miatainium Posted February 6, 2017 Report Share Posted February 6, 2017 Canadian team here interested in steaming at upcoming US events like WGI. We have a few unlocked Android phones and we're looking for good daily pre-paid cellular data options. Any recommendations? I think T-mobile has some pre-paid daily plans but I understand their service at tracks is not good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoiledPeanut Posted February 6, 2017 Report Share Posted February 6, 2017 (edited) We used a Straight Talk plan last year at WGI. It worked really good in the pits, but lost signal as soon as we got on track. We tried it many times over three days and it never worked for us. But at Daytona, Sebring, Barber and COTA it was fine. Last weekend at Road Atlanta it was bad. Edited February 6, 2017 by BoiledPeanut Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miatainium Posted February 6, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 6, 2017 I tried to look up a daily Straight Talk plan ... it's not jumping out at me. I see they have a monthly plan, is that what you got? 1 hour ago, BoiledPeanut said: We used a Straight Talk plan last year at WGI. It worked really good in the pits, but lost signal as soon as we got on track. We tried it many times over three days and it never worked for us. But at Daytona, Sebring, Barber and COTA it was fine. Last weekend at Road Atlanta it was bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoiledPeanut Posted February 6, 2017 Report Share Posted February 6, 2017 Correct the 30 day no contract service plans. I get either the $45 - 5GB for one day races and the $55 - 10GB plan for multi day races. https://www.straighttalk.com/wps/portal/home/shop/serviceplans 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miatainium Posted February 6, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 6, 2017 15 minutes ago, BoiledPeanut said: Correct the 30 day no contract service plans. I get either the $45 - 5GB for one day races and the $55 - 10GB plan for multi day races. https://www.straighttalk.com/wps/portal/home/shop/serviceplans Thx! What carrier does this use? AT&T? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoiledPeanut Posted February 6, 2017 Report Share Posted February 6, 2017 Straight Talk is the Walmart phone. They use other carriers, but not sure who, what, when, etc. From the web: Straight Talk is a type of carrier known as an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator), which means that it doesn't run or own a wireless network. Instead, it purchases the right to use towers from AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miatainium Posted February 6, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 6, 2017 When you said you had lost signal at WGI, doesn't it say what carrier it's on at the time? Given that explanation couldn't you just switch to a different carrier that had better signal? I don't intend to buy a Straight Talk phone, just the SIM and plan for use in one of our unlocked Android Phones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoiledPeanut Posted February 6, 2017 Report Share Posted February 6, 2017 I don't think you have the ability with straight talk to know the carrier, or manually change the carrier, but I may be wrong. We went with them because they were the cheapest. After the failures at WGI and RA, its probably time to consider another option. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miatainium Posted February 8, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2017 Exactly, I was hoping that the tier-1 US carriers (Verizon, AT&T) would offer daily data only plans in large quantities ... like 5GB+ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoiledPeanut Posted February 13, 2017 Report Share Posted February 13, 2017 Did anyone find a good hot spot / mobile WiFi no contract plan? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoiledPeanut Posted February 14, 2017 Report Share Posted February 14, 2017 Boost Mobile has a Wifi plan for $50 for 10gb / 30 days and a hot spot for another $50. Seems like a good deal to me. Boost uses Sprint so feel sure it should work at Daytona! Has anyone had any experience with Boost? https://www.boostmobile.com/#!/shop/plans/wifi-hotspots/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pintodave Posted March 3, 2017 Report Share Posted March 3, 2017 Might want to check into Cricket wireless, not sure what they offer for hotspot services but it is month-to-month and uses ATT towers (AT&T actually bought them). I've used them to stream from my phone mostly with success, but again can be hit or miss depending on the track. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewheelerZ Posted April 26, 2017 Report Share Posted April 26, 2017 @miatainium Did you find a good option for your recent trip? Has anyone used Roam Mobile? Looks like a pretty good option at $5 per day and a max of 15GB per month. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miatainium Posted April 26, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 26, 2017 I tried Know Roaming for $25USD for 3 days unlimited data only on AT&T. On my iPhone it would connect at 3G not LTE, but on an Android phone it connected at 4G. On 3G I was getting 10mbps downloads and 1mbps uploads. Unfortunately at WGI the streaming video using Larix broadcaster was very laggy even when I turned the resolution way down to less than 640x480. It was unwatchable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewheelerZ Posted April 26, 2017 Report Share Posted April 26, 2017 Ok, awesome. I will give that a look. We wont be running live video, I just want to have cell phone access and be able to watch live timing and such. