Using Your Cell Phone Hot Spot as Internet Backup
You May Already Have It
I was helping a very nice LCWA member the other day whose internet was down. After we got it fixed she mentioned internet was extremely important to her, so I asked her what internet backup she used—we always recommend to everyone who have critical internet needs that they have a backup source of internet. Turns out she did not realize that her Verizon iPhone could be used as an internet hotspot and backup for her house. I’ve met many members in the same situation: not realizing they have a whole-home backup solution right in their pocket.
Why is that important? Well, in case you don’t know, ALL internet service providers (ISPs) go down here and there. Just like PNM power goes down occasionally, it’s the nature of the beast that internet delivery will get interrupted occasionally. Even the giant ISPs like Comcast and Century Link–they go down often. And yet, more than ever, people need internet for virtually everything in their lives, even phone access. So, you might roll with the punches, as many do. Many see it as a chance to catch up on their book reading. But if it’s absolutely critical to your business, schooling, or personal life to have uninterrupted internet all the time, then you should have a backup internet source to switch to when your main source goes down.
And it turns out that cell data is a good option for many of you, and you many of you may not realize you have it. Most cell plans do allow you to turn a cell phone into an internet WiFi hotspot that your computers, your smart devices, and even your TV can use.
Varies by Billing Plan
The thing is, not all cell phone billing plans offer it, however. Usually, the high end billing plans do offer it at no extra charge. For example, in my billing plan with Verizon, I get 10Mbps of internet on a hot spot if I want it. It’s part of the base plan I’ve chosen. The catch is this: there is a monthly limit to hot spot usage, and that limit is easy to reach. I have reached my base-plan limit a number of times.
So I decided to pay Verizon a little bit extra each month to have a virtually unlimited supply of it data. As a result, Verizon cell data is now my internet backup source for my whole house. And it works very well for the occasional outages that I encounter on LCWA. I would not use it full time instead of LCWA, because the Verizon data connection seems to go down quite often. And 10Mbps does not meet all my needs. But as a fallback, it’s always been there when I needed it.
Confusing Billing Plans
One problem, however, is that the cell phone billing plans can be very confusing—it can be hard to tell what you have. I can’t speak for other companies since I don’t use them, but with Verizon, the part that was confusing to me is that they treat hot spot usage differently than internet data used on my cell phone—i.e. browsing the web on my phone’s small screen.
For example, my base plan says I have unlimited data usage. But then one day I was using my Verizon hotspot to provide internet to my computer, and I got a notice saying I’d used up all my data. That confused me—I thought it was unlimited. I researched that and it turns out it’s only unlimited if I do my web surfing right on my phone. But if I activate my phone as a wifi hot spot, one that my other computers use, then my usage IS subject to a monthly cap. And as I said, it’s relatively restrictive cap, one I can easily consume in one weekend, say.
The good new is, Verizon has an upgrade offering, one that costs about $5 or $10 extra per month, and it gives me a very large cap, one that is so large I truly feel I will never reach it even if I used it most days of the month. And that small extra monthly fee is worth it to me. It gives me a relatively inexpensive source of reliable internet back up.
Again, you might already have such hotspot backup on your cell phone.
Setting up a Hot Spot
What amazes me is how few people know how to turn on the hotspot feature of their cell phone. Now, not all phones offer it, so you might have to call your cell phone provider to confirm whether your’s does or does not. But most of the standard, non-discount plans and phones do include a basic level of it an no extra charge. And assuming yours does, then the next question is where in your phone settings do you turn it on?
Well, I found the following PC Mag article to be helpful in showing that. It covers both iPhone and Android. If you need help, go to this link and I think it will tell you all you need to know about how to turn it on in your phone.
https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-turn-your-phone-into-a-wi-fi-hotspot
Not Ever Needing it is Our Goal
Of course, the goal of LCWA is that you’ll almost never need to use internet backup. Our goal is to build backbone networks that are so robust they almost never go down. But given that our mission is to reach remote locations in rural New Mexico, and given that radios are the only way for us to do that, it is a tough goal. Most radios can be subject to weather and environmental interference, and that happens still. So we are not there yet, but we are getting better and better. And we work on that goal almost every week as we add new network upgrades constantly–and so we are getting closer and closer to our goal every month.
In the meantime, if having uninterrupted internet is critical to your business, schooling, or personal life, then be sure to find a source of backup internet to switch to when your main source goes down. And it could be that your cell phone provides the key!
