Out camping and want to watch sports on your laptop??

peter67 · Guru

Out camping and want to watch sports on your laptop??

Mike Harding · Guru

2.5GB/hour = 42MB/minute.

I doubt you will reliably get that data throughput when using a mobile phone in the bush unless you are sitting next to the cell and even then if a few others log on your speed will fall off.

My guess is it will quickly become a most frustrating experience with skips, pauses, dropouts and probably software failure with frequent restarts/reboots.

After two years experience of using my phone for a hotspot across Vic and NSW I would not consider watching TV via it and I don't believe a dedicated modem will do more that be fractionally better and that due to its external antenna.

Clarky 1 · Senior Member

I find that if I hotspot my phone to my IPad I lose a lot of speed.
I I use a wifi dongle through Telstra on a prepaid plan I lose very little in speed.
I dont use my laptop at all these days but when I was using it I suffered very slow performance with hotspotting as opposed to the WiFi dongle.
I currently have a 60gb per month plan with Telstra which costs around $40 per month.
I get quality reception wherever there is a Telstra service and by using the dongle I have cut the data on my phone to a low monthly level of 5 gb which is more than I can use.

If you google the app, *Fast*, you can check the speed of your internet wherever you are. https://fast.com/
You may be surprised how slow the download may be before it affects streaming quality.

-- Edited by Clarky 1 on Tuesday 23rd of February 2021 01:59:04 PM

-- Edited by Clarky 1 on Tuesday 23rd of February 2021 02:00:07 PM

Dick0 · Guru

Wait for the replay on telly in the evening.

Clarky 1 · Senior Member

Dick0 wrote:
Wait for the replay on telly in the evening.

Unfortunately replays and even free to air TV coverage is becoming less and less due to lucrative deals being signed by the paid subscription suppliers.

-- Edited by Clarky 1 on Tuesday 23rd of February 2021 02:35:17 PM

KFT · Guru

We take our Fox box with us and setup the dish anywhere.

It has the sports we want to watch and no concerns about data speeds or usage.

Frank

Meredith · Senior Member

Mike Harding wrote:
2.5GB/hour = 42MB/minute.
I doubt you will reliably get that data throughput when using a mobile phone in the bush unless you are sitting next to the cell and even then if a few others log on your speed will fall off.
My guess is it will quickly become a most frustrating experience with skips, pauses, dropouts and probably software failure with frequent restarts/reboots.
After two years experience of using my phone for a hotspot across Vic and NSW I would not consider watching TV via it and I don't believe a dedicated modem will do more that be fractionally better and that due to its external antenna.

We have for the past few years regularly been watching tv including sports through streaming using our Telstra phone as a hotspot, generally we have had basically no problems, and have used it in all kinds of places all over Australia. Can't use things like supposed free internet in caravan parks, but anywhere you can get a couple of bars it works well. We have found it closer to 1gb per hour for normal definition tv, the 2.5gb is usually for hd quality, which our tv doesn't have and we don't need anyway.

-- Edited by Meredith on Tuesday 23rd of February 2021 05:02:25 PM

-- Edited by Meredith on Tuesday 23rd of February 2021 05:02:40 PM

peter67 · Guru

Thank you everyone for the advice I'm completely new to this and sometimes struggle with all these new fangled gizmo's and communication updates/methods. To me everything seems to be superseded almost as soon as you get comfortable with what you have just bought.

I checked that fast site clarky 1 and will post a screen shot hoping someone can explain what i'm looking at bearing in mind Mike's figures. I'm currently in a poor reception area according to my samsung s20 just one bar, averaged between 17 and 20 mbps, thank you and cheers to all.

Clarky 1 · Senior Member

Peter 67,
From my experience you have more than enough where you are at the moment to watch Kayo, if that is the figure on your laptop.
Cheers

Meredith · Senior Member

5mbps is generally all you need for standard definition streaming, so you have more than enough.

dorian · Guru

peter67 wrote:
... will post a screen shot ...

You can use the Windows snipping tool to save a screenshot to a file. I expect that Macs have a similar feature.

Mike Harding · Guru

I take it back.

Having checked the download speeds KAYO specify as required I think you'll be in with a fair chance of low or standard resolution in most areas most of the time. Please let us know how you go.

Nevd · Senior Member

KAYO is the go for me. I use it at home & on the road. Pre NBN it was actually better on the road hotspotted through phone (Telstra) than the pathetic excuse for ADSL we had at home.

peter67 · Guru

Thank you everyone for clarifying what i need to know, even if I only have a basic grasp of it. Rang telstra, add AU15.00 to my 60gb plan and KAYO sports is now in my grubby little fingers!! thank you all for the advice, happy travelling :)

ps Mike will post results in a few weeks time cheers

vince56 · Senior Member

Telstra phone, hotspot in the bush regularly, no dramas. We take our Telstra box and watch that plus Kayo for Motogp and V8's works well anytime we have signal.

Brodie Allen · Guru

Meredith wrote:
5mbps is generally all you need for standard definition streaming, so you have more than enough.

Ditto.

There's a lot of compression and on a small TVs the lower resolutions are fine.

I watch it on my iPad faultlessly from my Fox a/c on Foxtel GO which is a free facility with your

Foxtel subscription. You can have it on 6 devices at the same time.

The only limiting factor is your reception, 2-bars is fine - even less in some areas where it is

a clean signal.