internet Access: 16 Campgrounds in 3 States

Here are some tentative findings about Internet service: https://rvseniormoments.com/2019/06/05/campground-internet-report-1/.

Thank you, I've been trying to decide between Verizon and AT&T. AT&T it is!

Sixteen random campgrounds isn't a representative sampling by any stretch of the imagination.

HappyWanderer said:

Sixteen random campgrounds isn't a representative sampling by any stretch of the imagination.

Click to expand...

As Tom said in his conclusions: "First, and foremost, any conclusions are tentative as 16 campgrounds is just not enough data."

That said, my own experience with 18 east coast campgrounds so far this year roughly follows Tom's experience, except that we don't have satellite Internet service and we haven't found anywhere so far with no AT&T or Verizon cell service at all. In most cases, both carriers had acceptable signals capable of streaming, although one was always stronger than the other. If our results continue as they have, we may well drop Verizon as well. Only one campground had WiFi speed capable of streaming, although we didn't use it beyond basic testing.

There really is no one perfect answer, some places will have good signal with one, some with the other, some with both, and some places will have no signal no matter what you choose.  I will say this about the topic though, in the summer of 2017 I did a 4,200 mile RV trip in a big loop from Louisiana to Yellowstone passing through parts of western Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma panhandle, eastern Colorado, Nebraska, then a loop around Wyoming up to Yellowstone, back to Nebraska, clipping the corner of Missouri, and down throw western Arkansas.  Along much of the trip outside of Yellowstone (which has almost no cell signal), I streamed music from my AT&T phone Sirius radio app over bluetooth to the motorhome stereo, the app (at the time) only had a small buffer (maybe 5 minutes) and along the drive excluding the National parks, in canyons, etc. I rarely lost signal long enough for the music to stop, and never for more than 15-20 miles.

I have the (no longer available) $20 per month AT&T Mobley unlimited plan, which works well for me, though if I had to buy something today, it would probably be the OTRMobile $60 per month pre-paid bring your own device plan which operates on the AT&T network, and seems to not have the throttling when you go over 22 GB per month that many other plans now have on the AT&T network.  They also sell devices, though if you want to pinch pennies, you can save by buying a used / refurb Netgear 815S off ebay for $50 or so, which will in some cases out perform the refurb Velocity you can buy from OTRMobile for in effect $90 ($190 including $60 plan, and $10 SIM card with $30 activation).

Unless you need heavy streaming capability, we find that Consumer Celluar (get the AT & T service) is a good solution. We have two phones for about $35 per month. I recently added a ZTE hot spot ($80) and 5G of data for $35 more per month. ($15 for the line and $20 for 5G)

To get the AT & T service you might tell them you don't have reliable T Mobile service (they use both and I really didn't).

Ernie