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Question

New Job: Doesnt reimburse mobile wifi, I need a hot spot

Mar 10, 2012 7:26PM PST

Hi

I am taking a job where the company does not reimburse for mobile internet access. They only reimburse $80 for cell phone. Cheapos but I;ll get to deduct from my taxes.
Crazy also because most of the products we are selling are internet products where we NEED to be able to get online at various places throughout the day. (they provide the laptop).

I am currently an AT&T customer with an iphone 4 (not s) with an "unlimited- formerly I guess) data, talk and texts. My bill currently is around $130 per month.

I am needing to continue on a plan that keeps the same features I currently have as well as the addition of hot spot capabilities.

This means I may have to switch carriers and possibly phones- if needed.

If I do- I will hopefully be able to downgrade my AT&T to the bare minimum rate plan in order to avoid an early contract termination penalty. Or to at least delay it.

Of course that may end up costing less than switching olans.

I have no idea what to do. All of the companies are changing the rates and being shady about it.

Does anyone have any suggestions- at least to shoot me in the right direction?

Many thanks!

: )

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Both AT&T and Verizon offer a device that
Mar 10, 2012 10:33PM PST

will pull in the cell signal and output it as a wireless signal.

Somehow I think that with both these companies the fact that you have an existing account will not be of any benefit to you.

Your current iPhone4 plan, the unlimited one, will cause AT&T to jump with glee as they now see a chance to get you off that account onto one of the other, not unlimited, plans.

See the Post from Bob Proffitt in the How To forum about the way his son solved this problem.
http://forums.cnet.com/7723-21563_102-557790/laptop-wireless/?tag=contentBody;threadListing

P

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Answer
The killer spec was "the same features."
Mar 11, 2012 4:35AM PDT

My son has the Virgin Mobile 99 buck droid and a 35 buck a month plan. It's not big on talk minutes but you could use a phone for that?

He tethers it to his PC with Easytether (10 bucks for the full featured one.) So the plan is only 35 a month for him.
Bob

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Answer
[OT] If they reimburse with a cash payment monthly...
Mar 12, 2012 12:31PM PDT

...how can you also add that as a deduction(?) Might be double dipping to the IRS Wink>

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Here is how I can
Mar 12, 2012 5:59PM PDT

My company will reimburse $80 per month for a cell phone.
They will provide a laptop.
And a 300 per month for gas.

They will not be reimbursing me for the online capabilities of my phone and text messages (which are standard in outside sales)

I will be out selling ONLINE PRODUCTS to prospective and current customers.

As I also do with my current job (who supplies me with mobile wifi)

I can upgrade, change carriers and/or get another phone that will also act as a mobile hotspot.

SO, in essense- I will ultimately be paying somewhere around $200/mo (I guess) for a phone etc that can allow me to get online with my laptop anytime, anywhere. I feature that I would NOT need to purchase to use for anything other than business purposes. I have to have it for business, company isnt paying for, so I am. That i
NOT double dipping. thanks

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If you plan on frequent tethering
Mar 13, 2012 12:03AM PDT

You will want a plan that allows for tethering a laptop to your cellular data plan without risk of being turned off because of overages, or speeds throttled. In this sense, you won't want to go with one of the prepaid plans, such as Virgin Mobile. That's for more casual use, which is not what you are describing. I would look into Sprint since they appear to be the current large carrier that is competing (at least partially) with the premise that their data packages are truly 'unlimited'. With Verizon and ATT this is usually not the case. It will mean however that you will be spending a little more than you would for Prepaid.

Bottom line is, frequent tethering means you need a healthy data plan which costs $.

-Pedro

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Answer
I have a T-Moble Hotspot
Mar 13, 2012 3:54PM PDT

Don't know if this will help. I have a T-Mobile Hotspot. I bought it for $124.99 and just buy prepaid time, 30 days. It's great. You can connect up to 5 devices like laptops, iPad, etc. to it at a time. There are several prepaid amounts
$30 for 30 days up to 1gb usage
$50 for 30 days up to 3gb
and I think $10 for 1 week

I sure like it. My husband bought it for when he had to stay at his folks house while they were gone. We liked it so much I went right out and bought an iPad2 to use with it (of course right before the iPad3 was annouced). I just bought the wi-fi cheapest version. I love using it in the car. It's better than our Garmin GPS and the maps are bigger.