The two cell phones are very basic and we have unlimited plans for $45 each. I upgraded the hotspot to the maximum 10 GBs at $80 a month, but after only five days we hit 50% usage. So my thought was to get two Sprint smart phones with an unlimited family plan at $190, and then we could use all the data we wanted. Dave Evans posted that tethering a smart phone to a laptop costs more. I'll have to look into that. I don't know what the difference is surfing the internet on your smart phone or your laptop would be.