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miatainium Posted April 26, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 26, 2017 2 minutes ago, thewheelerZ said: Ok, awesome. I will give that a look. We wont be running live video, I just want to have cell phone access and be able to watch live timing and such. In that case either KnowRoaming or Roam Mobility will work. Roam is a bit cheaper I think ... $24 for 4 days and worked fine for live timing. If you do end up signing up for KnowRoaming, please use promo-code JERCH85 so you'll get $3 off the sim-car and we both get $5 credit. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gnicholl Posted May 23, 2017 Report Share Posted May 23, 2017 Where do you pick up KnowRoaming or Roam Mobility SIM cards ? I am also looking for data access while at WGI this weekend, and also primarily for live timing / Facebook / etc. Given that my last Rogers bill was $1430 ($1200 data roaming charges) for a 1 week work trip in US, I don't want to be using Rogers roaming again!! Does anyone know if it is possible to pick up a prepaid data SIM for either AT&T or Verizon when in the US (maybe at one of their outlets?) ? I hunted around a little online but it wasn't obvious what the options are. The process is a little simpler in Europe. I was in England a couple of weeks ago and picked up a 10G LTE SIM card for GBP25 from the arrivals hall at Heathrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewheelerZ Posted May 23, 2017 Report Share Posted May 23, 2017 1 hour ago, gnicholl said: Where do you pick up KnowRoaming or Roam Mobility SIM cards ? I am also looking for data access while at WGI this weekend, and also primarily for live timing / Facebook / etc. Given that my last Rogers bill was $1430 ($1200 data roaming charges) for a 1 week work trip in US, I don't want to be using Rogers roaming again!! Does anyone know if it is possible to pick up a prepaid data SIM for either AT&T or Verizon when in the US (maybe at one of their outlets?) ? I hunted around a little online but it wasn't obvious what the options are. The process is a little simpler in Europe. I was in England a couple of weeks ago and picked up a 10G LTE SIM card for GBP25 from the arrivals hall at Heathrow. The SIM card I got from Roam was sent to me in the mail after i ordered it from their website . I then went online to activate and choose/pay for a plan. No idea if the card will arrive in time though. Worst case scenario, you could always prepay for a Rogers roaming plan (just phone them up) Last time I went to the US for work, it was like $80 for 4 days with data and such. Too much for me to justify for a race weekend, but work paid for it and I kept my number and such while down there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcewena Posted May 23, 2017 Report Share Posted May 23, 2017 You can pick up roam SIM cards at staples. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thomasp Posted May 23, 2017 Report Share Posted May 23, 2017 (edited) I picked up my Roam SIM locally {Vancouver area}. Activated it online. I have used Roam at VIR, Road America, Portland, Charlotte, and other tracks. I checked the coverage map, Watkins Glen should be Ok. It is fine for live timing and internet access. I don't think it would work for live streaming as there is not enough data per day. Edited May 24, 2017 by thomasp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewheelerZ Posted June 1, 2017 Report Share Posted June 1, 2017 As a follow up to this after the weekend at Watkins Glen. I had a Roam Mobile sim card and it SUCKED. Like more than sucked... it was almost completely useless. On my iphone it didn't work in the pit lane, didn't work near the garages and I seemed to get only a bit of coverage (like a really little bit, inconsistent with a maximum 2 bars on "E") if I was approaching the porta-potties. Suffice to say, Roam mobile wont be my go to for the next trip to WGI. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miatainium Posted June 1, 2017 Author Report Share Posted June 1, 2017 14 minutes ago, thewheelerZ said: Suffice to say, Roam mobile wont be my go to for the next trip to WGI. It connected to T-mobile? My experience with them last year was similar to yours ... abysmal. I used KnowRoaming again and got 3 days of unlimited 3G data on my iPhone for $23USD. It connects to AT&T and at the track I got speed test results of 4.63Mbps down, 1.17 MBps up. I found that because of the heavy cellular data usage at the track it was unable to stream the ChumpCast Live broadcast reliably. Outside the track it was fine for everything (Waze, browsing, YouTube). Although a bit pricey I would use them again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Axxe Posted June 1, 2017 Report Share Posted June 1, 2017 8 hours ago, thewheelerZ said: As a follow up to this after the weekend at Watkins Glen. I had a Roam Mobile sim card and it SUCKED. Like more than sucked... it was almost completely useless. On my iphone it didn't work in the pit lane, didn't work near the garages and I seemed to get only a bit of coverage (like a really little bit, inconsistent with a maximum 2 bars on "E") if I was approaching the porta-potties. Suffice to say, Roam mobile wont be my go to for the next trip to WGI. I have Rogers, and I'm on the roam-like-home plan for $5/day. So the trip cost me $20 on top of my normal bill, everything else stays the same. Easy and painless, it's automatic once you have it set up on the account. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thomasp Posted June 1, 2017 Report Share Posted June 1, 2017 9 hours ago, thewheelerZ said: As a follow up to this after the weekend at Watkins Glen. I had a Roam Mobile sim card and it SUCKED. Like more than sucked... it was almost completely useless. On my iphone it didn't work in the pit lane, didn't work near the garages and I seemed to get only a bit of coverage (like a really little bit, inconsistent with a maximum 2 bars on "E") if I was approaching the porta-potties. Suffice to say, Roam mobile wont be my go to for the next trip to WGI. Thanks for posting this. I have used Roam Mobile at other tracks but not at Watkins Glen. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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