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A survey conducted earlier this year by the Pew Research Center found that 7% of Americans lack access to reliable broadband. One reason for this may be how expensive internet access is in the U.S.
"People in the U.S. pay more for slower internet than people abroad," Open Technology Institute policy analyst Claire Park said. "For many consumers, the cost of getting online right now is simply too high and also too complicated."
The Open Technology Institute has been studying the price and speed of internet services advertised within the United States as well as abroad. Its 2020 Cost of Connectivity Report found that the average advertised monthly cost of internet in the U.S. is $68.38, which is higher than the average price of internet access for all of North America, Europe and Asia.
Outdated infrastructure in the U.S. may also be impeding internet access to millions of Americans, and lawmakers have been debating how to increase internet availability and performance.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 11 2021, @02:25AM (9 children)
If you are in an area with coverage from Verizon, they have a wholly owned subsidiary, Visible with reasonably priced unlimited data.
There is a subreddit where folks advertise their "friends and family" groups, that you can join and get unlimited voice, text, and data for $25/mo (prepaid). Visible bills each member of the group separately, there is no financial liability etc. for other group members.
https://www.reddit.com/r/VisiblePartyPay/ [reddit.com]
Visible throttles tethered traffic to 5Mb/s. You can bypass the throttle by using a ROM that allows you to tunnel tethered traffic through the vpn connection on the phone (e.g., LineageOS or CalyxOS), and use Cloudflare's Warp VPN (which is fast, free, and no more of a privacy risk than allowing Verizon/Visible to snoop on your traffic). This setup will get you 75Mb/s down and 25Mb/s up on your tethered traffic. Latency is quite a bit higher than your typical cable Internet, though. But, perfectly acceptable for regular ssh (no need to use mosh). But, if you play video games, maybe not up to snuff? I don't play video games, so can't say.
Or, if you are capable of doing a custom build of AOSP or your rom of choice, you can edit the APN list to allow tethering on Visible's main APN, and they no longer identify the traffic as tethered. If you do this, you might want to adjust packet TTL for traffic from tethered box (so before it exits phone, it is 255) to make it non-obvious that it is tethered, in case they ever check. Or, if your phone is rooted, just set TTL to 255 for tethered traffic, with iptables rules right on the phone. Same speeds as with the VPN solution, though.
Visible breaks your ability to edit APNs on the running device as soon as the sim is installed. This is why they claim you need to use only a few compatible phones. But, if you can install a very recent e.g., CalyxOS or LineageOS on your device, it should include Visible's APN (may identify on phone as Verizon, though), and work as long as LTE bands etc. match between phone and Visible/Verizon.
I run a home made AP/router (hostapd on vanilla Debian), and tether to it over usb which provides power to the phone. But, you may be able to rig something up with one of those usb-c power and data splitter thingies that supposedly allow you to attach a usb device to the phone, and still provide power. With that power thing and a usb-ethernet dongle, you could probably use a commercial router/ap. Or, if the area you want to provide service to is small, just use the phone's wireless tethering to provide the AP.
If you live in an area where Verizon's infrastructure already has too many users, this might not be a great solution for you. Visible traffic will be deprioritized if capacity is needed for full charge Verizon customers. I haven't seen it with Visible in my area, but when I used Mint (which used T-Mobile towers), deprioritization by T-Mobile could be brutal when it occurred.
One last thing. The last time I checked, Verizon 5G was slower than Verizon 4G. And, verizon/visible is reported to break unlocking boot loader on some google phones they sell. But, you can bring you own phone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 11 2021, @03:01AM (3 children)
CalyxOS enables Ethernet tethering. I haven't seen it elsewhere.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday October 11 2021, @07:31AM (2 children)
From the too dumb to know better dept: I often use my phone as "hotspot" (cell data <-> WiFi), then Windows 7 machine with "Internet Connection Sharing" from Wifi <-> Ethernet. I dunno, it works.
And this is all because I don't want to deal with the myriad contract and cost games and shenanigans of the Verizons, Comcasts, etc. So I'm using my cell and although I'd love to have a fast land-based line, I surely don't need it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 11 2021, @12:42PM (1 child)
I did this for a few years. Lived on 3GB per month via cell.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday October 14 2021, @12:50AM
I have 8GB / month presently. I can upgrade to 20 or maybe even more now. This carrier doesn't seem to restrict based on "tethering". Maybe they do and I don't notice. If I hit the 8 GB, I still have 'net connection, but it slows to like 100 Kb / second. I think I went over 8 only 1 time. I have full speed unlimited GB at work and various other places I work and frequent so I wait to do updates, downloads, etc., at those locations.
I keep hearing about "mesh networking" - I'm all in! Sign me up! :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 11 2021, @08:15AM (1 child)
No such tethering limitations here in the Nordic countries. Just turn on hotspot on the phone. The speed/data limits of the phone contract apply, but there's no separate limits on tethering.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 11 2021, @03:44PM
Yeah, and you also had 100Mb/s powerline Internet access in 2001 when we were lucky to get 3Mb/s DSL in the states.
The US population, for the most part, doesn't travel, and so they don't know what the rest of the world is like. The US has fewer people with passports than Australia has people abroad, at any time (pre-covid); Just New York City and Los Angeles have half the population of the entire country of AU. Because the US is so insular, the media controlled by private moneyed interests (i.e., right-wing/pro-establisment), and our education system teaches hero worship instead of our actual history let alone history or current events elsewhere in the world, we have an ignorant population*. The clown with the US flag streaming from the back of his pickup truck chanting USA, USA, USA has no idea that the rest of the first world has it better than he does.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday October 11 2021, @03:20PM (2 children)
Verizon is a phone company. Only phones work on their network... or are you one of the muggles who thinks your phone is the internet?
Are you lost, little one?
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 11 2021, @03:30PM
I spoke of how to use the phone data connection tethered to an AP or router to provide unlimited Internet access to all the devices e.g., computers in your home. What part of that did you not understand "little one"?
Tethered 75Mb/s down 5Mb/s up for $25/mo is about half as expensive as the equivalent service from the cable co. in my area. And, is 15 times faster than the fastest DSL service available in my area. But, if you have more money than brains...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Monday October 11 2021, @04:34PM
More and more cell phone providers are converting to VOIP / VoLTE only- no more 3G/4G/LTE (SS7) voice.
Basically they're converting from "circuit-switched" (SS7) to "packet-switched" networking. Many are providing an app you install to make voice calls if your phone doesn't natively support VOIP / VoLTE.
This might help explain: https://www.netmanias.com/en/post/blog/10905/lte-volte/part-1-what-happens-when-a-user-performs-a-voice-call-from-an-lte-4g-network-overview [netmanias.com]