Basically, in the US, we hit a setting in our phones that turns our phones into hotspots, broadcasting Internet via wifi. Then we connect pc's wirelessly.
Now as to the cell signal, that's another story. In the summer we have enough trees and I think solar issues too (unconfirmed) that we need a signal booster to maintain a good steady 4G speed. We shop here https://www.wilsonamplifiers.com/
Yes. The whole situation is pricey. Cable and DSL run 60 to 80 USD per month.
We get 15Gigs per device per month with a full 4G connection after that it drops to crawl speed but remains unlimited. (This is the speed at which HTML5 fancy displays of real time data (such as Bittrex) tend to break. )
The Hotspot and the fees are now part and parcel with the plan and it's an employee rate so ... i dunno real pricing.
Before this, we had a very old Verizon plan that my son signed us up for that was unlimited data at 4G for $15 each device per month (employee price). We miss it but changes had to be made because families change.
To compensate we added an inexpensive tablet ... so usually between both cell phones and the tablet we survive. Oh, also, the non-hotspot data (purely device viewed data) comes out of a different pool and is basically unlimited.
All in all, we think we're still ahead of broadband costs via cable and dsl. In an irony of ironies, there is fiber optic cable being placed in the area ... they stopped at the cow field and completely skipped this old farm house and the one across the street. But when we looked at the cost ... we said that's okay, we'll let someone else scream and yell about it. Our cell system might be pricey ... but not that pricey AND it goes with us anywhere.
Ok that's pretty much the skinny version of how we do Internet.
OH oh and the other thing we learned the hard way is that there's still a lot of small towns that are not on any broadband anything including not 4G. So the whole "take it with you with a signal booster" is actually vital in order to maybe reach a 4G tower ....
This is not relevant if you only fly to big cities ... which is "No! not on your life. Not on mine either" ;-)
Thanks for the information re 4G. My cell phone does have 4G but rarely gets above 2G at home. I can use it as a hotspot as well but only 500 mbyte a month. So no video uploads as it stands. My broadband is unlimited but as slow as hell with only 500kb upload speeds. Useless but it's the only provider out here. The others are all linked to cable tv which I don't want either.
Yes for a while we actually paid a little extra for cable without TV because we didn't even want to keep up with a TV... Moving every year or so.
If you can pick up a stronger signal anywhere near your home the signal booster could help. Oh and we always buy the mobile version.