# Short term internet



## AntAltMike (Nov 21, 2004)

My deadbeat landlord didn't pay the Verizon Wi-Fi bill again. She says she did but I know she is lying. In fairness to her, she lost her job a year ago and will probably never get another one. In fairness to me, I am her best tenant.

I don't have grounds to sue or to take her to the housing commission because high speed internet is not mentioned in my lease. It is something she had to add to get new tenants because everyone in this market offers it. 

Some time within the last year, I dropped my AT&T 3G Wi-Fi, which I think was costing me $70 a month. I own my own AT&T compatible Wi-Fi-stick (Sierra, maybe), so there would be no hardware obligation to incur if I reconnect. Since I would expect them to jerk me if I called them, I thought I'd check here first. Can I reconnect on a month by month account, or if not, what is out there for cheap, short term internet, as there is a pretty good liklihood that my landlord will eventually pay the bill?


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## AntAltMike (Nov 21, 2004)

Back on now, after two and a half days out, but I will always be at risk, so I'd still like to know what is available short term, just so I won't be on square one when this happens again.


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## CCarncross (Jul 19, 2005)

Unless being connected to the internet is a life or death situation, I wouldn't sweat it. We can all survive with an internet service interruption every now and then.


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## dmurphy (Sep 28, 2006)

CCarncross said:


> Unless being connected to the internet is a life or death situation, I wouldn't sweat it. We can all survive with an internet service interruption every now and then.


... unless, of course, you work from home and rely on that connection to be available to accomplish your daily tasks.

And yes, for the record, I do have a backup (LTE) connection in the (unlikely) event my FiOS is unavailable.


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## AntAltMike (Nov 21, 2004)

dmurphy said:


> ... unless, of course, you work from home and rely on that connection to be available to accomplish your daily tasks....


Which I often do. I am primarily in the emergency field service business, and many of my customers notify me of their needs via the internet. Until recently, one of my neighbors hadn't secured his Wi-Fi, so I could leach off that, but that option is now gone, so for the last couple of days, and for several days a few months ago, I had to keep driving to the parking lot of a nearby McDonalds to get my updates.

BTW, the data speed at McDonald's has dropped from very slow to now slower than twisted pair slow at half a dozen regional McDonalds. Does anyone know if that is deliberate? Maybe they don't want people hogging tables and booths while watching streamed videos.


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## dmurphy (Sep 28, 2006)

AntAltMike said:


> Which I often do. I am primarily in the emergency field service business, and many of my customers notify me of their needs via the internet. Until recently, one of my neighbors hadn't secured his Wi-Fi, so I could leach off that, but that option is now gone, so for the last couple of days, and for several days a few months ago, I had to keep driving to the parking lot of a nearby McDonalds to get my updates.
> 
> BTW, the data speed at McDonald's has dropped from very slow to now slower than twisted pair slow at half a dozen regional McDonalds. Does anyone know if that is deliberate? Maybe they don't want people hogging tables and booths while watching streamed videos.


I don't know if that's deliberate, and that's why I have an LTE MiFi device as a backup. It works really, really well when I'm traveling for work - I plop it down on a conference table and up to 5 of us have connectivity. Really a great device.


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## CCarncross (Jul 19, 2005)

dmurphy said:


> ... unless, of course, you work from home and rely on that connection to be available to accomplish your daily tasks.
> 
> And yes, for the record, I do have a backup (LTE) connection in the (unlikely) event my FiOS is unavailable.


Which is why I cant believe that someone wouldn't have a backup....you do....AntAltMike is relying on his so called deadbeat landlord....


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

AntAltMike said:


> Which I often do. I am primarily in the emergency field service business, and many of my customers notify me of their needs via the internet.


If that were the case, I'd have DSL or whatever was available separate from the building and bill at least part of it to my employer.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

If you have a AT&T stick, this should work for you as a temporary solution:

https://buyasession.att.com/sbd/ShowLogin.action


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## AntAltMike (Nov 21, 2004)

Chris Blount said:


> If you have a AT&T stick, this should work for you as a temporary solution:
> 
> https://buyasession.att.com/sbd/ShowLogin.action


Looks plausible: $15 for a day, $30 for a week, $50 for a month, and while I don't know how to tally my data usage, I'm just a page reader, so if I reigned myself in to doing just business, I surely wouldn't use even a tenth of their data limits.

