Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

waquzy

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 9, 2013
1,483
2,160
Leicestershire, UK
I thought about doing this about five years ago. I had an iPhone 7 Plus and an Apple TV as my main computers. The ATV was rarely used, and the 7 Plus was my phone/mini laptop (I think netbooks were dying out right around this time).

It was a nice setup, the one thing stopping me from canceling my home internet was my cellular coverage was garbage in my apartment complex. One side of my apartment usually had one bar with my carrier, the other side was no service.

I didn’t feel like going through the hassle of changing carriers just to see if I had better service in my basement level apartment. In hindsight, might have been worth it to save $40/month.
Yep, like I mentioned it saves me £25 / $30 a month, not to mention it’s 10 times faster than my regular broadband was.
 

jlc1978

macrumors 603
Aug 14, 2009
5,489
4,277
how come hotspot beat a dedicated broadband router?
people run console games, computers

A lot of factors go into speed. Being close to.a 5G tower and the type of 5G service impacts speeds, and broadband comes in a lot o speeds that depend on how much a month you pay. 300 vs 1G has a big price difference, so a hotspot, may be cheaper and faster at the lower end of the speed spectrum. So a hotspot may be a better value than hard wired; it depends on the speeds you need.

In addition, while d/l speeds may be faster, u/ls may not, which is fine for many uses but may be an issue for gamers.

Then, of course, there's latency...
 

jlc1978

macrumors 603
Aug 14, 2009
5,489
4,277
And a Mercedes will always be better than a Hyundai.
Well, I wouldn’t put a bucket load of gravel in my Mercedes trunk, but a Hyundai Santa Cruz would work just fine

Better depends on the use case.

I can’t take a hard wired broadband to the brach but can take a hotspot; OTOH I don’t get gigabyte speeds on a hotspot.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ericdjensen

mnsportsgeek

macrumors 601
Feb 24, 2009
4,379
6,850
Well, I wouldn’t put a bucket load of gravel in my Mercedes trunk, but a Hyundai Santa Cruz would work just fine

Better depends on the use case.

I can’t take a hard wired broadband to the brach but can take a hotspot; OTOH I don’t get gigabyte speeds on a hotspot.
That's, um, basically the point I made. Mercedes is a better vehicle. Hyundai still has a place on the road.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jlc1978

waquzy

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 9, 2013
1,483
2,160
Leicestershire, UK
Wired will always be better.
Not always. Have you read the whole thread? My wired broadband was delivering me 65MB of download speeds at best, whereas my 5G mobile hotspot was 10 times faster.

So what’s the point of paying for a broadband provider £25 a month when my mobile carrier costs £17 a month and has unlimited hotspot allowance included in the contract?! It’s a no brainer, so I cancelled my broadband and paid the early termination fee. Happy days.
 

DeepIn2U

macrumors G5
May 30, 2002
12,826
6,880
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Just thought I would share my experience regarding this. I decided to cancel my broadband provider full stop and I have been using my iPhone 14 Pro as a hotspot through mobile 5G.

I used to be with TalkTalk and their max download speed was 65MB, whereas my mobile provider on 5G, I usually get 500+MB download speeds. I’m with Three. I’m on an unlimited data, £17 a month.

TalkTalk was £25 a month. So that’s a nice bit of saving there.

Here are some stats: View attachment 2207466 View attachment 2207467
Curious do you face any data speed throttling under a so called “Fair Use” industry agreement ?!
 

HDFan

Contributor
Jun 30, 2007
6,630
2,874
Wired will always be better.

Not always true, depending on your wiring, router, modem, etc. 1 GbE maxes out somewhere in the 920 Gbps range. 6E wireless can easily exceed that, around ~1400 Gbps in my case, around 50% faster than wired.
 

NeonNights

macrumors 6502a
Jul 22, 2022
507
622
Not always true, depending on your wiring, router, modem, etc. 1 GbE maxes out somewhere in the 920 Gbps range. 6E wireless can easily exceed that, around ~1400 Gbps in my case, around 50% faster than wired.
Yes, but all your devices would need to support 6E and you need a pricey 6E router too. iPhones don't support 6E yet, some MacBooks do. You'd need to also be really close to the router to get top speed.

