Dealing with wifi on the road?

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wijames2002

wijames2002

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 28, 2017
Posts
168
Location
Tavares, FL
I was wondering how you guys deal with the need for WIFI when on the road? Do most parks have WIFI available or is it better to get a contract service? I've seen that AT&T has a RV service for $20 a month after you buy the box, has anyone tried it?
 
Typical RV park wifi is less than dialup if you can actually get on.  There really not reliable.  So, your choices are cell based or sat service.  Satelite service is good if your not near a cell tower.  But the equipment is expensive and speed is horribly slow.  Cell based service is generslly speaking your best option.  Not sure what box your talking about, maybe a wifi  only connection?  Dont need one.  A modern smart phone will have wifi capabilities. As for service?  Most RVers use Verizon for its wide ranging coverage.  Cell based wifi is not cheap, unless you go with one of the off brand providers that only have service i  a select few major cities.
Doing a bit of web surfing, payong bills, and some emails csn take 6gig of data easily.  So if your looking at anything less, be aware because overage charges can get expensive.
 
wijames2002 said:
I was wondering how you guys deal with the need for WIFI when on the road? Do most parks have WIFI available or is it better to get a contract service? I've seen that AT&T has a RV service for $20 a month after you buy the box, has anyone tried it?
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I think you are referring to the AT&T Mobley unlimited data car connect $20 month plan. I don?t think you can get that anymore. It is no longer offered on the website (the plan) although someone reported recently that he signed up online for the 1G plan then called the car connect department and got put on some ?list? with a promise that he would be switched to the unlimited $20 plan at some point in the future. Have not heard if that has happened or not.

We did get in on the unlimited mobley plan when it was available and it works well when we have AT&T coverage. Our main internet usage though is with a grandfathered unlimited data plan with Verizon we purchased used in a jet pack. No throttling or limits.

We subscribed to rvmobileinternet.com and did a lot of research before we went fulltime. They describe all the plans out there and the best ways to go about getting them.

Vicki
 
In my experience WiFi at RV parks varies from very poor to decent, depending on the parks investment in Wifi equipment and the location of your space relative to the office or where ever the equipment is housed.  If Wifi is important to you, you might consider investing in Wifi boosting equipment such as Wilson Weboost.  Such equipment will take whatever Wifi signal is available and boost the signal.  Depending on the location of the RV Park relative to other businesses, you may be able to receive Wifi from other sources that may be near by.
 
shorts said:
I think you are referring to the AT&T Mobley unlimited data car connect $20 month plan. I don?t think you can get that anymore. It is no longer offered on the website (the plan) although someone reported recently that he signed up online for the 1G plan then called the car connect department and got put on some ?list? with a promise that he would be switched to the unlimited $20 plan at some point in the future. Have not heard if that has happened or not.

We did get in on the unlimited mobley plan when it was available and it works well when we have AT&T coverage. Our main internet usage though is with a grandfathered unlimited data plan with Verizon we purchased used in a jet pack. No throttling or limits.

We subscribed to rvmobileinternet.com and did a lot of research before we went fulltime. They describe all the plans out there and the best ways to go about getting them.

Vicki
Click to expand...

Thanks, It's my understanding from the local AT&T store that Mobly will come back online just after the first of the year.  If it does, I'm thinking that this may be the way to go.
 
It would help us answer you better if you were a tad more specific such as where you plan to go (urban or remote) and how you plan to use it (business or email or movie streaming).  Don't depend on park wifi.  Some were set up properly and work fairly well if you're close to their equipment.  Others aren't very good and two or three people streaming movies make it unusable for everyone else.  Years ago we had both AT&T and Verizon and now have only Verizon because it has decent coverage nationwide.  There will be places where there is no cell coverage from any carrier because there aren't any towers in the area.  Monument Valley, the middle of Nevada and Yellowstone are examples.  So if you plan on going to remote areas - which are RVer favorites - you have to realize you may be without coverage at times.

ArdraF
 
we use an AT&T phone and a straight talk (on Verizon) net work as hot spots for our hot spots. we need a secure connection for our work. sometimes they both work great and other times only one which is why we went with the 2 different carriers.
we both had AT&T until they didn't work in remote Iowa so we got the straight talk.
we have the 55.00 plan on the straight talk and it has recently gone from 15 gb's to unlimited
I have found the wifi in most parks to be slow - great for emails but not always great for looking at maps or heavy searching
JMHO
 
wijames2002 said:
Thanks, It's my understanding from the local AT&T store that Mobly will come back online just after the first of the year.  If it does, I'm thinking that this may be the way to go.
Click to expand...

It was my understanding that the Mobley device is still available but the $20 unlimited data plan is not. Was the AT&T store referring to the device or the plan? The Mobley device often went in and out of stock so they may just be referring to it. If you can?t get the unlimited data plan with it, there are much better devices to get to use with the other data plans AT&T have such as the Unite Explore.

