Mobile wifi router in US

[socrates]

I am going for a 12 day trip to USA in November and thinking to get a mobile wifi router with me. Should I just get the $12 one from changi airport? I suppose it works well in US. Are there other cheaper options?

 

[invisible999]

I am going for a 12 day trip to USA in November and thinking to get a mobile wifi router with me. Should I just get the $12 one from changi airport? I suppose it works well in US. Are there other cheaper options?

Discussed number of times on US thread - if you want to have 4G/LTE speeds the mobile router must support frequencies of the carrier it is going to use.

So, if you want to use one provided at Changi, then ask which carrier it uses at which frequencies. It will give you some info.

Moreover, for 12 days your rental will run into $150 and more. And if rental does not include SIM/traffic, add additional charges on top of that. There are other, cheaper alternatives.

 

[socrates]

Thanks invisible999

The USA thread is super many pages, how do I find out information on this in the thread?

 

[invisible999]

Thanks invisible999

The USA thread is super many pages, how do I find out information on this in the thread?

Usually useful information is last 3-4 pages. About this topic asked number of times. To save your time your options are:
- That mifi router from Changi, but not a good return considering how much you spend on it, plus again - you do not know what you will get in terms of specs.
- Buy mifi box in US which is guaranteed to work with LTE speeds. The downside is that it will most likely work only with that particular provider and quite useless outside of US.
- Buy and use local SIM card - best option is Tmobile for $30/mo. However if you want LTE speeds you need a device with supports Tmobile's LTE frequencies. Better coverage is H2O which uses AT&T network and costs $40/1GB of data. Same situation with frequencies - for LTE speed you need a device supporting them.
- Buy in Singapore Starhub prepaid card for $18, from the provided balance pay $10/1.2GB or $15/2.4GB for data and use data roaming with Tmobile. Downside is that if you use your Singapore phone, then you won's get more than 3G speeds with Tmobile due to frequency differences. Plus all traffic will be routed thru starhub resulting quite significant delays.

 

[socrates]

Thanks for taking the time to give me al this useful information.

How do I know if my phone supports T-mobile's LTE frequencies? My wife has a Singtel samsung S6 and I have an old samsung S4 and even older iphone 4S. Is there a list of phone models somewhere that shows this?

appreciate your help.