from Amazon as part of a collaboration as per rumors for a build out.

Spectrum wise T-Mobile was pretty fortunate, as the failed AT&T merger stipulated that AT&T had to give them a nice chunk of spectrum if the merger failed, and after that they managed to convince the FCC to alter the bidding for 600 Mhz to their favor as less capable carriers vs AT&T and Verizon.

As to excessive usage sometimes it can be pretty deceitful what some of these companies do, while old following link shows some were using less than 500GB even as low as 200GB or so when they got warning letters on Verizon. I remember reading articles on that a few years ago.
https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/br...es-to-cancel-high-usage-unlimited-data-plans/

 

Dish = Troll when it comes to carriers / potential carriers. They're not the only one but the biggest "carrier" that holds onto spectrum w/o use. Part of the stipulation of getting a deal on Boost was to start their own network in the next 2-3 years w/ 20% coverage and within 5 years 70% coverage. Ergen's been signing leases with tower providers for space so far and moving ahead with a 5G basis vs being backwards compatible like legacy providers.

I went through the merger w/ MPCS and TM when it happened and the combined spectrum allowed mostly an across the board boost to a minimum of 25mhz per market which was significant for several markets that were only doing 10mhz at the time. With the Sprint move and stealing from ATT due to their failure to close I'm guessitimating every market should safely be in the 50mhz range as a minimum now. The bonus was the chunk of spectrum in the middle ground via Sprint for 5G use.

As to the TOU switcheroo facing "unlimited" plans/users it's always a potential outcome but, as the networks are becoming more robust for bandwidth and saturation it's becoming less likely to happen. If the FCC took the same approach as say CFPB on CC's for terms changes there might be some more stability in the "plans" if they were required to give a more stringent time period before kicking people off their network or face monetary penalties that are significant. The house/senate are thinking about boosting the minimum broadband speeds to 100mbps instead of 25mbps which will finally kill off DSL and force the ILECs to upgrade from crappy copper everywhere to become compliant or maybe push their customers to Starlink which then would pick up all that subsidy money from the govt in the process.