re: Rural Internet options. Unlimitedville?

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Can someone explain this step by step for me? I have an old Samsung tablet, so I should have an IMEI to use.

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First step, Samsung tablet is not helpful for you, so don't worry about it.

The nuts and bolts of this is that ATT specifically has a $30/month plan for iPads that is unlimited. So that's where the *plan* comes from.

The wrinkle that we care about is that there is seemingly no check for whether an iPad is *using* that data. So once you enable the SIM for the $30/month ipad plan, you can put it in a hotspot.

So, you can either:

1) pay $30 or so to someone on ebay to get the plan (not optimal, but easier)

or

2) use the landing page referenced previously and either an imei generator or just look up a modern ipad with LTE service on ebay that has pictures that include an imei number.

Once you have your imei and a previously unused sim card, you can go to the landing page to enable service on the sim

Once either of these is completed, take your freshly enabled SIM card and plug it into the Hotspot and confirm that service is functional.

From there, because the hotspot has low signal output and is not designed for whole home usage, you would configure it for pass-through mode and hard wire it to a better Router/Mesh system for your house (ie. Orbi/Google Wifi)...

So in total, items to purchase:

$1-5 - Unused SIM card
$100-150 used - GSM Hotspot - Netgear Nighthawk M1 seems to be the unit of choice here
$$ could vary significantly depending on what you already have - Router and/or Mesh Network setup for Home - (Orbi/Google Wifi are examples, TP-Link makes a cheaper option if you don't mind a little more setup)

$30/month - Ongoing service from ATT - no contract, no data cap (just deprioritization after 22GB but most seem to indicate that it was not noticeable)

Because you're not talking about world class speeds here, an older router would probably be fine if you don't have a lot of home to broadcast to. The larger the house, the more you'll likely need to invest into a modern router/mesh system. Network speeds/configuration not my strongsuit, so someone can correct me if there is any decided advantage in using a more modern wifi router, but seems like any A/B/N router would be fine unless you need more signal coverage?