TEP Wireless Hotspot Review

For our last river cruise I decided to rent a wireless hotspot. For those who don’t know, a wireless hotspot is basically a small device that connects to the internet through a cellular phone connection. The user can then connect devices (phones, iPads, computers) to the hotspot for internet access.

So why get a hotspot when the ship has free WiFi? (1) We were going to spend a few days in Amsterdam before our cruise, and I wanted connectivity there. (2) I decided that it would be nice to have internet access for my phone while out on walking tours. (3) As more river cruisers bring WiFi-connected devices on their cruises, the ship’s internet access often slows down to the point where it’s marginally useable. Most large cell phone providers sell roaming data packages, but they are typically very limited, and expensive. For instance, AT&T charges $30 for 120 Mbytes of data access. If you’re a T-Mobile customer, the great news is that they now feature FREE international roaming.

There are two large providers of wireless hotspots: XCom Global and TEP. I decided to go with TEP. The cost is roughly $10 per day. Shipping both ways runs to about $30. TEP does offer the option of picking your device up if you fly through Heathrow. Otherwise, you’ll be paying the shipping. My hotspot arrived on Friday before we left on Tuesday (start of my rental period). My TEP zipper pouch contained the hotspot, an adapter, and a charging cord. The charging port on the hotspot is a standard micro USB, so I just used one of my own chargers.

For your $10 per day you get “unlimited” data. The catch is that once you high 200 MBytes in a 24 hour period, the connection slows down. It speeds up again once you start a new 24 hour connection. TEP allows 5 simultaneous connections, so you can connect multiple devices or “share” with friends.

The device was easy to use. Turn it on, wait a few minutes, and one gets the option to “Start” a new 24 hours of data access. The first time you connect a device, you’ll have to enter the password displayed on the hotspot’s screen, and you’re good to go. Battery life is 5+ hours—more in light use.

I had a few difficulties—none serious. A couple of times I had trouble connecting, and the old “turn it off, wait a couple of minutes and turn it back on again” seemed to work.

It was great to have data access while out on city tours. I could call up a map and search for restaurants, get directions, or plot our track as we walked around. It also came in handy when the ships internet slowed down to a crawl. I had my own connection that was fast and reliable. As with the ships connection, connection was lost at times in locks, and I’m still not sure how it handled portions of the Rhine when we were going between French and German cell towers, but it generally worked fine.

For me the hotspot was worth it. If you’re a freak about being connected, it may be a good option for you. I’d be glad to try and answer questions.

FuelScience

http://www.xcomglobal.com/

https://www.tepwireless.com/

It seems like the xcom website provides more information about detailed coverage maps, pricing options, etc. but is an extra $5 per day. I'm considering using it in Portugal, but may find it useful to have in Ecuador on future trips. TEP doesn't appear to provide coverage for Ecuador but xcom does.

Any experience with xcom?

You must really need to be connected! $10 a day plus $30 shipping seems like a lot of money. I'll take my chances with the slow but free hotel and ship wifi!

Thanks so much for sharing your experience! I do need to stay connected and generally am ok with the standards for wifi on AMA, our first choice on the river.

Last month we cruised with Uniworld and had consistently poor wifi access. Next time I will not take any chances.

Thanks again!

I agree totally! We rented our first tep for a trip in Switzerland and it worked beautifully! It is a secure site which we really wanted. We found it especially helpful the day we got train schedules mixed up and had to get fast access to the Swiss train site. We are signed up for 2 ship trips, one in Canada and a river cruise in France.......we will be using tep again for both of those trips. Great "invention".....and no, I have no personal interest or investment in the company......it is just a really good product. I know there is another company that offers a similar product but have not tried it.

I'm one of the "get a local SIM card wherever I go" bunch, but there are a lot of good alternative approaches to staying connected. Always glad to find out about new ones; thanks, FuelScience!

I'm one of the "get a local SIM card wherever I go" bunch, but there are a lot of good alternative approaches to staying connected. Always glad to find out about new ones; thanks, FuelScience!

If that were possible for my laptop, then it would be a solution.

I bought an unlocked iphone 6+ which is great, but cannot do everything I need to do.

If that were possible for my laptop, then it would be a solution.

