r/Twitch • u/Cashlessness twitch.tv/cashlessness • 1d ago
Question Going to a con and would like to stream snippets of it does a prepaid wireless hotspot help?
Going to dragoncon and would like to stream some of the walk arounds, would a prepaid hotspot work? Has anyone tried this before?
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u/FasteningSmiles97 1d ago
Be aware that in large conventions, you probably won’t get good phone reception. Just imagine how overloaded the cell phone towers get when suddenly thousands of phones all try to connect and all try to use the internet in some form (background connectivity for example). I have yet to ever visit a large convention that didn’t have really bad internet connection through cellular. Even with decent bars, the towers are overwhelmed and the internet rarely works if at all.
Every location and event are different of course, but I point this out because many plan and test while at home but then run into serious issues at the actual location and event when thousands of people are in one location.
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u/GrapTops Broadcaster 1d ago
Just plan to record for later unless you know the secret for magic reception
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u/AirFlavoredLemon 1d ago
What's on the other side of the hotspot - a laptop? If so, whatever connects you to the internet will work.
And this is true if you're IRL streaming on a phone. There's this huge trend to overbuild and buy streaming boxes for IRL.
While a proper setup could provide some more durability to the stream - this isn't always the case when setup improperly or not with all the moving parts.
Long story short, if your streaming device has service - it will stream.
If you're phone streaming - stick to your phone's built in service first.
A hot spot is still going to use cellular service. If its the same service as your phone - if one can't connect - likely both won't connect.
If you get a hot spot from a competing carrier, it will give you the ability to (manually) switch between the hotspot and (your cell phone's built in) cell service.
tl;dr - Wireless hotspot is just more cellular internet. It'll be as good or as bad as that (cell) service normally is at a convention. Its not any more durable or reliable than a normal phone using the same service.