As some of you know during the pandemic i set up a few phones on tello unlimited for family for what originally was supposed to be 2 weeks of binge watching and pj time. which turned into months of remote school and work. ref thread here: Netflix- phone to tv . which the tello plans worked out for. 1 works strictly as a hotspot . the school district now hardly ever closes and utilizes their "go remote" lesson plans and classes. last week with the ice storm the schools decided to go remote. when the users tried they were throttled to a crawl. unknown to me or the users, tello now throttles at 5gb tethering/hotspot. which was not the case when i started this plan. id like to say i did read the ins and outs before starting and found no mention of the 5gb only hotspot but i admit i could have missed this 3 yrs ago. needless to say tello cs was helpful in telling me this, but was not helpful when i told them the phone/acct was set up before they placed this limit/made users aware of this limit. so im here with my limited knowledge of hotspots to ask. is tello still the way to go for prepaid hardly any strings attached hotspoting or is there something better? is there a way around the 5gb limit? to compare MOST months user comes to just under 17gb data use. but there have been times it has reached the 25 and has been brought down to 2G. so they feel 25gb is a happy medium. they/id really hate to drop tello over this because they do go above and beyond as far as cs & their online acct set up is great and they take paypal payments(which user loves) for a phone company. but the service is needed ( broadband, fiber,dial up satellite do not service their area). As an aside: what would it take for tello to add a strictly tether/hotspot plan?
Tello uses T-Mobile towers. T-Mobile has unlimited internet for $50 a month, inclusive of internet gateway rental.
t mobile internet High-Speed 5G Home Internet Service Plans | T-Mobile 5G Home Internet isnt available in their area. theyve also looked into xfinity prepaid, hughes net ,viasat. they are in a strange rural area we locals call the triangle. there is no city services to them so comcast verizon att and charter/spectrum do not go that way. before cell if you wanted a phone it was satellite there was/is no landline service. they have well septic tanks and propane. they have electricity provided by a different company than any of the 3 towns/citys surrounding them. the draw to living out there is any of the 3 towns are less than half hour drive, lower property taxes, ability to do what you want without hassle from the govt over permits, and the choice of 3 school districts. among others like more land less neighbors. cheap real estate. as for cell service. sprint ( now t-mo) worked the best out there. a far 2nd was Verizon. anyone else might as well pack it in and forget it. actually im quite surprised tellos held on as long as it did. granted it gets spoty but if they keep it in one part of the house it gets full bars.
T-Mobile Magenta Max gives you 40GB of LTE hotspot.