Finest Cell Telephone Service for Van Life –

Information Speeds

The largest distinction between the bottom plan and the premium plan is information speeds. With Seen’s base plan, you’ll get 5G Nationwide and 4G LTE information, with 5G speeds capped at 200 Mbps. 

With Seen+, you’ll get 5G Extremely Wideband information plus 50GB of premium information when related to 5G Nationwide and 4G LTE.

Utilizing Seen’s base plan, I’ve hardly ever had any points with gradual web speeds in areas with protection. When working web velocity assessments from my cellphone, my obtain speeds with the essential Seen plan are sometimes 60Mbps or higher, generally even topping 100Mbps. With these speeds, I’m in a position to browse the web, stream Netflix, and use my cellphone with out lag or a lot thought in any respect about information speeds.

The largest factor to learn about Seen’s information speeds is in case you’re incessantly touring in highly-congested areas, you might be topic to “deprioritization” as a Seen buyer vs. somebody with Verizon, particularly in case you’re on the bottom plan. Since I’m usually not touring to highly-populated areas, I wasn’t too fearful in regards to the potential service downgrade, and it hasn’t been a noticeable concern in my 2+ years as a fundamental Seen buyer.

In actual fact, I’ve solely seen slower service twice – as soon as at a music pageant in San Francisco and as soon as having no cell reception within the small city of Stanley, Idaho whereas my associates with Verizon had just a little little bit of reception. I chalked this as much as the city itself having tremendous spotty protection, and to this point, that’s the one time I’ve ever not had any reception when Verizon clients had sign.

Seen Wi-fi Cellular Hotspot

What units Seen other than different carriers is its limitless cell hotspot. Utilizing a cellphone as a hotspot is a quite common method for van lifers to get web on the street, however it’s fairly unusual to have a plan that gives really limitless cell hotspot information utilization. Most different carriers will cap information utilization and severely decelerate your web speeds when you’ve hit your information restrict for the month, making your hotspot unreliable and unusable when you’ve hit the cap.

As a substitute of capping information allowance, Seen caps your information speeds. Utilizing your limitless cell hotspot, speeds are all the time capped at 5 Mbps. For the common particular person, this shouldn’t trigger many points. I’ve used Seen’s cell hotspot as my main web supply for engaged on the street for two+ years will no complaints. I’m in a position to do all of my pc work with no points and be a part of video calls with minimal to no disruption. Seen is dependable and quick, and I by no means have to fret about how a lot information I’m consuming.

Nonetheless, if you’re somebody who’s incessantly downloading/importing massive recordsdata, is on video calls usually, or wants extremely quick web speeds, this won’t work as your main laptop computer web.

Utilizing Seen+ In Mexico

After I first joined Seen in 2020, there was no choice to make use of my cellphone outdoors of the US which was a little bit of a draw back. Nonetheless, in August 2022, Seen opened up Seen+ plans which embody limitless discuss and textual content to Mexico and Canada, limitless discuss, textual content, and roaming in Mexico and Canada (information as much as .5GB/day), and worldwide calling/texting to many nations.

I spend winters touring in my van all the way down to Baja, Mexico so this was an enormous additional advantage to Seen’s service. I upgraded my plan to Seen+ earlier than crossing the border, which took lower than 10 minutes and may very well be accomplished on the Seen app with none help. The change came about instantly; I didn’t want to attend till a brand new billing cycle.

I’ve been in Mexico for over a month now and have been actually impressed with Seen’s service down right here. In areas with cell protection, I’ve been in a position to name and textual content household and associates again within the US as regular and use my cellphone minimally for Google Maps, social media, and light-weight web shopping. The speeds are quickest within the morning and decelerate over the course of the day, as information utilization is capped at .5GB a day and slows down considerably after that. So long as you handle your expectations (you’re not going to see the identical web speeds roaming in Mexico as within the US), it’s an ideal perk and the service is similar to different main carriers’ worldwide companies.

Now, there are limitations to Seen’s worldwide capabilities – most notably that worldwide discuss, textual content, and information are restricted solely to Mexico and Canada – however I’m hopeful that Seen will increase its worldwide roaming protection sooner or later.

How To Change Your Telephone Plan To Seen

As a paying consumer of Seen Wi-fi for over 2 years, I couldn’t advocate it extra, particularly for van lifers. With its limitless information plan, limitless sizzling spot utilization, and low month-to-month price, it’s been important for dwelling and dealing on the street.

Moreover, Seen plans are versatile and adaptable, so you may choose the plan that most accurately fits your wants, which is essential when dwelling on the street.

You’ll be able to both use your present cellphone to affix Seen (not all gadgets are appropriate – use Visible’s compatibility checker to make sure your system is supported) or you will get a brand new cellphone by means of them.