A question about the difference in using a phone as a hotspot and a mifi device.

[Egomaniacal1]

So i have a Droid Bionic which i use currently with Foxfi as a mobile hotspot with my grandfathered unlimited data plan. However it seems to me using a phone is not a very reliable device for holding stable connections, not to mention its a bit more expensive to pay for a data + voice plan when all i really need is the data. So i was thinking of buying a mifi device, probably the new Novatel 4620 jetpack, and trying to find a 59.99 unlimited data plan to go with it.

My question is do both devices go about sharing data in the same way, that is to say that i think the hotspot(whether thru Foxfi or paying the $30 to verizon for their hotspot feature) shares a single line of bandwidth thus slowing the speeds as you connect devices to it. Do mifi's share a single line of bandwidth to multiple devices or does each connected device get to use its own line of bandwidth allowing them to each be faster in using that bandwidth?

[HF305]

The Mifi works the same way, it is a router and will multiplex all connected users into one link to the cell / LTE network.

[drewsdroid]

Egomaniacal1,
I have a bionic and I used that app several months ago and it worked fine but everytime I went to shutdown the app it crashed/rebooted my phone. Are you having any issues with it doing that?

[Egomaniacal1]

@drewsdroid...no I haven't had that issue. My phone isn't rooted tho and no ICS so maybe that's the difference? Also I'm on 5.9.902 Verizon firmware.

@hf305...so there is no difference between the two methods of connecting multiple devices? With the 4620 jet pack I think it's advertised to support up to 10 devices at 4G speeds, but would it ever truly get up to even a fraction of that many connections without things coming to a slow crawl?

[joebloebloe]

would not be any different then 10 devices sharing your home internet connection. In reality, you probably don't have all 10 devices demanding heavy downloads all at the exact same time with typical web surfing and email. If all are trying to stream movies then you could be bandwidth limited - but you will also run into your max data allocation limit pretty quickly too.

[meballard]

One thing to note is that while they do share the connection, it doesn't mean that if you had ten devices, each can use only a tenth of the bandwidth. It shares it based on what each device is trying to use, relative to total available bandwidth and various other factors.

If you had 10 devices all just doing typical web browsing, the sharing is likely to not be noticeable. You could also have 9 doing web browsing, and one doing downloads, and in that case the majority of the bandwidth would go to the device doing the download, but the other 9 would probably not notice.

It only really makes much difference when you have multiple devices all trying to do high bandwidth stuff at the same time.

[ak1sdr]

So i have a Droid Bionic which i use currently with Foxfi as a mobile hotspot with my grandfathered unlimited data plan. However it seems to me using a phone is not a very reliable device for holding stable connections, not to mention its a bit more expensive to pay for a data + voice plan when all i really need is the data. So i was thinking of buying a mifi device, probably the new Novatel 4620 jetpack, and trying to find a 59.99 unlimited data plan to go with it.

One thing of note: the odds of you finding a $59.99 unlimited 4g consumer plan are slim and none.



Sent from my DROID4 using HowardForums

[Screencarver]

Me too, I'm wondering about getting hotspot on phone vs. getting Mifi. Could someone help me with pros/cons such as-
-Hassle of battery drain for phone?
-Does the internet connection cut off if you get a phone call?
-Vs mifi, are there a lot of steps to turning on the hotspot on a phone? E.g to use hotspot on a tablet I had to get it out, power it on, go into settings... but generally I guess a phone would already be on and nearby so is it easier?

Thanks.

[meballard]

Me too, I'm wondering about getting hotspot on phone vs. getting Mifi. Could someone help me with pros/cons such as-
-Hassle of battery drain for phone?
-Does the internet connection cut off if you get a phone call?
-Vs mifi, are there a lot of steps to turning on the hotspot on a phone? E.g to use hotspot on a tablet I had to get it out, power it on, go into settings... but generally I guess a phone would already be on and nearby so is it easier?

Thanks.

Battery drain is unavoidable, as you have both the Wi-Fi and cellular radios on simultaneously, actively transmitting data, and some of the highest power usage in the device is the radios, at least you can have the screen off though.

On cut off, maybe, depends on your device. A 4G device when using 4G will not cut off while in a phone call. A 3G device will almost always cut off. A 4G device on 3G may or may not, depends on the phone.

Not many steps, depends on the specific device/method used for tethering, but usually no more than opening a app and hitting a button, sometimes even just a widget. Generally you can turn on tethering faster than a MiFi can boot (assuming of course that the phone is already on).

[Screencarver]

Thanks for this, meballard. Sounds like you might advise skipping mifi in favor of hotspot on the phone.

[meballard]

Thanks for this, meballard. Sounds like you might advise skipping mifi in favor of hotspot on the phone.

Matter of personal opinion and circumstances. If you can live with/handle the higher battery drain, then at this point yes.