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> 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 sa

> 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.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    You're talking from a pretty biased pov of a bubble. Public wifi is definetly not ubiquous everywhere in every country, and even when it is you need to have the right credentials or it has annoying dark patterns requiring you to click through various steps before you can get online (if it works reliably in the first place), and there's a niche of people for whom such friction or issues are unacceptable from a business standpoint and their company is more than happy to pay a second SIM to ensure their laptop is always connected the moment the lid is opened to save time and friction. I get it it's not for you, but it's definetly for other people who values it. For example on the train network in my country, there's free wifi but it's so overloaded that using LTE tethering is much faster and reliable, and having that built in the laptop is even better for work, and that's why many business people get this feature on laptops. Imagine you are late or miss your important online call/meeting/presentation because you were faffing about with flaky public wifi instead of having built-in LTE connectivity. YES, hot-spot from your phone is a thing, but that's an extra annoying friction: Do I have enough battery on my phone to use it for the next hours? Did my hotpsot turn off automatically before and I need to restart it?
    - traceroute66 3y ago
      > You're talking from a pretty biased pov of a bubble. You are in danger of crossing the line into personal insult territory there. You don't know me. You don't know my travel patterns. You don't even know what my line of work is. So I suggest you don't accuse me of working in a biased bubble. No further comment.
thot_experiment 3y ago
Naw, I'm just a freelancer. It's simply that convenient that it's worth $30/mo, I often find myself using it in places where there's WiFi because it provides a much more consistent experience than public internet, especially what's available on transit. I don't use it for any business reason, I just like the UX of a computer way more than a phone, and I find the internet useful, especially when accessed through a real computer and not the abomination that is a mobile OS in 2023 (or any previous year). Wild takes coming out against this, like bruh, I made this choice and I am posting about how much it's useful. You're not going to facts and logic your way into me being wrong about my subjective experience of a product.
numpad0 3y ago
Wi-Fi is kind of horrible, 4G/5G is better tbh.
wenc 3y ago
I'm in one of the techiest cities in the U.S. Public Wi-fi is widely available. I don't use it due to friction. Here's what has to happen at a cafe in my neighborhood if I wanted to use their Wifi: 1. Ask for the password (sometimes it's on my coffee receipt, sometimes not) 2. Open laptop, logon to Wifi, enter password. (if not already saved from last time; but every new location has a different password so you end up having to enter passwords anyway) 3. Open up Cisco VPN (because Wifi is not safe, especially those open ones without passwords). 4. Start browsing (and discover that Wifi is pretty slow in some shops because they misconfigured their router or there are too many people on Wifi. Public Wifi is iffy in many places like on Amtrak trains or in US airports). What I actually do today: (anywhere, car, coffee shop, random location in middle of nowhere with cell signal) 1. Open laptop, click connect to iPhone (unlimited plan), get 5G speeds, no VPN needed. I would need to carry a phone charger or battery pack because tethering mode drains my phone quickly. If I had a cell modem on my laptop: 1. Open laptop.
whycome 3y ago
> For me and most other tech-savvy people Nah. You need to take into account other factors for real-world usage. First, their use of a modem is not 'a hotspot' so your comparison (and personal pain points) aren't really comparable. Some reasons for preferring cellular modem on laptop: - battery life drain on the phone/hotspot device (and if plugged in, reduces ones ability to freely use the phone) - security issues of cafes and other public wifi - no need to turn off/on hotspot - Your personal experience about emergency service use of local cell or availability of wifi on transit is different than others - an additional SIM isn't necessarily a subscription but just from the same pool of data How is ethernet preferable to wireless unless just speaking of speed?
kalleboo 3y ago
My experience with public WiFi is that it is universally garbage. Tethering to my phone I get around 150-600 Mbit, a solid connection. Public Wi-fi is usually like... 10 Mbit. And then after 30 minutes suddenly the traffic stops, breaking what I was doing and I have to click some usage agreement again. Lots of public Wi-fi in smaller cafes/bars and stuff now is actually just backed by a 5G hotspot now as it's cheaper (no installation fees etc) so it's strictly worse than using my own plan. I don't even try with Wi-Fi anymore outside of the home. I use about 70 GB/mo on my unlimited data plan.

