According to my phone, I have used 430 GB of data this month.

What does this cost them? Am I making them lose money at ~$60 a month?

That's just Destiny?! Seems pretty hard to believe it would be sending that much data back and forth even over a month's time. In fact, I know it's not as my internet has a "soft cap" of something like 250 or 350GB at which point we pay a significant fee for going over... and we haven't gone over in a long time.

What else are you doing, I wonder...

I'm definitely not doing that for sure.

No, it's my other stuff, too, general internet usage.

Xbox 360 probably closer to 15 if I remember my downloaded games and usage correctly. So only 150 of it can be directly pinned on the Xbox. But still. Are they losing money on me?

I suppose it depends on how much Bandwidth and/or data throughput capacity % you are using at any given time. If we assume many of your playing hours are during non peak usage times when the local tower you are pinging to/from is well below its max capacity... then you should be able to use as much data as you want. It's not really how much data you are using that costs them money. However they only have so much capacity. That's really what you should be paying for, but that would be extremely difficult to calculate considering that it would fluctuate wildly based on your usage patterns, time of day, number of users, etc.

Since I have an LTE signal, the limiting factor is the write speed to the device's flash memory around 15 megabits per second. With tethering, it can only output about 10 megabits per second to devices connected to it. On my better, faster, phone, I get around 25 megabits per second on LTE speedtests, which is probably the actual bandwidth limit. So, I think maybe the capacity used is very low, yes? Even on peak times?

While I'm not a big fan of Wikipedia, I usually find that for advanced electronics and communications topics, its a decent resource for just ballparking specs and getting an understanding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_(telecommunication)

Its been almost 10 years since I finished my degree program in this general area, but I still get the basics. From what I've read on different sites, 4G LTE can run anywhere from 50 to 300Mbps. And while towers can have bandwidths from 1.4Ghz to 20Ghz, if the tower/carrier is using a form of CDMA (code division multiple access), you should have a 5Ghz bw and 200 user capacity.

Smaller than what I expected in terms of users and data capacity per tower. You may be using a significant chunk of the capacity in the evenings. But every cell tower is custom to the needs of the area. Urban areas will have more towers covering smaller areas to accomodate the larger population density. I would assume that since you are in the Detroit area, there are many different towers that you may be able to ping to/from as the data load changes. This may be the cause of some of your lag like issues sometimes, because the network may move you around to keep you connected while also providing you and the other customers continued access.

While I'm not a big fan of Wikipedia, I usually find that for advanced electronics and communications topics, its a decent resource for just ballparking specs and getting an understanding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_(telecommunication)

Its been almost 10 years since I finished my degree program in this general area, but I still get the basics. From what I've read on different sites, 4G LTE can run anywhere from 50 to 300Mbps. And while towers can have bandwidths from 1.4Ghz to 20Ghz, if the tower/carrier is using a form of CDMA (code division multiple access), you should have a 5Ghz bw and 200 user capacity.

Smaller than what I expected in terms of users and data capacity per tower. You may be using a significant chunk of the capacity in the evenings. But every cell tower is custom to the needs of the area. Urban areas will have more towers covering smaller areas to accomodate the larger population density. I would assume that since you are in the Detroit area, there are many different towers that you may be able to ping to/from as the data load changes. This may be the cause of some of your lag like issues sometimes, because the network may move you around to keep you connected while also providing you and the other customers continued access.

This fits. We have 3 towers I can connect to. One visible from my house, one a mile down the road by my parents, and one near to ProbablyLast. I am infrequently switched to EV-DO rev A on the close tower, and sometimes switched to the tower by my parents' house, though only on LTE. The low number of users is a bit weird though. We've got around 2000 people per square mile of land in this area, and each cell around here appears to have a half mile to mile radius from what I remember looking at a map. Even if Sprint is only serving 10% of local customers, there's almost no safety factor there.

What does the 5GHz bandwidth mean? And I assume it does do CDMA as well.

While I'm not a big fan of Wikipedia, I usually find that for advanced electronics and communications topics, its a decent resource for just ballparking specs and getting an understanding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_(telecommunication)

Its been almost 10 years since I finished my degree program in this general area, but I still get the basics. From what I've read on different sites, 4G LTE can run anywhere from 50 to 300Mbps. And while towers can have bandwidths from 1.4Ghz to 20Ghz, if the tower/carrier is using a form of CDMA (code division multiple access), you should have a 5Ghz bw and 200 user capacity.

Smaller than what I expected in terms of users and data capacity per tower. You may be using a significant chunk of the capacity in the evenings. But every cell tower is custom to the needs of the area. Urban areas will have more towers covering smaller areas to accomodate the larger population density. I would assume that since you are in the Detroit area, there are many different towers that you may be able to ping to/from as the data load changes. This may be the cause of some of your lag like issues sometimes, because the network may move you around to keep you connected while also providing you and the other customers continued access.

This fits. We have 3 towers I can connect to. One visible from my house, one a mile down the road by my parents, and one near to ProbablyLast. I am infrequently switched to EV-DO rev A on the close tower, and sometimes switched to the tower by my parents' house, though only on LTE. The low number of users is a bit weird though. We've got around 2000 people per square mile of land in this area, and each cell around here appears to have a half mile to mile radius from what I remember looking at a map. Even if Sprint is only serving 10% of local customers, there's almost no safety factor there.

What does the 5GHz bandwidth mean? And I assume it does do CDMA as well.

