I’ve mentioned tethering buckets a few times in this blog. Each cellular carrier in the US allows subscribers a certain amount of bandwidth each billing cycle to use for “tethering” with other devices. The term “tethering” goes back to before cellular phones had Bluetooth or WiFi. Once I switched to a GSM provider in 2004, I spent lots of time using Bluetooth tethering primarily with some USB tethering over the years. Once I swapped to a 3G smartphone, eventually I ended up with an actual bucket vs. the old “T-Mobile Internet” add-on that was effectively unlimited back in the GPRS/EDGE days.
As the years went along, I’ve ended up with larger and larger buckets depending on which carrier. Right now, with T-Mobile Magenta MAX I have 40GB of available tethering bandwidth. This seems like a small amount of bandwidth these days, but if you’re not downloading a lot of Linux ISOs or continually streaming HD media, that’s a good amount. Note that once 40GB is expended you can continue to tether at 3G speeds.
Why do I not just stick to the tethering bucket? Well, outside of work purposes, the amount of times I’ve been using a laptop “mobile” that needed Internet is a quite small. Plus, if it’s a fixed location for several days, the chances of HD streaming and/or Linux ISO downloading, not to mention server backups in the case’s case running, yeah, something that is basically unlimited and not dependent on my phone being charged is what we need. The fact it’s a portable hotspot is a nice touch, but again, at least at this point with my bag situation, is less than ideal.
I had a business trip in early 2020 where I needed to take the USB aircard I was using at the time with me when I went on site for the day, but if memory serves at the time I had much lower than 40GB available for tethering on my phone at the time. It should be less of an issue now, so if it were an anime con and I were carrying a tablet or the GPD MicroPC 2 with me, I’d just tether my phone at this point.
I’m sure whenever I upgrade to a 5G phone this might see more use. Ah well, that’s a few months off anyway.
Until next time!