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.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  You're talking from a pretty biased pov of a bubble. Public wifi is definetly not ubiquous everywhere in every country, and even when it is you need to have the right credentials or it has annoying dark patterns requiring you to click through various steps before you can get online (if it works reliably in the first place), and there's a niche of people for whom such friction or issues are unacceptable from a business standpoint and their company is more than happy to pay a second SIM to ensure their laptop is always connected the moment the lid is opened to save time and friction. I get it it's not for you, but it's definetly for other people who values it. For example on the train network in my country, there's free wifi but it's so overloaded that using LTE tethering is much faster and reliable, and having that built in the laptop is even better for work, and that's why many business people get this feature on laptops. Imagine you are late or miss your important online call/meeting/presentation because you were faffing about with flaky public wifi instead of having built-in LTE connectivity. YES, hot-spot from your phone is a thing, but that's an extra annoying friction: Do I have enough battery on my phone to use it for the next hours? Did my hotpsot turn off automatically before and I need to restart it?
  - traceroute66 3y ago
    > You're talking from a pretty biased pov of a bubble. You are in danger of crossing the line into personal insult territory there. You don't know me. You don't know my travel patterns. You don't even know what my line of work is. So I suggest you don't accuse me of working in a biased bubble. No further comment.

thot_experiment 3y ago

Naw, I'm just a freelancer. It's simply that convenient that it's worth $30/mo, I often find myself using it in places where there's WiFi because it provides a much more consistent experience than public internet, especially what's available on transit. I don't use it for any business reason, I just like the UX of a computer way more than a phone, and I find the internet useful, especially when accessed through a real computer and not the abomination that is a mobile OS in 2023 (or any previous year). Wild takes coming out against this, like bruh, I made this choice and I am posting about how much it's useful. You're not going to facts and logic your way into me being wrong about my subjective experience of a product.

numpad0 3y ago

Wi-Fi is kind of horrible, 4G/5G is better tbh.

wenc 3y ago

I'm in one of the techiest cities in the U.S. Public Wi-fi is widely available. I don't use it due to friction. Here's what has to happen at a cafe in my neighborhood if I wanted to use their Wifi: 1. Ask for the password (sometimes it's on my coffee receipt, sometimes not) 2. Open laptop, logon to Wifi, enter password. (if not already saved from last time; but every new location has a different password so you end up having to enter passwords anyway) 3. Open up Cisco VPN (because Wifi is not safe, especially those open ones without passwords). 4. Start browsing (and discover that Wifi is pretty slow in some shops because they misconfigured their router or there are too many people on Wifi. Public Wifi is iffy in many places like on Amtrak trains or in US airports). What I actually do today: (anywhere, car, coffee shop, random location in middle of nowhere with cell signal) 1. Open laptop, click connect to iPhone (unlimited plan), get 5G speeds, no VPN needed. I would need to carry a phone charger or battery pack because tethering mode drains my phone quickly. If I had a cell modem on my laptop: 1. Open laptop.

whycome 3y ago

> For me and most other tech-savvy people Nah. You need to take into account other factors for real-world usage. First, their use of a modem is not 'a hotspot' so your comparison (and personal pain points) aren't really comparable. Some reasons for preferring cellular modem on laptop: - battery life drain on the phone/hotspot device (and if plugged in, reduces ones ability to freely use the phone) - security issues of cafes and other public wifi - no need to turn off/on hotspot - Your personal experience about emergency service use of local cell or availability of wifi on transit is different than others - an additional SIM isn't necessarily a subscription but just from the same pool of data How is ethernet preferable to wireless unless just speaking of speed?

kalleboo 3y ago

My experience with public WiFi is that it is universally garbage. Tethering to my phone I get around 150-600 Mbit, a solid connection. Public Wi-fi is usually like... 10 Mbit. And then after 30 minutes suddenly the traffic stops, breaking what I was doing and I have to click some usage agreement again. Lots of public Wi-fi in smaller cafes/bars and stuff now is actually just backed by a 5G hotspot now as it's cheaper (no installation fees etc) so it's strictly worse than using my own plan. I don't even try with Wi-Fi anymore outside of the home. I use about 70 GB/mo on my unlimited data plan.