Don't get me wrong, I like my current WiFi 6 speeds at home and look forward to 6E, but wired Gigabit still serves me better in far off rooms for printers, caneras, and NASes. Now that I have a Mac Studio, I feel its 10 GbE port is being wasted. :/
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: max2

CyberDavis

macrumors 6502
Sep 26, 2022
259
436
Just thought I would share my experience regarding this. I decided to cancel my broadband provider full stop and I have been using my iPhone 14 Pro as a hotspot through mobile 5G.

I used to be with TalkTalk and their max download speed was 65MB, whereas my mobile provider on 5G, I usually get 500+MB download speeds. I’m with Three. I’m on an unlimited data, £17 a month.

TalkTalk was £25 a month. So that’s a nice bit of saving there.
A good saving, and if it works for you then fair play.
Unfortunately with working at home and three other adults in my house that option would be a distant dream!😂😂
 

joehohoho

macrumors member
Jan 26, 2016
72
96
Tunbridge Wells
I just got the Canadian deal of the year. $55 75 GB plan - $25 in Black Friday credits for about 18 months more. This means I get 75 GB for $30 CAD!
Yes glad you got a deal but that doesn’t sound that great tbh.

My “unlimited” is ~£37 per month though technically it’s not unlimited as it has a fair use policy. At about 640Gb and above I think they throttle you. Having said that I think my max usage in a month has been 180Gb with an average use of about 100Gb.
 

arian71

macrumors regular
May 13, 2021
222
193
Moon, and safe from the ban
ok, if
A lot of factors go into speed. Being close to.a 5G tower and the type of 5G service impacts speeds, and broadband comes in a lot o speeds that depend on how much a month you pay. 300 vs 1G has a big price difference, so a hotspot, may be cheaper and faster at the lower end of the speed spectrum. So a hotspot may be a better value than hard wired; it depends on the speeds you need.

In addition, while d/l speeds may be faster, u/ls may not, which is fine for many uses but may be an issue for gamers.

Then, of course, there's latency...
I am not arguing with the you, but the idea of keeping my phone as a hotspot while trying to use "a phone as it should be used" seem ridiculous to me
 
  • Like
Reactions: max2

pacmania1982

macrumors 65816
Nov 19, 2006
1,170
520
Birmingham, UK
I was tempted to do something similar to this a couple of months back. Our current contracts are with Three and doing speed tests on 4G and 5G were insane compared to Sky and our FTTC. Although admittedly, I thought we got decent service - 76Mb down and about 19Mb up but they kept putting the price up and it was irritating. BT won't be rolling out FTTP for another couple of years but another ISP started going round and installing their own network. So we completely cancelled Sky (we'd slowly been cancelling the movies, then the TV package so were just left with the broadband) and took out FTTP with them. They're called Zzoomm and what I like about is the service is symetric, so we have the 500Mbit package (I didn't see the point in getting the 1Gb package as our router is AC and can only do 867 - only one machine would benefit). It's 500Mbit down and 500Mbit up - unlimited for £34.95 with the first three months being £19.95.

Our contracts are up next month with three and I was contemplating getting a new contract out with unlimited for £17 and just using that, but what put me off is that during the day and evenings, the speed drops dramatically and I work from home and am on Teams audio/video calls a lot. So I need a reliable connection.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought about this.
 

joehohoho

macrumors member
Jan 26, 2016
72
96
Tunbridge Wells
I was tempted to do something similar to this a couple of months back. Our current contracts are with Three and doing speed tests on 4G and 5G were insane compared to Sky and our FTTC. Although admittedly, I thought we got decent service - 76Mb down and about 19Mb up but they kept putting the price up and it was irritating. BT won't be rolling out FTTP for another couple of years but another ISP started going round and installing their own network. So we completely cancelled Sky (we'd slowly been cancelling the movies, then the TV package so were just left with the broadband) and took out FTTP with them. They're called Zzoomm and what I like about is the service is symetric, so we have the 500Mbit package (I didn't see the point in getting the 1Gb package as our router is AC and can only do 867 - only one machine would benefit). It's 500Mbit down and 500Mbit up - unlimited for £34.95 with the first three months being £19.95.

Our contracts are up next month with three and I was contemplating getting a new contract out with unlimited for £17 and just using that, but what put me off is that during the day and evenings, the speed drops dramatically and I work from home and am on Teams audio/video calls a lot. So I need a reliable connection.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought about this.
Yes the teams calls at work are what worried me but it’s been fine on o2.

You could always try it for a few weeks and if it doesn’t suit sign up to a new broadband deal. As a “new” customer you’ll probably get the best prices anyway…
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.