Hotspot on phone - can it still receive phone calls?

[California]

I've run out of patience with ATT U-Verse FTTN, both here at the ranch, and the installation at our home in town. We arrived at the ranch this afternoon and the modem returns 'broadband service not available' as its panel lights flash red. This is Tuesday afternoon, phone support tried everything then said a tech can't visit before Thursday 4~8pm.

So I tried a feature advertised on my MetroPC LG phone: the hotspot came up as soon as I turned it on. I'm impressed, pages load on my laptop faster than they did on the sometimes 10mbps rural FTTN. I'm going to run this way until ATT gets here and am thinking seriously about buying a hotspot gadget so I don't have to leave the phone in the house.

Antenna TV is sufficient for our rare TV watching. We don't have the TV half of U-Verse and aren't moving much data through our internet connection. I think overall cost would be less by dropping the $55 ATT service and buying more phone data. I hate to give up the landline phone # the family has had here for 70 years but maybe that's not important.

I'm interested in any advice anyone has about this phone hotspot/wifi transmitter configuration as contrasted to FTTN. The whole topic is new to me. My specific question of the moment is does my phone still function as a phone when the device is in use as a hotspot? Comments on that and any other aspect would be appreciated.

 

[vvanders]

Yeah, ever since we got past the days of EVDO, data + voice is supported on most phones. If you've got a "4g" connection there's a 99% chance that it works.

Something to be careful of, most carriers classify hotspot as different from a pure data connection. You'll either pay an extra charge and/or have hard caps on how much data you can use. If you want to go that way I recommend a dedicated mobile hotspot + plan, usually works out cheaper.

It may also be worth seeing if you have any WISP(wireless ISPs) in your area. Much better data rates/prices than a mobile hotspot on average. It's basically super high-gain WiFi that's broadcast from local mountains/areas of high elevation. Much better throughput and doesn't depend on a working mobile network.

[edit]
Not sure where you are in Sonoma County but there's at least 2 WISPs out there that I was able to find on google. If you've got decent elevation it may be worth giving them a call.

 

[ning]

I've run out of patience with ATT U-Verse FTTN, both here at the ranch, and the installation at our home in town. We arrived at the ranch this afternoon and the modem returns 'broadband service not available' as its panel lights flash red. This is Tuesday afternoon, phone support tried everything then said a tech can't visit before Thursday 4~8pm.

So I tried a feature advertised on my MetroPC LG phone: the hotspot came up as soon as I turned it on. I'm impressed, pages load on my laptop faster than they did on the sometimes 10mbps rural FTTN. I'm going to run this way until ATT gets here and am thinking seriously about buying a hotspot gadget so I don't have to leave the phone in the house.

Antenna TV is sufficient for our rare TV watching. We don't have the TV half of U-Verse and aren't moving much data through our internet connection. I think overall cost would be less by dropping the $55 ATT service and buying more phone data. I hate to give up the landline phone # the family has had here for 70 years but maybe that's not important.

I'm interested in any advice anyone has about this phone hotspot/wifi transmitter configuration as contrasted to FTTN. The whole topic is new to me. My specific question of the moment is does my phone still function as a phone when the device is in use as a hotspot? Comments on that and any other aspect would be appreciated.

It depends. My previous phone (Nexus 6) - no. Current phone - Pixel XL - yes.
Wife's ancient Samsung S5 - yes.
No change to the service between phones.

We don't have home phone service here any more and just use phones hot spotting (my phone has true unlimited data). My only regret to this arrangement is that I don't have service to "smart" home devices any more.

 

[wjmst]

Like others have mentioned it depends on the phone. Some can handle data and voice simultaneously, others cannot.

Ning, what service do you have that provides you with "true unlimited data"?

Wes

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

Both my old S5 and my new note8 can send and receive calls while using the hotspot. If you're streaming video or music, it may interrupt that data flow, but I don't do those things with my phone, so I wouldn't notice it if it did.

 

[dog13]

If you want to get access to the smart devices you can consider a router with wireless client support to provide the "home" network. With that configuration all the smart devices connect to the local wifi, which in turn is connected via wireless client to the hotspot which provides the internet gateway. That allows home automation devices to see one another as part of the local network and can get around limitations on the number of devices connected to your hotspot as the router will present as only one device connecting. It adds another hop, and potentially another network translation, but for TVs, wireless cameras etc i have not seen any degradation. At some point in the future i'm going to add a higher powered wireless relay to my network to provide backhaul from the barns as they are out of range for the hotspot and the router. Those can be tied into the same configuration as well if you need greater range

Al

 

[B7510HSD]

I've run out of patience with ATT U-Verse FTTN, both here at the ranch, and the installation at our home in town. We arrived at the ranch this afternoon and the modem returns 'broadband service not available' as its panel lights flash red. This is Tuesday afternoon, phone support tried everything then said a tech can't visit before Thursday 4~8pm.

So I tried a feature advertised on my MetroPC LG phone: the hotspot came up as soon as I turned it on. I'm impressed, pages load on my laptop faster than they did on the sometimes 10mbps rural FTTN. I'm going to run this way until ATT gets here and am thinking seriously about buying a hotspot gadget so I don't have to leave the phone in the house.

Antenna TV is sufficient for our rare TV watching. We don't have the TV half of U-Verse and aren't moving much data through our internet connection. I think overall cost would be less by dropping the $55 ATT service and buying more phone data. I hate to give up the landline phone # the family has had here for 70 years but maybe that's not important.

I'm interested in any advice anyone has about this phone hotspot/wifi transmitter configuration as contrasted to FTTN. The whole topic is new to me. My specific question of the moment is does my phone still function as a phone when the device is in use as a hotspot? Comments on that and any other aspect would be appreciated.

Have you thought about transfering this number to your cell phone??

 

[California]

Thanks everybody for the comments! Keep em coming, I'm learning about something I never thought about before.

I found phone service is unaffected by simultaneous hotspot service on this phone (LG Stylo 2+). So aside from (potential) data cost I haven't seen any technical problem with what I have set up. Speedtest showed 5 to 7 mpbs download speed (evening), a reasonable replacement for the 10 mbps rural FTTN that is dead.

Update, a moment later: Wow, 23 and 24 mbps Speedtest result just now @ 10 am!

 

[ning]

Like others have mentioned it depends on the phone. Some can handle data and voice simultaneously, others cannot.

Ning, what service do you have that provides you with "true unlimited data"?

Wes

It's a company phone and they handle the contract. It's probably not available to the public; I've checked with VZW every which-way and I can't find it.

 

[California]

Next question: My router from ATT feeds an Ethernet-over-powerline phantom Ethernet cable to a repeater (wifi Access Point) on the back of the house, that provides wireless signal down to the tractor stall/shop. How do I feed that repeater from the hotspot? USB out of the phone to a USB/Ethernet adapter? Or would I be limited to wifi in/out at that repeater?

I already needed to buy additional 2 gb. My cheapskate $25 1gb phone plan has been fine for voice and text but two laptops connected to the hotspot ate that up in a day. Maybe getting the FTTN back up and continuing on it isn't such a bad idea.