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Saturday, November 12, 2011

Does Xbox Live Work with Verizon 3G? LTE?

Update: I now have 4G (LTE) at home and I can use Xbox Live  on both Verizon 4G and AT&T HSPA+. Hey everyone, and I am sorry that I have not posted for a long time. Its been a long time coming, and those of you that have asked questions about using Hughesnet on Xbox Live know the shame that comes with logging in to Live and not being able to link up with your friends online. There are so many great games coming out and most of them are online games: Gears of War 3, Battlefield 3, Modern Warfare 3, and the list of older games like Halo: Reach and the upcoming Halo: Anniversary have a bunch of us chomping at the bit to jump online and get the old game-face on. So what works and what doesn't? I am going to break it all down for you after the break.

So a quick recap of what's going on with my gaming. In college I played the hell out of some Xbox Live. We are talking GRAW, and some Halo 2. Also, my roommate got me hooked on World of Warcraft (WoW) and so to say that I spent a fair amount of time online is an understatement. In an earlier post I went over the heartache I felt when I realized that getting married meant giving up broadband, and pretty much the internet as a whole. Way out in the middle of the woods, I have all the fresh air that I can stand, all the sunshine and hunting and fishing...blah blah blah. As a gamer, I am not ashamed to say that I am allergic to the sun. I had to find a way to get online again.

Tried dial-up, tried a Verizon 3G Aircard for my laptop, nothing really worked. Then I finally broke down and ordered Hughesnet. That sexy chick was saying all the right things, and despite my looking online and seeing nothing but bad reviews of their service, I ordered it anyway.

Big mistake.

The latency makes gaming almost impossible. While I was able to get online to Xbox Live, and download updates, and demos, I was not able to actually do any multiplayer gaming. Over time the invites to play games stopped and I was all alone on Live.

So one day I got disgusted and got on twitter.

"I pay too much money to not have 3G service at home. Verizon, I love you, but this sucks."

I was shocked when Verizon called me. I was also shocked when after about an hour on the phone with them, when they called me, he promised to send someone to the tower closest to me and check it out. At this point, I didn't have much hope for anything ever happening. Figuring that I was just blown off, I went about my business. That is until one day my Thunderbolt said 3G.

3G? Are you fricken kidding me?

Where I live, 3G ends about a mile up the road. I sometimes was able to lock into 3G in my front yard, but it would drop to 1X pretty quickly. Somehow, after about a week of solid 3G, I started to believe that this was real. That was over 3 months ago, and I still have 3G service at home. So what does this mean for  Xbox Live?


This should answer any questions.

Battlefield 3 stats

Does Xbox Live work on Verizon 3G? Ohhhh heeeeellllll yeah it does!

Ok so here is my setup.

I have a 4G device, the HTC Thunderbolt.  I have a Samsung Galaxy Nexus and a Samsung Galaxy S 3. I pay an extra $30 a month for unlimited tether. What that means is I am using my phone as a portable hotspot. I then link my Xbox to the phone's wifi hotspot in the network settings.

The good and the Bad


Latency on my line dosen't ever seem to get above 300 ms. Keep in mind that most of your competition is running 50 ms of latency, so don't be shocked if you lose some close battles. Your signal has to travel from a tower to the phone and then to your Xbox, while most people have a direct connection to a modem.

The quality of your Xbox Live experience depends on how strong and how close you are to the cell phone tower. I actually have a network booster setup in my front yard, with antennas pointed towards my tower. It adds another step that the data has to travel, but it is worth it to have a steady connection via 3G. Sometimes, for no reason, I lose my connection to my internet. It always comes right back, but I do get kicked offline about twice a day. It's something to keep in mind.

This isn't ideal at all. I use my Hughesnet connection for downloads larger than a couple of MB in size. Remember that Verizon won't like 20 GBs of data downloaded off their network, but this is much better than nothing. As always, if you have questions, ask in the comments and I will answer them all.



Verizon 3G seems to average from 100 to 350 ms (milliseconds) of latency.

Verizon 4G LTE seems to average from 40 to 85 ms of latency.

18 comments:

  1. Ok this is so my life. The only difference is that I can't even get Verizon coverage. I am trapped with AT&T. But I have the iPhone 3G, long story. How can I sink my xbox to my iPhone?

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  2. You should have a hotspot feature through your iPhone!

    I would check 2 things out.

    Make sure you have a slim 360, or try and borrow a wireless adapter.

    Get the speedtest app and see what your ping or latency value is. If it is at or below 400, your matchmaking should be OK.

    Then call AT&T and ask about wireless tethering plans.

