Options for fast internet on the road.

[LMHS]

Visible. Unlimited. I got the $30 plan. I bought a $100 phone (because that was the cheapest they had at the time), a Beryl router and a high speed charging cable to connect the router to the cellphone. I have two bars on the phone (I'm in a steel bus and it messes with the signal). There's a hack you can do to the router so it gets around the 5 MB speed limit. I didn't do that.

The info to do this was on an irv2 forum a while back. I just downloaded the instructions from the google docs link. Here is the link to the thread. It's a bit long (over 170 pages) but the link to google docs is on the first page. $25/month unlimited internet....interested? - iRV2 Forums

 

[8Muddypaws]

Thanks for that LHMS.

I predict the first time the DW can't play her games she will,be the one demanding that we switch back to a Verizon based MVNO, I.e. Visible.

 

[Lou Schneider]

The thing with Visible is although it is owned by Verizon and uses their towers, they have lower priority when things get crowded. This was driven home to me about a year ago when I was at a rally and tried to pull up a map (on the phone so not subject to the hotspot speed limits) for a 4WD trip we were getting ready to take. Visible took it's sweet time loading the map while the full fare Verizon customer standing next to me got the map immediately. 90-95% of the time Visible works fine, but it does slow down if there are a fair amount of other Verizon users in the area.

 

[Tom]

I usually have 2 or 3 ways to get online, including:

• Comcast/Xfinity cable at our CA home base.
• VZW MiFi
• AT&T Mobley

We previously deactivated our Hughesnet service and removed the dish from the roof of our coach.

We added:

• DSL at our WY site, and this has worked well for streaming video with no data caps.

This week I activated Spectrum cable at our OH townhome. No data caps, no contracts, turn on and off as we please.

Meanwhile, we've observed crews burying fiber optic in our OH community. Chris talked to the crew on her doggie walk and was told "we're installing fiber optic for AT&T". This should be interesting.

 

[Lou Schneider]

Meanwhile, we've observed crews burying fiber optic in our OH community. Chris talked to the crew on her doggie walk and was told "we're installing fiber optic for AT&T". This should be interesting.

Our electric co-op here in Pahrump has been building out fiber for the past 5 years. It's impressive, offering speeds up to 1 Gbps for $150/mo and slower speeds at lower prices. Last week I saw a crew installing the line down a road about a half mile from our park, so it may get here soon.

How the co-op got into the internet business is an interesting story. About 6 years ago they installed a fiber line to monitor their equipment along a 300 mile transmission line serving remote ranches and small communities in their service area along the NV-CA border.

Someone suggested this could be used to provide high speed Internet to these rural customers so ranchers could monitor their crops, children could attend remote video classes, etc. They did a study and found they needed 4,000 subscribers in Pahrump to justify the start-up costs. An initial query got 4,000 takers inside of a week.

They then realized there was no way to roll out fiber that fast so they set up an interim WiMax wireless grid by replacing individual utility poles with 90 ft. poles holding the WiMax hubs. These link to small panel antennas at the individual customers.

Several people in the park have this service. On a house they place the panel antenna on a wall or on the roof, here in they park they mount the antenna on a 25 ft. pipe attached to a non-mobile RV.

It's a good deal, $55 a month for unlimited medium-high speed service, 40-50 Mbps download, 10 Mbps upload. Standard installation fee is $30.

I'm not sure what will happen when fiber gets to our neighborhood. We don't have any way to run fiber to individual lots in the park short of doing a lot of trenching. I'm hoping we can talk them into keeping a WiMax hub in the park for us to link to.

Fiber-to-the-Home Project – Valley Communications Association

 

[Tom]

Our electric co-op here in Pahrump has been building out fiber for the past 5 years. It's impressive, offering speeds up to 1 Gbps for $150/mo and slower speeds at lower prices. Last week I saw a crew installing the line down a road about a half mile from our park, so it may get here soon.

How the co-op got into the internet business is an interesting story. About 6 years ago they installed a fiber line to monitor their equipment along a 300 mile transmission line serving remote ranches and small communities in their service area along the NV-CA border.

Someone suggested this could be used to provide high speed Internet to these rural customers so ranchers could monitor their crops, children could attend remote video classes, etc. They did a study and found they needed 4,000 subscribers in Pahrump to justify the start-up costs. An initial query got 4,000 takers inside of a week.

They then realized there was no way to roll out fiber that fast so they set up an interim WiMax wireless grid by replacing individual utility poles with 90 ft. poles holding the WiMax hubs. These link to small panel antennas at the individual customers.

Several people in the park have this service. On a house they place the panel antenna on a wall or on the roof, here in they park they mount the antenna on a 25 ft. pipe attached to a non-mobile RV.

It's a good deal, $55 a month for unlimited medium-high speed service, 40-50 Mbps download, 10 Mbps upload. Standard installation fee is $30.

I'm not sure what will happen when fiber gets to our neighborhood. We don't have any way to run fiber to individual lots in the park short of doing a lot of trenching. I'm hoping we can talk them into keeping a WiMax hub in the park for us to link to.

Fiber-to-the-Home Project – Valley Communications Association

Thanks for the story Lou. At our WY lot, we're limited to DSL, park Wif 'towers', and our own Mifi & Mobley (we no longer have HughesNet on the RV). A couple of years ago, the local comms provider ran fiber to homes outside the park, but I've heard (rumor) that they'd charge $3K to run it to an individual lot inside the park.

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

The 90-unit condo where I now live (South Florida) is in the process of changing from coax to fiber-optic for internet & tv. It will supposedly be a major improvement in performance as well as including internet as a bundled service rather than an extra cost option.

