5 ms·

I've had a laptop with a cellular modem for almost 4 years now and there's zero chance I'm ever going back to a laptop without one. Maybe framework next time ar

I've had a laptop with a cellular modem for almost 4 years now and there's zero chance I'm ever going back to a laptop without one. Maybe framework next time around, if my laptop had some GPIOs too!? Heaven.

shortrounddev2 3y ago
How much do you pay for data with it? I also just tether to my Samsung and use my phone's data plan
- thot_experiment 3y ago
  a bit over $30/mo on tmo, real world speeds about 30mbit, 100 on a good day, unlimited data
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    Are you using a socketed WWAN card? You could probably fanangle that into an M.2 slot (or god forbid a Framework expansion card) with a little bit of software tinkering.
  - kccqzy 3y ago
    T-Mo also reduces speed after a set amount of data (probably also 50GB).
- darknavi 3y ago
  GoogleFi provides data only sims for free that use the same pool of data from your "unlimited" plan.
  - mdasen 3y ago
    > Users who exceed 50 GB of data usage (across all their devices) will have their data speeds slowed to 256 kbps for the remainder of their billing cycle, unless they opt out and choose to be charged for additional full speed data usage at $10 per GB. According to Google, it looks like that "unlimited" plan is 50 GB and then slowed to 256 kbps (basically useless). It isn't unlimited with lower priority after 50 GB. It's basically just limited to 50 GB given how useless 256 kbps is.
    - shortrounddev2 3y ago
      I think this is pretty common with US carriers. "Unlimited" doesn't actually mean unlimited, ever
      - thot_experiment 3y ago
        Yeah it's true, I believe I get throttled after 1TB now though, haven't hit the limit in a long while.
      - mdasen 3y ago
        It's not common with mainstream US carriers on phone plans. It's common with MVNOs (virtual network operators). On phone plans, carriers generally let a customer use unlimited low-priority data. If it's 3am and no one is using the network or you're in a location with plenty of capacity, your speeds are good. If there's a lot of people using the network, your speeds can vary since others get priority over you. There's a big difference between "we prioritize other customers before you" and "you'll never exceed 256 kbps." The first kind still feels like unlimited for most people. It might mean getting 5 Mbps instead of 25 Mbps when there's a lot of network congestion, but most of the time you're just getting regular speeds and don't notice anything. I'd certainly notice 256 kbps. MVNOs often throttle connections because they're usually paying for data on a per-GB basis from a network. Carriers can give their customers as much data as they want when the network isn't congested because it doesn't really cost them anything if you're using what would otherwise be unused bandwidth.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
poisonborz 3y ago
Why? I had it as well and never used it. Smartphones have much better reception, it's always there, press of a button to share the connection. When no smartphone, a tiny sim modem costs peanuts. You also need a separate data plan, for many carriers not so obvious or not really worth. I don't get sim trays in laptops.
- shafyy 3y ago
  Not sure why you're being downvoted. I concur 100%. Everybody has a smarthone with a SIM card already in it and carries it around all the time. Connecting your Macbook to your iPhone is one click in your menu bar. Why do you need a SIM Card in your Macbook? I mean, there might be some business (niche) use cases, but other than that?
  - thot_experiment 3y ago
    It's the friction of the thing. Phones have a trash UI, I can just pull my laptop out of my bag and shitpost on hacker news whenever I want at 90wpm, you think I'm going to bother tethering just to reply to a HN comment on Caltrain? The UX of an always on the internet laptop is unparalleled.
    - lxgr 3y ago
      On macOS, I can activate tethering pretty much instantaneously directly from my laptop, but the battery drain is still a concern.
      - JohnBooty 3y ago
        sure, but I mean, we're just shifting the battery drain to the laptop now the laptop has a bigger battery, obviously. but i'm trying to understand the Venn diagram of people who are willing to tote around a laptop, but not an external hotspot or extra battery pack to offset the extra battery drain on their phone, and need to do this for hours at a time with no AC power available, and are also willing to pay $20 a month for it or whatever the carrier charges all I can really come up with is "businesses who issue laptops that need to stay connected to the internet and it's not feasible to expect employees to use their phones as hotspots" and maybe "people doing mission critical shit who want the laptop cellular modem as a backup in case something happens to their phone or whatever" and of course people who won't blink at $20/month
traceroute66 3y ago
> I've had a laptop with a cellular modem for almost 4 years now and there's zero chance I'm ever going back to a laptop without one. As others have already said, why ? For me and most other tech-savvy people, the order of preference for connectivity will always be: - Ethernet cable - WiFi - 4G/5G Hotspot WiFi will generally always be faster and less-contended than a hotspot because the speed of the WiFi connection is almost always only constrained by the speed of the local internet connection. However, as anyone who spent time during COVID working off a hotspot will tell you, mobile networks are unpredictable. Speed varies depending on how many people are using "your" mast. And then if the emergency services turn up in your area, you'll be automatically kicked off because their SIM cards give them priority over other network users and the network infrastructure will automatically kick off other network users as the emergency services demand ramps up. Finally the places where you actually NEED a hotspot are decreasing by the day. Cafés, libraries, train stations, etc. etc. .... they all have WiFi these days. It is now rarer to NOT have in-flight WiFi than it is to have acces to it. And in some countries (e.g. Japan) you have WiFi on all long-distance train services. I suppose maybe if you are a salesdroid or an engineer and frequently visiting third-party premises where you may or may not have guest access to the WiFi ... that's probably the only real need that will consistently remain. But even then, your employer probably pays for your work smartphone already, so you could just use the hotspot like everyone else and not require your employer to have a second SIM card subscription.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >As others have already said, why ? Easy. Business people, who travel a lot and need their laptop to always be synced and connected 100% of the time, and not waste time dicking around with hotspot tethering which nukes you phone's battery life or looking for some shabby public wifi hotspot. Time is money and the zero friction and the confidence your machine is always online is a huge point to the suits (or other professions who need travel on-site like inspectors, engineers, architects, etc).
  - traceroute66 3y ago
    > Business people who travel a lot I am one of those business people. And as I said, WiFi is fast reaching the point where it is as ubiquitous as running water. And as for "shabby public WiFi", if you are referring to security then that is what VPNs were invented for (and 4G/5G can be monitored too). Also quality wise public WiFi is not as "shabby" as it used to be. As I also made clear, 4G/5G is not a magical panacea, it is subject to variable speeds, contention and you being kicked-off by the emergency services. I'm not saying I never use hotspot. I'm saying I find myself using it far less then I ever used to. Indeed on my last business trip I didn't have a need to use it at all because the WiFi everywhere was so good.
kelnos 3y ago
A neat idea for a Framework expansion module would be a little cell modem with SIM tray. Not sure how to do the antenna, though, since the area is mostly surrounded by metal. Certainly could have the module stick out or have a detachable antenna, but that's ugly and annoying.

