Winegard GateWay Router

[philh]

Is there anything stopping me from using my tablet's cell sim card and just putting it in the router?

[brholt]

philh wrote:
20G is way too low for my purposes.

while we were traveling, we were in the 100G range, but I was also using it for work. I've since pushed work stuff back on my work hot spot, but that's a the biggest data user.

To low for us too. However, we primarily use our phones on T-Mobile which gives us unlimited on the phones and 40G on each line for hotspot use. The Gateway is used as a supplement and when T-Mobile doesn’t have service.

[philh]

20G is way too low for my purposes.

while we were traveling, we were in the 100G range, but I was also using it for work. I've since pushed work stuff back on my work hot spot, but that's a the biggest data user.

[brholt]

We have a Gateway router.

I don’t have any personal experience with trying to use a sim designated for another device on the router. From browsing the web I see mixed results. It also seems the cell companies are getting better at stoping this.

I do have some experience with the Gateway. First, it doesn’t seem that it is set up to work with Spring or T-Mobile. Second, I had a lot of trouble getting it to work with both Winegard and AT&T. The problem always seemed to be on their end and I spent a lot of time on the phone while they tried to figure out the reason I was getting 3G instead of 4 G speed. In both cases they finally got it to work and it worked well.

As for plans Winegard’s is very expensive. AT&T prepaid, however, offers a plan where you pay $300 ( plus tax) for one year of service giving you 20 GB per month with one month rollover of unused data. We are currently using that with our Gateway and are pretty happy with it as a alternative for out main T-mobile phone plans

[philh]

Unlocked tablet on ebay.

I'd like to keep my my house server running (cell based internet), while we travel. Need to find another source for the travel trailer. 3-6 months on the road.

I won't have 5er until early fall, but we leave for our trip not long after. I'd like to have this completely solved before we leave late november.

[LouLawrence]

You may be able to do exactly that. You do have to ensure the router is capable of handling the service (AT&T sim from the tablet and the router is AT&T compatible). It's also possible it will work for awhile and then stop if that kind of service is prohibited. Many have done exactly that with various routers.

[Seattle_Steve]

Yes. The SIM is almost always locked by the carrier to the IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) and not useable on a different device.