Using a 4G service for PS3/360?

Tech Talk
#1

So cutting out 90% of the backstory, for the next year (or more) I’ll be staying in a trailer near where I work - saving up money. There are a few inconvienances, but the biggest one is internet. I can’t get a land line brought in. so my wife and I have been looking at various options for this. I’ve been eyeing one of those wireless hubs (though my 360 isn’t wireless - sigh) from Verizon and they ‘boast’ about their ‘near cable’ speeds with 4G, but I

  1. Don’t know what the latency is like.
  2. Don’t know what the data consumption is like.

I was curious if anyone had tried playing say fighting games over air cards or using other 3G/4G devices - and how it worked out for them. Right now we are looking at just tethering my iPhone as a mobile hotspot, but the connection doesn’t seem fast enough (espeially loading websites and the such) to function well (I have unlimited so at least its no sweat off my back for amount of data, but latency then becomes the issue, if I go the mobile hotspot route from say Verizon, then I have a datacap.)

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#2

I’ll tell ya right now, that if you’re gonna be using the Xbox wireless, the slim built in wireless is 100x better than the add on one to the original.

Sounds like yer trying to save the cash, but if there’s any way to upgrade your console I’d do it. It’ll help a lot (provided you can get a signal regardless)

#3

I don’t know what carrier you have for you iPhone, but none of the carriers offer truly unlimited data. If you’re using AT&T then when you hit that 3GB to 5GB data window, AT&T will start throttling your data usage. The same goes for SPRINT, but I’m not 100% sure about verizon

I have a T-Mobile Android phone and use it as wireless hot spot occasionally. From my experience with that, it’s barely usable/fast enough to check e-mail and browse the internet without heavy images. Also had a lot of lag with trying to facetime on an ipad that was tethered to my android phone. I would imagine any other carrier would be faster than t-mobile tethering wise, but again, talking about trying to game online, comparing phone tethering speeds is like saying a turtle is faster than a snail. Slow is still slow.

I’ve also tried sprints wireless 4G puck. It’s significantly faster than tethering from a phone, like I can load youtube vids a lot faster (trying to load youtube vids while tethered to my android took forever) but I haven’t tried gaming on the Sprint wireless 4G puck. I doubt it would be fast enough for smooth online gameplay however.

I’ve been hearing about this company called CLEAR wireless internet

http://www.clear.com/

Don’t know what the speed/service is like but they seem like a decent shot. This is just my experience, hope it’s helpful

#4

You don’t want to do it over 4G/Satellite/Whatever. The ping will be ridiculously high, you really do not want XBL. It will be a terrible experience for both you and whoever you are playing with.

#5

I remember staying at a hotel once and getting 4 bars off of my 4G phone i was actually able to get lag-free starcraft 2 using my phone as a hotspot which was surprising, but then again, SC2 doesn’t really send/recieve that much data, maybe 20k is like the middle range for down + up
I’m with mobilicity in canada which essentially is T mobile in the states.

#6

The quality of your 4G connection and connection speed also varies from city to city.

True, but AT&T is now facing law suits from some of there customers (and former customers) because of this and the Dept of Justice and the FCC is investigating it. Odds are that the FCC going to fine AT&T big time as well as the Dept of Justice ordering damages to be paid to AT&T customers if the case follows its current trend.

But that is irrelevant to OP’s issue.

Check the 3G and 4G speeds in your area not the national average.

#7
#8

I disagree, I use my Verizon LTE on XBL to play halo reach and if it’s a solid connection I don’t notice any lag at all. Only issues I’ve noticed due to VZ’s blocking of certain ports is that while most games can connect to play, you may not be able to hear certain players.

#9

Well right now I’m using Verizon (grandfathered into unlimited) for my iPhone…so we are currnetly going to be using that in a pinch, but if a ‘decent’ gaming experience can be had for 30-50+ more a month I go back and fourth with if it might be worth it.

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#10

May just have to drop the online gaming thing for a while and focus on bettering your position in life. I skipped the entire PS2-Xbox era and the first half of the PS3-Xbox360 area. Was living in a trailer and my wife and I started a Photography&DJ company. After a few years the company has been able to buy us a house, cars, business class internet, 2 PS3’s& 1 Xbox360 ( the company uses them to play slideshows and videos at wedding shows) Just this week I got an Asus “Evo” monitor and a Ice Red Qanba Q4raf Stick (going to put one of My wife’s pictures as the artwork and use it as a display model at wedding shows) All these are business purchases, which means it was bought with pre-tax dollars and thus cheaper than if I used my paycheck money (post-tax dollars). Sure I missed out on some fun and good games then, but I am enjoying the games way more now and the local fighting game community enjoys that I can afford to drop of PA’s for them to use, bring a console and good monitor, and Since I booked a wedding and could not go to Final Round, I was able to sponsor another player who did quite well for his first major. Think of the long term :slight_smile:

#11

Yeah I actually figured I’d have to give it up initially, but I figured that I’d do one last push/ask someone other than my circle for opinions on it before I say yay/nay. Hell the way my stupid iPhone is setup I can’t even update apps larger than 50 MBs - and work has iTunes blocked, so I’d lose the ability to even update/get new apps for my iPhone. So I’m honestly just trying ot make hte best of the situation, I can save a little money - and struggle with no net for a year (outside of work) or put somehing together to try and get it going. Congratz by the way on making it all work out.

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