A Cheap Phone Plan Needs A Hotspot Test

A cheap phone plan is only cheap if it still works on the day the house internet dies.

My Tello setup is intentionally small: $6 per month, 100 minutes, unlimited texts, and 1GB of data on T-Mobile’s network. That is plenty for a phone that spends most of its life on Wi-Fi. The missing test is whether it can carry a laptop for ten ugly minutes.

Worth checking before it matters:

• turn on the phone hotspot at home
• join from the laptop
• open email, a GitHub page, and one lightweight doc
• confirm the carrier plan actually allows tethering
• rename the hotspot so it is obvious in the Wi-Fi list
• keep the phone charger near the desk, not in the travel bag

The point is not to work all afternoon from a 1GB plan. It is to have enough connection to send the message, push the fix, or download the boarding pass before deciding whether the real answer is a coffee shop.