How to pick a mobile network and data plan for your Internet connection

• Intro
• Throttling vs. network management
• Estimating data usage and bandwidth requirements
• Tether to a smartphone or use a dedicated device?
• Pick a plan

Intro

The next step after finding out which mobile networks are available in your area is to select a network operator and data plan. There are a dizzying number of options out there, so this section breaks it down in a few steps:

1. Familiarize yourself with throttling and network management
2. Estimate your data usage and bandwidth requirements
3. Decide whether to tether to a smartphone or use a dedicated device
4. Pick a plan

Throttling vs. network management

Two terms that you may come across when comparing your options are “Throttling” and “Network Management.” Both attributes can impact your speed, but in different ways:

• “Throttling” means the connection always has its speed restricted in some way, regardless of the mobile network’s capacity. For example, a data plan might throttle videos to appear in SD instead of HD, or HD instead of 4K.
• “Network management” can slow down your Internet connection as well, but only when the network operator has more demand than their network can handle. For example, this could happen during peak usage hours. When this happens, “Network management” slows down Internet users who have already used more than some threshold of data. Your speed gets restored once the network’s demand drops enough so that network management is no longer needed.

Estimating data usage and bandwidth requirements

The plans below include unlimited plans, plans with a fixed data cap, and plans that charge based on usage. How do you know which plan is right for you? If your current ISP or router provides bandwidth tracking, then that’s a good starting point. Otherwise, AT&T offers a monthly usage calculator that could be useful.

Tether to a smartphone or use a dedicated device?

If you already have a smartphone, then the least expensive and most portable option is probably going to be to tether to it. That approach has some downsides, though:

1. If more than one person uses this Internet connection, then having a dedicated device is nice, because then you can take your phone with you when you leave, and not knock the other users offline.
2. Your smartphone probably doesn’t have an option to plug in an external antenna. Dedicated devices, such as routers, often do. This is most relevant if you’re in an without a strong signal.
3. Performance is often (though not always) better with a dedicated device.

The cost difference and performance impact depends on your location and mobile network. As an example, I compared the performance of two smartphone tethering configurations and two dedicated hotspot configurations in the example indoor installation. All four configurations connected to the same mobile network from the same house. Here are the performance differences at a glance:

Pick a plan

Now that you’ve figured out your requirements, what type of device you want to use, and your network, it’s time to pick a plan. I’ve broken the options down into two pages, based on device type:

1. Smartphone plans that allow tethering
2. Data plans for dedicated devices like mobile hotspots and routers

Here are some other resources for picking a data plan:

• RV Mobile Internet’s directory of unlimited data options

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Table of contents

• Smartphone Data Plans
• Dedicated Device Data Plans

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