Yes you can, depending on your phone carrier. You can use a personal hotspot or tethering to essentially use your phone as a modem. Its not as fast as using an actual "hotspot". You'll also have to check usage and availability with whoever you go with as a carrier. My Verizon plan has 10GB of free personal hotspot included with my account, but my wife's ATT plan doesn't. When on road trips, I can turn it on and the wife can do paperwork or whatever she needs on her laptop while we're driving. Or I'll use it when I'm out away from the house and need internet. Works pretty well.
Like HoLeChit's comment, the wife and I have been on Verizon. We were having internet issues with @Link (AtLink) because the tower our system worked off of was one of their oldest towers. AT&T wasn't going to be of any help because I had to step outside to make any phone calls. We visited with Verizon with regards to their MiFi system for internet, and they told us to try it and if it didn't work, we could return the MiFi unit and get a full refund.
It worked so well for internet that when our AT&T contracts for phones expired, we switched to Verizon for those as well. Much better service over AT&T. And, as noted, we can take our MiFi with us on the road and use it if we are where we can get cell signals, either in the vehicle or in hotels, vacation rentals, or whatever. Since we have pretty good WiFi from the RV park, I seldom ever have to use the MiFi at home, so we didn't go with the "best" internet package that Verizon offers. If I do happen to reach the limit on gigabites of usage, I still have internet, but it is "throttled down" to slower speeds.