The only hitch is, the first sign-up page asks where I bought the stick, but my source, eBay (new in original blister pack), is not listed. There is no legal ownership problem: I've already used it as a replacement when the one I bought from AT&T physically broke and I didn't want to either pay them a zillion dollars for a replacement or re-commit to two years, and AT&T has previously activated it for me, but I still have to get by that sign-up page requirement.


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## AntAltMike (Nov 21, 2004)

CCarncross said:


> ...I cant believe that someone wouldn't have a backup....you do....AntAltMike is relying on his so called deadbeat landlord....


My backup is McDonald's (1.1 miles away), and my more convenient in home back-up was called "Comcast 5808 unsecured", until its owner recently wised up. I also can log into a campground customer's system two miles away and also use Fed-Ex kinkos. My landlord didn't become a deadbeat until she lost her job.



SayWhat? said:


> If that were the case, I'd have DSL or whatever was available separate from the building and bill at least part of it to my employer.


I'm my employer. I had a stable internet situation for a decade using a landline. I had a stable situation for maybe three years after that using AT&T 3G, and I have had a stable situation since, using my residence's free internet connection, until the two recent repair "problems" that result in my service calls to Verizon's technical repair line get automatically rerouted to billing, at which time they tell me that they are not allowed to talk to me unless I furnish them either the account number off the statement (which I don't have and which the landlord keeps promising to give me but never does) or the amount and date of the most recent payment, and this time, it let me connect to Verizon only and put up a page that said the service has been suspended and instructed me on how to make a payment, but again, I got snagged by the authorization process. I'd have paid the bill myself and deducted it from my next rent payment, but I couldn't navigate through their account security.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

AntAltMike said:


> Looks plausible: $15 for a day, $30 for a week, $50 for a month, and while I don't know how to tally my data usage, I'm just a page reader, so if I reigned myself in to doing just business, I surely wouldn't use even a tenth of their data limits.
> 
> The only hitch is, the first sign-up page asks where I bought the stick, but my source, eBay (new in original blister pack), is not listed. There is no legal ownership problem: I've already used it as a replacement when the one I bought from AT&T physically broke and I didn't want to either pay them a zillion dollars for a replacement or re-commit to two years, and AT&T has previously activated it for me, but I still have to get by that sign-up page requirement.


I use this all the time. I don't think AT&T cares where you bought it. You are basically creating a pre-paid data account (sort of what they are doing in iPads). You use it, then it expires. Even after a few months of non-usage the entire account is deleted so in order to use the stick again you have to create a whole new account.


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## dasoffice (Sep 24, 2010)

Out here in the boonies (2 miles outside the city limits of a town of 25,000), I've had good luck with a company called Millenicom (use your imagination or google for the website). While I just checked it out, their plans have changed because they were giving away free USB modems with some of the higher priced plans and didn't want them back. I still have the one I signed up with for the 20 GB a month plan, but I bought another model modem that uses a different carrier (Verizon) with "unlimited" usage. It's a no contract, month to month, but must be maintained I think. I don't know what happens if you terminate and want to reconnect. Of course, it's 3G, but beats anything else available out in the country (including previously tried Wildblue and Hughesnet). Cable refuses to come out here and AT&T was poised to install DSL but put all plans on hold after the economic downturn at the last presidential election. They have fiber in the ground, but have balked at the remained of the infrastructure. Good luck. (I have no affiliation or financial interest in Millenicom, just have a mostly very favorable opinion of their service after nearly a year of use).


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## AntAltMike (Nov 21, 2004)

I used to have "Boingo" loaded into one of my laptops. It is available at most airports I've been to, but even though their home page says they are available in lots of places, I've never detected it anywhere except at airports.

I just went to their site and they now are offering non-contractual service for just $10 a month. I thought that the last time I used it in an airport, it was $10 for the day, and more for a month. Does anyone here have any recollections of their previous rates?

Update: I just punched my zip code into Boingo's "hot spot" finder and they claim there are 221 hotspots close to me, and I see they claim twenty such sites within two miles of the center of my zip code, but strangely, several of the sites are McDonalds, yet when I am at those McDonalds and access my View Available Networks list, Boingo is not included in the lists at those sites. Could it be that Boingo piggybacks off the AT&T wi-fi carrier that is detected there? Most of the other sites are Cafe's (incl Starbucks) and Motels, but they also claimed Cherry Hill Park, which is the campground I alluded to in post #11 yet Boingo doesn't appear in the list I generate there, either.


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