 

I bought an unlocked iphone 6+ which is great, but cannot do everything I need to do.

caviargal, can't you tether your laptop to the iPhone using Bluetooth, and share its connection that way? Just so you wouldn't need to pay for both the local SIM, and the TEP or equivalent.

caviargal, can't you tether your laptop to the iPhone using Bluetooth, and share its connection that way? Just so you wouldn't need to pay for both the local SIM, and the TEP or equivalent.

Depends on your service provider, but if they allow it then you can just turn your iPhone into a wifi hotspot.

If that were possible for my laptop, then it would be a solution.

 

I bought an unlocked iphone 6+ which is great, but cannot do everything I need to do.

caviargal, in my experience the prepaid data SIMs in Europe have all allowed me to tether other devices to my phone, so I've had access to the web with laptop and tablet using the one device. (Usually, though, it's the phone I carry when I need access away from ready-to-find wifi.)

I'd look into what you need to do (from an app standpoint) to provide tethered Bluetooth access to your iPhone. Or maybe that's native to the phone, I'm not an iPhone user.

Both tethered (USB or Bluetooth) sharing, and Wi-Fi hotspot options have been native to my last 2 Android phones. No app needed.

I am pretty sure that the Wi-Fi hotspot option is native to the iPhone but since I don't have one I can't say with 100% certainty. But whenever I'm sniffing for Wi-Fi, I always see secured networks called "so-and-so's iPhone" so I infer that this can be done...

Mark_T, thanks for pointing out that not all service providers and/or plans permit sharing the internet connection by tethering. Hadn't thought of that.

Mark_T, thanks for pointing out that not all service providers and/or plans permit sharing the internet connection by tethering. Hadn't thought of that.

In my experience this limitation is typically placed on phones that are on "grandfathered" unlimited-data plans such as the one I recently exited (Verizon). Haven't really encountered the limitation on metered-data plans; if you think about it the provider wants you to use (and buy) as much data as possible, so preventing tethering makes little business sense.

I have a Nokia (Windows) phone with T-Mobil cell service.

Our grandkids have a Samsung wifi tablet, which obviously does not have cell service and therefore no internet service when they ride in our car with us. I had no problem tethering ("internet sharing") their tablet to my cell phone, and there was peace and quiet in the back seat of our car.

Thanks for review FuelScience. I mostly use router from XOXO WiFi, but TEP Wireless doesn't sound bad. Maybe I'll check it in near future :) . If you're curious about XOXO WiFi, you can check it here: https://xoxowifi.com/

Glad you found the review helpful. The XOXO device looks just like the TEP hotspot. Last year we changed our phone service from AT&T to T-Mobile, so now we have free international data roaming. It's not very fast, but it's fast enough for us. It's nice to simply turn the phone on when you land and be ready to go.

Fascinating discussion. Sadly, I have a dumb phone, no data. But who knows when I'll update.

Both tethered (USB or Bluetooth) sharing, and Wi-Fi hotspot options have been native to my last 2 Android phones. No app needed.

 

I am pretty sure that the Wi-Fi hotspot option is native to the iPhone but since I don't have one I can't say with 100% certainty. But whenever I'm sniffing for Wi-Fi, I always see secured networks called "so-and-so's iPhone" so I infer that this can be done...

 

Mark_T, thanks for pointing out that not all service providers and/or plans permit sharing the internet connection by tethering. Hadn't thought of that.

Your suspicion is correct regarding iPhones. I tether every once in a while when I'm travelling and it is native, through the settings. You just click on "personal hotspot" and there are simple instructions on how to connect.

I rented an XCom hotspot for a European trip and it worked great. After that experience I purchased a Skyroam hotspot (https://www.skyroam.com/). I've used it on several European trips, the last being a transatlantic cruise to Rome, then a river cruise from Antwerp to Amsterdam. The cost of a 24 hour wifi period is $8.00. I use it to connect our cell phones and laptop computer. The device picks up the wifi signal from the closest cell tower so it couldn't receive a signal while at sea but once on land, I always had service and didn't have to worry which country I was in. At times the shipboard wifi was fine but on a river cruise, the system often gets overloaded so it's nice to have your own private network that is password protected.

We also rented a tep hotspot. A bit expensive but we needed to remain connected. A bit disappointed. Several times had to do the on/off reboot thing to get it connected. It got pretty hot at times. Battery life not great. It didn’t work at all in Russia (St. Petersburg). All in all it’s fair but I’m sure there are better options out there.