shortrounddev2 3y ago

How much do you pay for data with it? I also just tether to my Samsung and use my phone's data plan

thot_experiment 3y ago
a bit over $30/mo on tmo, real world speeds about 30mbit, 100 on a good day, unlimited data
- smoldesu 3y ago
  Are you using a socketed WWAN card? You could probably fanangle that into an M.2 slot (or god forbid a Framework expansion card) with a little bit of software tinkering.
- kccqzy 3y ago
  T-Mo also reduces speed after a set amount of data (probably also 50GB).
darknavi 3y ago
GoogleFi provides data only sims for free that use the same pool of data from your "unlimited" plan.
- mdasen 3y ago
  > Users who exceed 50 GB of data usage (across all their devices) will have their data speeds slowed to 256 kbps for the remainder of their billing cycle, unless they opt out and choose to be charged for additional full speed data usage at $10 per GB. According to Google, it looks like that "unlimited" plan is 50 GB and then slowed to 256 kbps (basically useless). It isn't unlimited with lower priority after 50 GB. It's basically just limited to 50 GB given how useless 256 kbps is.
  - shortrounddev2 3y ago
    I think this is pretty common with US carriers. "Unlimited" doesn't actually mean unlimited, ever
    - thot_experiment 3y ago
      Yeah it's true, I believe I get throttled after 1TB now though, haven't hit the limit in a long while.
    - mdasen 3y ago
      It's not common with mainstream US carriers on phone plans. It's common with MVNOs (virtual network operators). On phone plans, carriers generally let a customer use unlimited low-priority data. If it's 3am and no one is using the network or you're in a location with plenty of capacity, your speeds are good. If there's a lot of people using the network, your speeds can vary since others get priority over you. There's a big difference between "we prioritize other customers before you" and "you'll never exceed 256 kbps." The first kind still feels like unlimited for most people. It might mean getting 5 Mbps instead of 25 Mbps when there's a lot of network congestion, but most of the time you're just getting regular speeds and don't notice anything. I'd certainly notice 256 kbps. MVNOs often throttle connections because they're usually paying for data on a per-GB basis from a network. Carriers can give their customers as much data as they want when the network isn't congested because it doesn't really cost them anything if you're using what would otherwise be unused bandwidth.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]

poisonborz 3y ago

Why? I had it as well and never used it. Smartphones have much better reception, it's always there, press of a button to share the connection. When no smartphone, a tiny sim modem costs peanuts. You also need a separate data plan, for many carriers not so obvious or not really worth. I don't get sim trays in laptops.

