What Are The Cons Of Using My Phone As A Hotspot?

Good evening,

I recently purchased a new laptop that supports a SIM card. My question is, should I keep using my phone as a hotspot, which seems to work fine, or should I spend the extra $10/mo. to activate my laptop with a SIM card? Is the SIM card any faster? Are their any benefits to activating a SIM card on my laptop?

Thanks!

Accepted answers

dimap52

Actually there AE advantages to using the built in modem and I personally would prefer that option to usin hotspot bricks or phone tethering for the following reasons:

Convienience. Using a built in 4G modem is preferable to using exteernal attachments for obvious reasons, the main one being it is always available when the other option may not be, and easier to activate.
Reliability. Because of the antennas in the laptop the experience is usually superior to modems and hotspots, both in speed (marginal improvement) and reliability of connection, as tethering connections can drop more often than built in option.
Tethering from a phone can stress the phone's battery, which will eventually run down unless the phone is plugged in. Not a problem with a built-in modem.
In certain cases, phone calls can interrupt the internet session, depending on the oonfiguration of your phone. Some phones can do simultaneous browsing/calling, others can't. VoLTE on the newer phones does allow this.

Having said all that, I tether since I have no built in modem in my curent devices.

The main disadvantage is the additional cost, the additional nicel and diming $10/month expense which is what essentially killed this market for embedded devices in the first place around 2009 when they first offered embedded modems, the costs were outrageous. Now better but still unfortunate. The other disadvantage is obsolecense. You can always upgrade the phone or hotspot brick, the built in modem not so much.

All comments

Weth

Just keep using the hotspot on your phone. There is not $120/yr added benefit getting a SIM Card for the laptop

dimap52

Actually there AE advantages to using the built in modem and I personally would prefer that option to usin hotspot bricks or phone tethering for the following reasons:

Convienience. Using a built in 4G modem is preferable to using exteernal attachments for obvious reasons, the main one being it is always available when the other option may not be, and easier to activate.
Reliability. Because of the antennas in the laptop the experience is usually superior to modems and hotspots, both in speed (marginal improvement) and reliability of connection, as tethering connections can drop more often than built in option.
Tethering from a phone can stress the phone's battery, which will eventually run down unless the phone is plugged in. Not a problem with a built-in modem.
In certain cases, phone calls can interrupt the internet session, depending on the oonfiguration of your phone. Some phones can do simultaneous browsing/calling, others can't. VoLTE on the newer phones does allow this.

Having said all that, I tether since I have no built in modem in my curent devices.

Verizon_Support

DAVMUR51,

These are pretty good questions & we’re happy that you have reached out to us. I thank Weth and dimap52 for their insight. As we are your wireless provider, we would hope that you continue to use your hotspot on your phone. It is all up to you on how you would really like to do things.

AliciaS_VZW
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