    I don't have an iPhone, but I am sure that you have a tethering application or setting somewhere on your phone. At the least, ask AT&T when you check on the tethering prices.

    You might want to look into jailbreaking, I hear some people can get free Internet that way. *wink

    Sent from my Verizon LTE Thunderbolt.

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  3. Ok my situation sounds like yours as well. WE moved to the northwoods from the south and my son was an avid call of duty player with his friends in Florida. It has been over 7months and can't play where we are. So I am trying to understand all this. It shows we have verizon 3g near to us, should I be calling them to check about my service. It sounds like you have kept both your services Huges and the hot spot. How much does this cost roughly? We don't use the data plans right now on our phones because we are a pretty big family, but now I'm considering anything because of my relentless teenager! Your help would be appreciated.

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  4. Well, I have a couple of questions for you first. What kind of phones do you have now? Do you see a 3G signal on your phones? You mentioned that you did not have a data plan. Keep in mind that you can always try a hotspot for 'free' for 14 days from a Verizon store or by calling 611 from your phone. It is worth a shot. If it doesn't work out, then you can return the hotspot for no cost.

    I can't really tell you what the cost is, but I do know that Verizon treats 4G devices differently than 3G devices. They really want people to start buying the 4G phones and hotspots, and they are right.

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  5. so u can really play thru verizon 3g... i have a thunderboldt 4g,,, but they only have 3g in my area..... i purchased a phone booster and put the antanna on top of my house... when i place my phone on my booster it says i have full bars and 3g...i try and play cod mw3 but get kicked out pretty much immediately... if i even get in the game..... i am willing to try and move my antenna or something... but gave up because of many failed attempts....as i am writing this i am going to try again....please get back to me...

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  6. Dude, I know your pain. I love online gaming, remember my first time, Halo 2, at a buds house. Got married and now live in a area where Hughesnet rule. I have service with them and I am not really happy at all. Half the time I cant download an add-on or an arcade game nor visit their video game marketplace, I have to visit the website on the computer to do those things. Then there is the embarassment of friends wanting me to join their party and pair up and I cant do that. Now I get no requests or they just removed me from their friends list. It's frustrating. My question is this, what can I do to find out if their is a way to have legit broadband in my area?????

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  7. I pay time warner for internet service only to play xbox live. My laptop broke a month ago so I just keep my modem hard wired to my xbox for the best connection.
    My question is; have you played modern warfare 3 while on verizon 3g hotspot? If so how would you rate your experience. Do you get "full bars" of connection on xbox live?

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  8. I can't really speak for MW3, but on BF3, I get pretty good pings. I think that they show it like cell phone bars. I always find servers that are 4/5 bars. I play all the time.

    If you are paying for TW, I wouldn't drop it though. I am at a pretty big disadvantage when it comes to one on one fights, the other guy on proper internet like you are paying for has a 1/3 of a second advantage on me. Cable pings are not as high as the 300 ms of lag I play on.

    Also, where are you going to get your updates from? Download from Verizon? I don't advise that unless you have an unlimited plan for data. The last patch for BF3 was 2 GB, and map packs are getting to be that large too.

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  9. I use 3g hotspot for my xbox live but I connect my droid 3 usb to my laptop connect through the hotspot sent it through the ethernet cord from my laptop to xbox and I can play mw3 online .. I live in the middle of no where in oregon but get perfect 3g signal, I play for hours and only use up a good few hundred mbs per day with unlimited data plan, I hardly lag on mw3 I get 2 to 3 bars per game sometimes 1 bar but go right back to 2 bars... my kdr on mw3 is 1.24! I get kicked off maybe once a day but usally I don't! and I have gone 24/6… sometimes the only way to play online is through 3g…

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  10. What is your ping where your at? I'm in the trees of talihina Oklahoma... Mine sais 255ms ping, .85mbps download, and .13mbps upload. Is that good enough to play multiplayer? I have version 3G on an iPhone.

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    Replies
    1. My ping is 136 ms latency, .80 Mbps down and .82 Mbps up. Your ping is fine, and you should be able to get online just fine!
      I've used pings as bad as 350 ms.

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  11. Mine ping is 136 ms latency, .80 Mbps down and .82 Mbps up. Your ping is fine, and you should be able to get online just fine!

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  12. Mine is 134 ping 1272 download 717 upload. Is that fine?

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  13. Yeah that should work great! Happy gaming!

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  14. I have only satellite internet and no broadband available. My son is an xbox 360 live gamer and hates lagging. I have a verizon mifi but it lags still what can I do?

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