Community Forums

Lndylyn · 08-05-2018, 07:55 AM

How does everyone deal with poor wifi and internet connections? We have Amazon Prime and Netflix and occasionally enjoy watching movies in our rig, but it seems like most campgrounds either don't allow streaming, or the wifi is so poor that doing anything other than checking your email is impossible. What solutions can anyone suggest?

aether_one · 08-05-2018, 08:03 AM

Bring your own Internet either through your cell phone hot spot or a MIFI device.

V3600 · 08-05-2018, 08:04 AM

We have unlimited data plans on our cell phones, we don't need the campground's wi-fi. Campgrounds could easily upgrade to a wi-fi that would do what you want it to but, I guess, they don't want to.

Dale & Mark Bruss · 08-05-2018, 08:05 AM

Yup, you don't want to pay for satellite TV so you pay for wireless.

EZDZIT · 08-06-2018, 05:27 PM

Or if you don't need it for business or family, just forget the hassle and read a book or watch a DVD.

boyland · 08-07-2018, 09:04 AM

so for our internet whilst traveling we have:
Verizon cell phones one with unlimited the other without rarely do we use this

Mobely which is great but limited connections and lack of real external antenna but the price is great.

Recently for home we added ubifi and decided to take with us on 3 weeks of travel.

Mobely and Ubifi both use the same ATT service

Ubifi worked very well the external antenna ability to lock cell bands proved very useful whilst at a remote state park. The strongest singal was 700mhz but the internet bandwith was .3meg the 1900 band lower signal but the bandwidth ranged from 4-8meg.

I doubt i will let modely go but so far impressed with ubifi

tcg · 08-07-2018, 10:17 AM

I use my cell phone data plan but I don't stream any content. I just use it for email, casual browsing, uploading photos and video, etc...

What I did for entertainment is rip all my DVDs to a hard drive and plug the hard drive into my TV.

I can binge watch my favorite series whenever I want.

You can also use thumb drives. I have a couple different thumb drives with just kids stuff, my wife's stuff, adult stuff, etc...

FlyingDiver · 08-07-2018, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by V3600

Campgrounds could easily upgrade to a wi-fi that would do what you want it to but, I guess, they don't want to.

No, they all can't. Some could. Many campgrounds are located in remote areas that would be difficult (if not impossible) to provision with sufficient bandwidth. And even if available it could very well be cost prohibitive.

MSHappyCampers · 08-07-2018, 03:18 PM

Hi !

Welcome to IRV2! We're sure glad you joined the gang!

Get a data plan through your cellphone carrier. Campground WiFi systems are pretty much useless because of folks streaming movies, making it unusable for others!

Good luck, happy trails, and God bless!

docj · 08-08-2018, 02:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlyingDiver

No, they all can't. Some could. Many campgrounds are located in remote areas that would be difficult (if not impossible) to provision with sufficient bandwidth. And even if available it could very well be cost prohibitive.

It's all too easy for CG's to use this excuse without ever exploring their options. We've stayed at plenty of parks in the vicinity of metro areas where T3 lines, among other solutions, would be readily available. As for rural parks, a friend of mine owns an RV park in very rural SD and this year he was able to connect to fiber optic lines!

As for whether or not the cost would be affordable, a park with ~100 sites has 3,000 "site nights" available per month. Assuming a 50% occupancy factor, that's 1,500 customer-nights over which to spread the cost of improved wifi. A few dollar fee per night would result in quite a bit of money available for wifi.

If park owners are reluctant to increase overall rates, there's no reason why they can't make high speed wifi an extra cost option. Maybe a park with 100 sites has 15-20 high speed "slots" available at ~$10/night. I bet there would be lots of takers. It's quite feasible to set up wifi "channels" with bandwidth limits so that customers wouldn't infringe on the bandwidth of others.

Lastly, park owners could consider how much they spend on cable TV systems when more and more of their customers would prefer to stream their video or watch OTA HDTV. Apply the money now being spent on cable to better wifi.

Having interacted with hundreds of RV park owners at trade shows over the past year, I am hopeful that the younger generation of RV park owners, many of whom are taking over their businesses from aging parents, are bringing new attitudes towards this issue. Hopefully, the next few years will see real changes in the industry with respect to wifi.

Mr_D · 08-08-2018, 03:09 PM

I have Direct TV so have never needed to do much with WiFi other than email and the forums.

tscarps · 08-08-2018, 06:16 PM

We use Verizon for internet while traveling and have an "unlimited" plan which means they throttle your speed after you reach a certain limit. However, they have a deal with Netflix so even after we are over our limit we are still able to stream Netflix content and it works very well.

plasma800 · 08-09-2018, 08:34 AM

I would the think the cost of the bandwidth would be high for the campground

I would say it would nice if they had two separate systems, regular WiFi and streaming wifi.. streaming WiFi on a separate WiFi network costs extra per day, here’s your password

plasma800 · 08-09-2018, 08:36 AM

Btw you can download Netflix shows (not all) to your computer or iPad... the only bad thing about that is they don’t let you cast to a screen with it... (*i think)