Vicki
 
I must need sleep........


thought this was about  "Dealing with wife on the road?"  :eek:


::)

Happy Thanksgiving, one and all!
 
ArdraF said:
It would help us answer you better if you were a tad more specific such as where you plan to go (urban or remote) and how you plan to use it (business or email or movie streaming).  Don't depend on park wifi.  Some were set up properly and work fairly well if you're close to their equipment.  Others aren't very good and two or three people streaming movies make it unusable for everyone else.  Years ago we had both AT&T and Verizon and now have only Verizon because it has decent coverage nationwide.  There will be places where there is no cell coverage from any carrier because there aren't any towers in the area.  Monument Valley, the middle of Nevada and Yellowstone are examples.  So if you plan on going to remote areas - which are RVer favorites - you have to realize you may be without coverage at times.

ArdraF
Click to expand...

We are seniors so we will be staying urban and in campgrounds with full hookups and we will be using it mostly for email and banking while out. Hope this helps.
 
We had Wi-Fi in the CG we've been staying at during the winter for the last 5 years and the Wi-Fi stunk. This past spring, we switched from Sprint (which we hated) to Verizon. We've excellent coverage with Verizon. We purchased a Mi-Fi Jet Pack Model 7730L  from Verizon for our Wi-Fi. As long as we have bars, we have Wi-Fi. We also have the unlimited plan. We keep it behind the built in TV and leave it plugged in all the time. The only problem we've seen is that once we get to 15 gb's, the Wi-Fi does slow down a bit. Not a big deal for us.  This Jet Pack cost $50.00 to purchased and another $20.00 a month for the service. At the end of the month, we start over with gb's and things will speed up. 
 
wijames2002 said:
We are seniors so we will be staying urban and in campgrounds with full hookups and we will be using it mostly for email and banking while out. Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
You?ll want to be careful about using campground, or any public, wifi for banking on the road.  I recommend you do some research on the security risks and VPNs (Virtual Private Networks). A direct data plan for your phone or other device - which can then be linked to your own private, secure wifi is a safer option.
 
You?ll want to be careful about using campground, or any public, wifi for banking on the road.
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Definitely!  They're not secure and anyone knowledgeable can "see" what you do.  Banking and tasks using a credit card should be done on your own system for a more secure connection.  We have a Verizon Pantech modem that we connect to a Cradlepoint WiPipe router.  Within the motorhome the modem transmits the signal and we both use it with our laptops.  In other words we have our own little local area network that we both access.

ArdraF
 
http://www.millenicom.com/sign-up/

We have used this for a couple of years and it works well if you have a strong signal usually very fast.  It is not unlimited but it does carry over any unused data to the next month.  We get the 22Gig plan.    Turn on or off as the need dictates.

Easy to deal with customer service.
 
Oh baloney. Banking over wifi is just as secure as banking over a wired connection. All banks use https connection for connecting to them. That is different than the usual http connection. The S stands for secure.

"Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is the secure version of HTTP, the protocol over which data is sent between your browser and the website that you are connected to. The 'S' at the end of HTTPS stands for 'Secure'. It means all communications between your browser and the website are encrypted. HTTPS is often used to protect highly confidential online transactions like online banking and online shopping order forms.

Web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome also display a padlock icon in the address bar to visually indicate that a HTTPS connection is in effect."

I have been banking on a wifi connection for the last 15 years without issue.
 
I have to agree with SeilerBird and the same applies to making purchases on line, as long as the vendor has the HTTPS protocol.  Though most do these day's there are some that do not, so be careful there, but all banks and financial institutions do have HTTPS protocol and aggressively update their security.  The security issue with WiFi and where you need to be careful is with e-mail.
 
SeilerBird said:
I use Google's Project Fi as the wireless provider for my cell phone. It comes with free tethering so Wifi isn't an issue for me.
Click to expand...

Cost if I may be so nosy?
 
SeilerBird said:
Oh baloney. Banking over wifi is just as secure as banking over a wired connection. All banks use https connection for connecting to them. That is different than the usual http connection. The S stands for secure.

"Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is the secure version of HTTP, the protocol over which data is sent between your browser and the website that you are connected to. The 'S' at the end of HTTPS stands for 'Secure'. It means all communications between your browser and the website are encrypted. HTTPS is often used to protect highly confidential online transactions like online banking and online shopping order forms.

Web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome also display a padlock icon in the address bar to visually indicate that a HTTPS connection is in effect."

I have been banking on a wifi connection for the last 15 years without issue.
Click to expand...


I whole heartedly agree!!  You can secure this and lock down that and someone else will "accidentally" leak a million peoples' credit info, etc.
Nothing is 100% fail proof safe nowhere, nohow anymore and you can worry yourself senseless and steal your own joy in life constantly watching out for the "boogeyman".
 
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