New to this scene - Need advice for rural LTE

[4evernetless]

For years now I have been molested by ISP's charging me hundreds of dollars for finite data plans. I live in a rural place so there are very few options. All I want is stable, unlimited data, at a moderate speed... (1-5mb/s) Is that so hard?
After searching for ages I found this strange deal from "Visible Wireless" (It's some offshoot of Verizon) that is ACTUALLY unlimited 4G data for 40$ a month. Anyway I signed up and it works, somewhat... The catch is it is only supposed to work for a certain selection of "compatible" phones. I ended up getting one of the cheapest ones, a "ZTE Visible R2". It turns out it is a fully fledged little android 8.1 smartphone capable of USB tethering and everything. Sure enough, after a few days of testing I determined that the data is not capped and that the speed doesn't seem to get throttled too much.

TLDR:
The problem is that the LTE signal drops to 2 bars (-105db) pretty much anywhere where it would be practical to set it up tethered to my LAN, and thus the speed suffers greatly. Could anyone provide some insight as to how I can solve this without spending 300$ on a LTE router build?

I just discovered this forum and the whole concept of LTE modems/routing so please forgive my ignorance. Originally I was looking into building my own Yagi antenna to repeat/amplify the signal from where it is stronger. [url]http://bcbj.org/antennae/lte_yagi_diy.htm[/url](Could that actually work?) However after discovering these forums I think my new plan is to try the sim in a PANTECH UML290 + Rasberry Pi 3.

Any Advice would be greatly appreciated.

[gscheb]

Hello,

Don't know how to set up the pi device.

If you hot spot Visible it technically can be capped at 5 mps and be aware your pings will always be double of Verizon basically. Heard that Iphone won't let them limit hotspot to one device so you can connect 5 devices to an iphone.

Here is a video about using visible as internet replacement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGSzjEf0LXA

Here is a thread about activating it in an device outside a phone.
https://wirelessjoint.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=669

Currently have my uncle on Visible running in a netgear nighthawk m1. Can get those on on ebay for $100 to $150 used and unlocked. Now he has only been on this for a week or so. I still new to this as well. It potentially could get shut off maybe if they since it isn't in a phone.

If you have AT&T service in your area their service is very easy to get thru resellers.

[LoveMeSomeCALTE]

4evernetless, did you ever pursue the Visible route?

[Didneywhorl]

4evernetless, did you ever pursue the Visible route?

Quoting someone is the best way to tag them, if its setup in their profile, it will notify them when they are quoted. If they still have their email setup and didnt silence all notifications.