4G rural internet

Getting sick of Hughsnet 4th gen. It's terribly expensive. 5gb day and 50gb night per month, and after that it's 128kbps since Gen 5 came out ( was 20 kbps cap before that ). Naturally, I'm over the throttled limit 100% of the time. They seem to give some leway as streaming will stream at 480p now which I know is faster than 128kbps..

So on to the only other option which is cellular wireless internet. There is a WISP tower 2 miles away but a small forest of 100' evergreens blocks the signal hard enough they will not set it up.

I've ran across the $5 VZW 3G hacks, idea's of using an ATT prepaid unlimited sim in a mifi for $55 ( which is a blatant violation of TOS ).. Or the $29 ATT data connect 'pass' in a mifi, which not being a plan could go away tomorrow.

But I just found Page Plus Wireless offers their $55 verizon unlimited and the TOS calls out hotspot but not directly, and reading older posts says it works with hotspot. Should work in a Mifi right? I don't know if they block hotspot from a phone.

Verizon and At&t 4G signals are pretty strong here. Are there any other plans?

Verizon just started cutting off their 3G network capability a few days ago, and they don't accept activations of 3G only hardware anymore, for the record and for informational purposes. I had DirecPC - the HughesNet predcessor - many many years ago and it was crazy expensive for the slow speeds they offered but oddly enough late at night I could actually play Quake II online as a seriously handicapped HPB but even in spite of that aspect I was still able to run through a lot of LPBs because they flat out sucked skill-wise. My 400ms+ ping didn't matter, my skills took their sub-50ms pings and destroyed 'em.

Since no US carrier offers true unlimited service you're just going to have to do research and figure out what might be the best in your situation. I would recommend joining HowardForums or at least lurking over there as that's the best source of cellular network carrier info online and has been for many years now. If there's anyplace you're going to discover in-depth detailed info about cellular services and potential in your neck of the woods, so to speak, that's the place. The forums there are loaded with info, fast moving, and if you decide to join it (takes what, 30 seconds to join) if you ask for assistance in your particular situation you'll probably get it.

https://howardforums.com/content.php

Also consider DSLReports.com for info as well, pretty popular place that is more aligned with Internet service providers in general (not focused on cellular technology like HowardForums is).

http://www.dslreports.com/

Thanks, I'll join up and see. Even something that throttles to ~500 kbps I'll find good enough. In the quake II era, I had a good old 56k. Except it wasn't anywhere near 56k due to the phone line quality. About 7 kbps was a good day.

Have you looked at https://unlimitedville.com/ yet?

Yeah. $200-249 per month.. I'd like high speed, but I can live without it at those prices..

$70 T Mobil plan with unlimited 3G speed hotspot is probably the best legitimate deal.. But I might activate the $29 AT&T data connect pass with 22gb+ on a cheapie Mifi. AT&T fixed wireless is coming within the next year I guess, so I just need an interim.. I'll just tether it to my plex server and bridge the connection to ethernet and run that to the router. Simple ghetto setup. I'll just need a second NIC card to put the Plex back on the network.

Start a private WISP from high ground or wait for Musk to launch the 4k microsat net array.

I know somebody who used a couple of ubiquiti airfibers to get himself internet. Where's the closest placesthat your ISP provide service and are there obstacles between your place and said locations that can't be fixed with standard ham radio towers or poles? (The other side for him is a water tower 6 miles away.)

The tower to the WISP is a cell tower, probably 2 miles away but signal is mostly blocked by evergreens.. If I built a tower higher than the tree's for their antennae it would work... Literally the forest through the road is less than 1/4 mile and I'm just on the far end. My closest neighbor on the other side of the evergreen forest gets a perfect signal, but even if he put something up so I could mirror that connection it would be blocked.
If I put equipment up to create a private WISP and sell a connection I could service 3 people.