5G Hotspot for reliable wifi at meetings
March 1, 2024 7:36 AM Subscribe
Can a 5G hotspot cost-effectively serve wifi to a meeting of 30-40 people in a larger US city? Is it possible to purchase the hardware but only pay for the cell service for the one week every three months that it's needed?
I work for a small distributed company of about 30-40 people. Once per quarter, most of the company convenes for 3-4 days for meetings, typically in a major U.S. city. There are always a handful of people that need to attend the meetings remotely. We have been using co-working spaces for these meetings, and have had a terrible time with their WiFi being unreliable.
I would like to explore the idea of purchasing a 5G hotspot to provide WiFi for these meetings.
First, given we are going to have a couple concurrent video meetings (Google Meet or Zoom) going, would a 5G hotspot have the throughput to handle this? Are there any specific recommendations of high quality hotspots? If they work well, I could probably get approval for something up to about $1000.
Second, is it possible to pay for the cell service on a pay-as-you-need way? We need cell data service for 4 days per quarter, and it will be powered off for all other days.
I work for a small distributed company of about 30-40 people. Once per quarter, most of the company convenes for 3-4 days for meetings, typically in a major U.S. city. There are always a handful of people that need to attend the meetings remotely. We have been using co-working spaces for these meetings, and have had a terrible time with their WiFi being unreliable.
I would like to explore the idea of purchasing a 5G hotspot to provide WiFi for these meetings.
First, given we are going to have a couple concurrent video meetings (Google Meet or Zoom) going, would a 5G hotspot have the throughput to handle this? Are there any specific recommendations of high quality hotspots? If they work well, I could probably get approval for something up to about $1000.
Second, is it possible to pay for the cell service on a pay-as-you-need way? We need cell data service for 4 days per quarter, and it will be powered off for all other days.
Does your company have any colocation/data center space? Many of these offer their customers meeting spaces to use occasionally. (Possibly included in your hosting, possibly an upcharge). Not surprisingly for infrastructure hubs, these have far better WiFi/internet connectivity. If your company is set up in one of these in the town where your team will be, that could be an option.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:34 AM on March 1, 2024
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:34 AM on March 1, 2024
I'm not big on the technology terms here, but I'm involved with a community center in rural Vermont, where we just set up pretty robust WiFi network precisely because we want to be able to host meetings where a lot of people might be using it. This would including things like weddings (everybody's texting and sending videos) but also meetings of organizations and businesses. We set it up with 1000 Mbps and up to 300 connection points. It is included in the price for people renting the space. Look for a location using this kind of setup; we can't be the only ones offering it. Or come to our place in Vermont!
(Also look at alternative meeting locations like hotels, some of which have pretty good setups; or even non-competing companies that have underutilized meeting space.)
posted by beagle at 1:42 PM on March 1, 2024 [1 favorite]
(Also look at alternative meeting locations like hotels, some of which have pretty good setups; or even non-competing companies that have underutilized meeting space.)
posted by beagle at 1:42 PM on March 1, 2024 [1 favorite]
Rent a conference room at a hotel or library, maybe a college or university would rent a classroom.
posted by theora55 at 9:21 AM on March 2, 2024
posted by theora55 at 9:21 AM on March 2, 2024
Not speaking to hiring the tech itself, but to places where the tech already exists: you could also look at renting meeting/conference spaces in a stadium (otherwise used for football, concerts, etc.).
They often have mobile phone masts often built in to the stadium to support x thousand people at a time using their mobiles, but stadiums tend not to be in use 7 days a week, so other uses would likely be available for a few days.
posted by many-things at 6:29 PM on March 2, 2024
They often have mobile phone masts often built in to the stadium to support x thousand people at a time using their mobiles, but stadiums tend not to be in use 7 days a week, so other uses would likely be available for a few days.
posted by many-things at 6:29 PM on March 2, 2024
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A hotspot like the NetGear M6 ($~650 ish) can provide the bandwidth if you are in an area with a very good signal. So if you are outside in a major city, it _should_ work. But it may not provide the needed bandwidth inside of a building.
The bigger issue is that while these devices claim they can support up to 32 clients, it is best to cut that in half. So you may need to supplement it with a "real" wireless access point that uses the hotspot as the internet uplink. The M6 has an ethernet port, so you could just connect a TP-Link AC2000 ($120) or similar to the hotspot and then have the users connect to the AP
As for the data plan, most providers have a data only prepaid plan that you can get on a month by month basis. So you could light it up a week or so before the meeting and then let it expire, then repeat 3 months later. TMobile has data only plans starting at $20 or so, but I don't remember if the 5G coverage was included in that.
posted by SegFaultCoreDump at 9:23 AM on March 1, 2024 [1 favorite]