Your carrier Sprint has purchased a band of frequencies it can transmit at from the FCC. I see that Sprint uses LTE on 3 bands; 2.5Ghz, 1900Mhz, and 800Mhz. If we use 1900 as an example, it has a total bandwidth of 60Mhz. Inside that band it can and does split into smaller channels at different sizes. 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15, and 20Mhz are all available in your 1900 LTE band. So at 5Mhz you could have 12 channels from a 60Mhz bw. 12 x 200 would give you a total of 2400 customers for that cell tower assuming its only using that frequency. It may be able to give you access to the other two (2.5Ghz and 800Mhz) bands as well. Obviously you can get more customers with a smaller channel bw, say 1.4Mhz, but data throughput is also reduced because bw is one of the main determining factors for data transmission. (search Nyquist rate if you are interested in learning more)

I'd assume that you'll see better performance at night because the system has the capability to auto adjust channel bandwidth based on its actual demand. So you may get the 20Mhz channel vs the 5Hhz channel size. It's just a likely that the frequencies are preset by the engineers based on the projected customer requirements, so you are stuck with 5Mhz. In that case to service more customers they would need more towers spaced closer together. Now that I think about it, this is most likely how its being done.

Can you write a Kindle ebook on how cell phones work? Cause I read those Wikipedia articles and they are a little too dense for me.

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I checked my usage last fall, and destiny was using about 100mb/hr, where games like Halo and Borderlands were using ~ 40mb/hr. use party chat, and it will go up even more.

I live in a rural area, and use Verizon Homefusion. Its a 4gLTE antenna on my house, its got decent speeds (~8-15 mbps up & down), but they have a shit data cap of 30 GB per month. The only reason they offer the service is b/c it was a condition of the FCC contract to provide rural internet when they bought the LTE band. But my only other options here are satellite, or "rural wifi" that is lucky to pull 2mbps during peak hours.

My Verizon phone service is grandfathered into unlimited data, so i'll trade off using my phone or the home internet for gaming. The Homefusion antenna only picks up Band 13 (Verizon's original LTE band), but my phone can pick up Band 4 (XLTE), and will get 15-20 mbps up&down.

Even though my phone is unlimited, i've always been scared about pissing off verizon. My original contract says that i will get throttled if i fall into the top 5% of users. I have no idea what the threshold for that is. I had a friend that was using his AT&T phone as his home internet source, and got throttled after several consecutive months of 30+ GB.

Also, just to be safe, whenever there is a major game update, I'll take my Xbox to my brother in law's in town and update there. If my boss is out of town, i'll take it to work, spoof the MAC of my laptop, and update it on the office network ;).

I checked my usage last fall, and destiny was using about 100mb/hr, where games like Halo and Borderlands were using ~ 40mb/hr. use party chat, and it will go up even more.

I live in a rural area, and use Verizon Homefusion. Its a 4gLTE antenna on my house, its got decent speeds (~8-15 mbps up & down), but they have a shit data cap of 30 GB per month.

I had a 40 GB/mo. cap on the Jetpack I was using, and it's the reason I talked my in-laws into letting me pay for better in-home internet.

I said I needed it for "work".

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I'd love to live in a nice rural area with no people. I'd hate to live in a rural area with shit internet.

I didn't think I was afraid of heights, but... yeah, now I am. :) HOLY CRAP that's freaky. Do Not Want.

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This is called free-climbing, which means no safety lines are used.

Attaching, climbing, removing, and re-attaching safety lines every few feet is slow and tiring.

Is this guy for real?

This is called free-climbing, which means no safety lines are used.

Attaching, climbing, removing, and re-attaching safety lines every few feet is slow and tiring.

Is this guy for real?

If he is this isn't in the US. It's illegal for them not to use safety lines.

I was doing some hiking a couple years back in one of the state recreation areas around here and I heard a hum. Not the standard power line hum. It was more musical. I went up to the big power line pylon and it didn't get louder. I put my head on the ground and there was no change. I looked all over for the sound. Couldn't find it. Finally I went to get my phone to record the sound and put my walking stick in my teeth to have it vibrate on them. My STICK was making the noise!

The electricity hum was the resonant frequency of my walking stick and was using it like a tuning fork. I don't know why I found this so unsettling.

I've also given thought, like most people, I imagine, for good ways to steal power. I had an idea for a coil placed underneath these to use the magnetic field to generate power for me, but it's too minor. I could try capacitive conduction (the same stuff you get when you use fluorescent lights under power lines), but it seems like nothing too.

I bet if I found a nice big fat radio transmitter I could use that for sure. Enough to power lights at least. But at that point, I might as well buy some car batteries and solar panels. Less effort, more legal.

Anyway high tension power lines are scary to me and look scarier in the dark.

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To me, the radio tower guy is piss yourself scary. But you understand it and know what is happening. The electricity is extremely unsettling. It's like knowing I am being watched but I don't understand why or by whom.

I don't understand electricity and magnetism at all. It's goddamn magic and it's scary.

And no, that shit isn't legal.

When I worked offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, this is how we got from our boats to the drill rigs. We just held on to the rope net hanging from the crane. No harness or safety line.

the fact that Claude, of all people, is afraid of heights hilarious to anyone else?

I mean, it's glorious and wonderful, but I can't help but see all the ways everything could go wrong all the time.

... this is what I'm hoping to do for my birthday this year :)

I got to visit the CN Tower a few years ago. I really wished I had time to do that. I actually like heights.

I got to visit the CN Tower a few years ago. I really wished I had time to do that. I actually like heights.

I've lived here my whole life, and I've only been up to the main deck once when I was a little kid. They have a package for about $200 that includes the Edge Walk, plus a visit to the main deck and the Sky Pod higher up the tower. Think I need to make it happen :)

My wife accuses me of being an adrenaline junkie. I don't think so, but I do like things that thrill. I'm generally pretty ok with heights, but that video of that tower climb just made me uneasy, dunno exactly why. Perhaps it was the extreme height, the blustery conditions, the length of the climb, or perhaps the fact that he wasn't using his safety gear like he should? I dunno.

Anyway, that looks like fun! I hope you get to do it.