Drop Satellite for Streaming?

[ficodek]

We are not full-timers, but enjoy traveling around the country, mostly east of the Rockies. We use Dish, with a Winegard Trav'ler on the roof, and have been happy with the ease of changing service locations using the Dish app.

Recently, in the middle of a multi-month trip, the Winegard Trav'ler refused to stow. After speaking with Winegard, their level 2 support told me the electronics in the dish on the roof had stopped working and I would have to replace them at a cost of at least $350. Plus, I had to go on the roof and manually lower the dish, breaking the manual screw in the process.

I use a Mofi 4500 router for wifi in the coach, it's been a great product. Needing TV while we are traveling, I purchased a Roku Express+ and have been using YouTube TV with great success...plus Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, etc.

To handle the increased cellular data, I signed up with OTR Mobile for their $60 unlimited data plan. I purchased an AT&T Prepaid SIM at Target, activated it on my OTR Mobile accout, and within a few hours had service. This has been working perfectly for the last 6 weeks of this trip.

I'm considering not fixing the antenna and leaving my Dish account suspended, and going only with the streaming apps. At every park I've been able to use cellular data or, in some cases, the park's wifi has good enough wifi to support streaming.

The final good point is that Dish doesn't provide HD signals for local stations in many cities, but of course the streaming service does.

Has anybody else made the switch from satellite to streaming?

[wildtoad]

Nope, but I’ve been to many campgrounds where the wifi/internet access would not support simple browsing or even connecting. Maybe too many people were streaming or downloading software updates. If you want to stream tv or movies please use your own cell provider.

[lexton]

2 years ago we cut the cord. I have a cable that hooks to my iPhone from the TV. We watch Prime, Acorn and Netflix. We do it while at home as well. Will never go back satellite or cable again. It's a total waste of money.

[CoreyinWP]

We cancelled DTV in April and streamed while traveling 5k miles. Use Att and Verizon sims and was never without Tv. Will never go back to satellite

[Mac99]

Having stayed in 100+ campgrounds over the last 9 years,
I have never been in one, no matter how expensive a place
it was, that had wifi that would support streaming.

[TechWriter]

Originally Posted by Mac99

Having stayed in 100+ campgrounds over the last 9 years,
I have never been in one, no matter how expensive a place
it was, that had wifi that would support streaming.

Apparently you went to the wrong 100+ campgrounds. During our 5-month West Coast trip this year to 43 campgrounds, we found about 40% of campgrounds had WiFi that supported streaming (> 5 Mbps). Read all about it.

[Searching_Ut]

Think there may be some confusion regarding definitions. We stay in a lot of what we call campgrounds, dozens a year in fact and not one has had WiFi. State parks, and rv parks on the other hand.. A couple state parks had WiFi, such as Kartchner caverns in AZ, and probably 90 percent or so had WIFI that was at least available some parts of the day. Many times the small isolated areas had better service than many of the bigger more modern parks. Cell phone wise using Verizon, coverage in the 70 percent or so range for at least text capability if not voice.

Without the satellite, we would be without TV service a lot, and even with the portable G2 dish we sometimes can’t get satellite.

[TechWriter]

Originally Posted by Searching_Ut

Think there may be some confusion regarding definitions. We stay in a lot of what we call campgrounds, dozens a year in fact and not one has had WiFi. State parks, and rv parks on the other hand.

You're not the OP. OP said . . .

Originally Posted by ficodek

At every park I've been able to use cellular data or, in some cases, the park's wifi has good enough wifi to support streaming.

You may be staying at places without WiFi, but OP does . . . at least some places.

[docj]

Originally Posted by CoreyinWP

We cancelled DTV in April and streamed while traveling 5k miles. Use Att and Verizon sims and was never without Tv. Will never go back to satellite

We're literally calling to cancel DirecTV tomorrow. We're using YouTubeTV and it gets all the stations we like to watch. My DirecTV subscription with three TVs and HBO but a low-end channel package is ~$130/mo whereas YouTube TV is $50 plus another $14 for HBO. (Interestingly, DirecTV charges me $17.99 for HBO that I can buy for $14.99 directly from HBO).

We currently have unlimited accounts on both Verizon and AT&T but I'd have at least one of them anyway just to support our other streaming needs. The bottom line is that even with two unlimited streaming accounts I'm paying less than I would have with DirecTV and one unlimited account.

As an RVer, this summer we found YouTube TV easier to use because we didn't have to worry about trees blocking our satellite reception. Occasionally our hotspots would slow down but only once or twice did I switch to the higher priority hotspot on my phone.

[CoreyinWP]

We ran into many campgrounds this past summer that would have challenged the satellite. It was a pleasure to not have to worry about it,,ever

[dandrhill]

Last November we cancelled our DirecTV after we purchased an unlimited hot spot from Sprint through the FMCA TechConnect+ program and several Roku devices. We have since traveled much of the East coast from Florida to Vermont and have been very satisfied with our system. We usually don't bother connecting to the campground WiFi (don't see the need even though we have a WiFi extender on the roof). We've only been in one campground where we didn't have a good connection and neither AT&T or Verizon had coverage their either (something to do with a mountain being in the way).

We do use AT&T/TV Now so I guess we didn't completely cancel DTV but we did reduce our monthly cost by over $100. Of course if you routinely travel places without cell coverage then you won't like this solution but it has worked well for us.

[NXR]

My Verizon 15 GB phone hotspot ran out of data at 10 PM on the last day of the billing month. I got an email and text that they had cut me back to 0.6 M/bps (about one-half of the old DSL speeds or 10x dial-up speeds).

That's the phone hotspot speed if you're on their "Unlimited" account without any extra hotspot plan.

We were watching Netflix via a Roku at the time and it continued just fine past midnight when the new data kicked in.

The next time I get throttled I'm going to try and start Netflix up. It either runs fine when throttled or Verizon didn't really throttle me.

Ray

[B52Rnav]

We have new coach and have not yet made decision to install satellite system. So this trip was our test run for streaming. Results are mixed.

We opted for OTR Mobile unlimited at $60/month and the service has been very good. There have been a few locations where speed was not good enough for streaming, but good enough for everything else. OTR/ATT has been better than Verizon in most places.

After testing several streaming services at home, we selected Plau Station Vue, because of it's channel selections and ability to get local stations to watch weekend golf. PSV worked great for first 30 days using their Android app on our phones, and using Firestick 4K. After 30 days, you run into restrictions from Sony/PSV because of being away from your "home area". Problems: app quit running on one phone, quit casting on other phone, and overlaid menus/video using Firestick. However, was always able to cast from Chrome on laptop. Tried several VPNs and was finally able to trick PSV into thinking we were home - for 2 days. Also, PSV does not allow VPNs.

Bottom line is DW just wants it to work without making adjustments and changes every day. At the moment she would love to have satellite.

On this trip, we have had about 5 stops where trees would have been an issue and also about 5 stops where internet was not usable for streaming.

Making the point that one solution is best just does not compute. Since we each have different criteria, we each have to find solutions that works for us. I will probably continue to explore streaming before I drop $2K on a satellite system.

[B52Rnav]

Forgot to mention, that we regularly stream Prime Video with no issues.