shafyy 3y ago
Not sure why you're being downvoted. I concur 100%. Everybody has a smarthone with a SIM card already in it and carries it around all the time. Connecting your Macbook to your iPhone is one click in your menu bar. Why do you need a SIM Card in your Macbook? I mean, there might be some business (niche) use cases, but other than that?
- thot_experiment 3y ago
  It's the friction of the thing. Phones have a trash UI, I can just pull my laptop out of my bag and shitpost on hacker news whenever I want at 90wpm, you think I'm going to bother tethering just to reply to a HN comment on Caltrain? The UX of an always on the internet laptop is unparalleled.
  - lxgr 3y ago
    On macOS, I can activate tethering pretty much instantaneously directly from my laptop, but the battery drain is still a concern.
    - JohnBooty 3y ago
      sure, but I mean, we're just shifting the battery drain to the laptop now the laptop has a bigger battery, obviously. but i'm trying to understand the Venn diagram of people who are willing to tote around a laptop, but not an external hotspot or extra battery pack to offset the extra battery drain on their phone, and need to do this for hours at a time with no AC power available, and are also willing to pay $20 a month for it or whatever the carrier charges all I can really come up with is "businesses who issue laptops that need to stay connected to the internet and it's not feasible to expect employees to use their phones as hotspots" and maybe "people doing mission critical shit who want the laptop cellular modem as a backup in case something happens to their phone or whatever" and of course people who won't blink at $20/month

traceroute66 3y ago

> I've had a laptop with a cellular modem for almost 4 years now and there's zero chance I'm ever going back to a laptop without one. As others have already said, why ? For me and most other tech-savvy people, the order of preference for connectivity will always be: - Ethernet cable - WiFi - 4G/5G Hotspot WiFi will generally always be faster and less-contended than a hotspot because the speed of the WiFi connection is almost always only constrained by the speed of the local internet connection. However, as anyone who spent time during COVID working off a hotspot will tell you, mobile networks are unpredictable. Speed varies depending on how many people are using "your" mast. And then if the emergency services turn up in your area, you'll be automatically kicked off because their SIM cards give them priority over other network users and the network infrastructure will automatically kick off other network users as the emergency services demand ramps up. Finally the places where you actually NEED a hotspot are decreasing by the day. Cafés, libraries, train stations, etc. etc. .... they all have WiFi these days. It is now rarer to NOT have in-flight WiFi than it is to have acces to it. And in some countries (e.g. Japan) you have WiFi on all long-distance train services. I suppose maybe if you are a salesdroid or an engineer and frequently visiting third-party premises where you may or may not have guest access to the WiFi ... that's probably the only real need that will consistently remain. But even then, your employer probably pays for your work smartphone already, so you could just use the hotspot like everyone else and not require your employer to have a second SIM card subscription.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>As others have already said, why ? Easy. Business people, who travel a lot and need their laptop to always be synced and connected 100% of the time, and not waste time dicking around with hotspot tethering which nukes you phone's battery life or looking for some shabby public wifi hotspot. Time is money and the zero friction and the confidence your machine is always online is a huge point to the suits (or other professions who need travel on-site like inspectors, engineers, architects, etc).
- traceroute66 3y ago
  > Business people who travel a lot I am one of those business people. And as I said, WiFi is fast reaching the point where it is as ubiquitous as running water. And as for "shabby public WiFi", if you are referring to security then that is what VPNs were invented for (and 4G/5G can be monitored too). Also quality wise public WiFi is not as "shabby" as it used to be. As I also made clear, 4G/5G is not a magical panacea, it is subject to variable speeds, contention and you being kicked-off by the emergency services. I'm not saying I never use hotspot. I'm saying I find myself using it far less then I ever used to. Indeed on my last business trip I didn't have a need to use it at all because the WiFi everywhere was so good.

kelnos 3y ago

A neat idea for a Framework expansion module would be a little cell modem with SIM tray. Not sure how to do the antenna, though, since the area is mostly surrounded by metal. Certainly could have the module stick out or have a detachable antenna, but that's ugly and annoying.