 

[Billyinhudsonfl]

T Mobile Home Internet 5G...

No contract and $50 per month unlimited data. Purchase an adapter to plug into 12v socket that you can plug gateway into while on the road. Works great!

I know this is an old thread. When i go on T-Mobile it asks for an address to see if 5G home internet is available in my area. do you just add your home address and then take it on the road ?

Thanks.​

 

[Lou Schneider]

I know this is an old thread. When i go on T-Mobile it asks for an address to see if 5G home internet is available in my area. do you just add your home address and then take it on the road ?

Thanks.​

You can enter your home address. Initial signup depends on whether T-Mobile has enough 5G bandwidth in your area to support the service. Be aware the Terms of Service says you're only supposed to use it at the address you gave when you signed up, but apparently they aren't supporting that restriction at this time. This may change in the future.

 

[Sweetsurrender]

We are looking for a wi fi set up as well. I am under the impression that Verizon, T mobile, and other cell based wifi systems require a cell signal. There are places, like some state parks, that dont have them. Although, we have been in places where there may be one that works, and it is Verizon. Anyhow, it seems that Starlink is the only satellite based system now...or is it?

 

[Lou Schneider]

We are looking for a wi fi set up as well. I am under the impression that Verizon, T mobile, and other cell based wifi systems require a cell signal. There are places, like some state parks, that dont have them. Although, we have been in places where there may be one that works, and it is Verizon. Anyhow, it seems that Starlink is the only satellite based system now...or is it?

Wi-fi systems are short range and depend on the park providing a useable wi-fi signal to your computer along with adequate bandwidth connecting their system to the Internet. This makes wi-fi based systems much more limited than the cell carriers. You're more likely to find a cell signal than a park in a no signal area with wi-fi.

 

[udidwht]

I know this is an old thread. When i go on T-Mobile it asks for an address to see if 5G home internet is available in my area. do you just add your home address and then take it on the road ?

Thanks.​

Yep

 

[Lou Schneider]

Yep

It will work until T-Mobile decides to enforce their Terms of Service limiting use only at your home address.

 

[laurabellsrv]

We are using Starlink on the road right now and there are two of us who work full time and do video conferencing on and off all day, plus using citrix apps over VPN. We can burn 60-100 GB per month, just working.

The reason we have Starlink is because of the general speed and lack of a data cap like you'd run into with a data plan from a cell carrier. The throttled speeds on a data plan from a cell carrier are unusable for work. Starlink now has a dish that is designed to mount to your RV roof for permanent install. We bring our home dish with us for now and signed up for their portability program.

We also carry two cellular data plans as backup. If Starlink is down, or there are too many obstructions, we run all the data through a Cradlepoint which is programmed to fail over to cellular if Starlink drops.

For full-time work, I'd recommend against using your phone as a hot-spot. Phones just don't get good reception in general (the antenna is too small because of the form factor of the device) At minimum, purchase a dedicated hotspot device (with external antenna/connection, if possible).

If you stick with Cellular, check into different data plans and consider a device that can hold two different sims so you have a backup if cell service is poor in your area. Remote isn't the only thing that can affect service. In suburban and urban areas, nearby towers with great reception can sometimes be overloaded and supply extremely slow (unusable) data speeds at peak usage times. Sometimes another carrier has better success.

Hey there, if you need data sims for your Cradlepoint. Check out www.wirelesssolutionsllc.com They have 1 Terabyte no throttling data sims with AT&T and T-Mobile.

 

[udidwht]

It will work until T-Mobile decides to enforce their Terms of Service limiting use only at your home address.

Not likely to happen. The gateway needs the ability to connect to other towers in the event a tower being down for hardware upgrade or software upgrades. Or when a subscriber moves moves. The gateway has a phone number

 

[Stormfather]

Anyhow, it seems that Starlink is the only satellite based system now...or is it?

This is what I am wondering as well. I plan to be in some pretty remote places (at least some of the time) and I need to know that my signal is always reliable. Does anyone know if there are any other satellite-based services aside from Starlink?

Also, I have seen some people talking about the difference between Starlink Residential vs Starlink Mobile, specifically regarding the available bandwidth for each. What is the difference between the two? Could I get the Residential version even on my RV, and use it as I travel around?

 

[Old_Crow]

This is what I am wondering as well. I plan to be in some pretty remote places (at least some of the time) and I need to know that my signal is always reliable. Does anyone know if there are any other satellite-based services aside from Starlink?

Also, I have seen some people talking about the difference between Starlink Residential vs Starlink Mobile, specifically regarding the available bandwidth for each. What is the difference between the two? Could I get the Residential version even on my RV, and use it as I travel around?

There's Hugesnet, but the last time I checked the dish had to be mounted on a permanent pole and couldn't be mounted to the RV. The other thing is that Hugesnet just sucks. I can't even hardly watch a YouTube video without it buffering every few minutes.

 

[Lou Schneider]

Not likely to happen. The gateway needs the ability to connect to other towers in the event a tower being down for hardware upgrade or software upgrades. Or when a subscriber moves moves. The gateway has a phone number

Terms of Service state it's only to be used at the registered location. It can switch between towers, that's perfectly normal. T-Mobile stores are telling people if it's used without permission outside that area, or technically even moved to another address inside the area, there is a 6 month grace period then the service will be cancelled. Subject to change at any time.

 

[udidwht]

Terms of Service state it's only to be used at the registered location. It can switch between towers, that's perfectly normal. T-Mobile stores are telling people if it's used without permission outside that area, or technically even moved to another address inside the area, there is a 6 month grace period then the service will be cancelled. Subject to change at any time.

Going on 2 years and no issue.