Reccomendations for Full Wifi

[metalfarm]

We need as much internet as possible. I've heard it's best to have both Verizon and ATT.

What is best right now? What exactly do I buy? Do I have dealer install or is it easy?
No budget for this. Ok with spending a couple of grand if need be. Plus monthly or annual plans. We need the best you can get.

Thanks

[Camper25]

The best you can get?

I'd keep my $300 MOFI 4500 - Sim 7 with a Proxicast $130 omni external antenna and two yagi's for longer range. It works perfect for me, but it might not for you.

Then I'd wait on an invite from Starlink satellite internet by email.

[tetranz]

Originally Posted by Camper25

I'd keep my $300 MOFI 4500 - Sim 7 with a Proxicast $120 omni external antenna and two yagi's for longer range. It works perfect for me, but it might not for you.

What plan from which carrier do you use for that?

[docj]

I suggest that you start out by reading some of the material on the Mobile internet Resource Center (MIRC) website. The people who run it are technically proficient and they aren't affiliated with any particular manufacturer. Therefore, the info they provide is accurate an unbiased. IMHO it's a lot more balanced than what you will get to responses to your post.

Some of the MIRC material is free and some is behind a paywall. There's a lot of good free stuff if you don't want to pay.

You can find the MIRC here: https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/

Joel (AKA docj)

[sibe]

Originally Posted by metalfarm

We need as much internet as possible. I've heard it's best to have both Verizon and ATT.

What is best right now? What exactly do I buy? Do I have dealer install or is it easy?
No budget for this. Ok with spending a couple of grand if need be. Plus monthly or annual plans. We need the best you can get.

Thanks

docj here is pretty good at this stuff.... I have played with a few cheaper solutions, for ATT, Verizon and T Mobile.. I have RV and a Rural getaway house..
If you need a one carrier basic setup to stream some tv and basic internet .. you can get by with plans like visible(verizon),mint(mobile)t,ATT(NWTowers) get a cheap cell or lte routers and tether or connect and enjoy.. Traveling in motion may be a hit/miss with these..

Stuff like wifirangers etc RV speciifc, peplink, cradle point.. will all take you up a notch..

IMO, I would did deep and get a dual sim unit that load balances, or 2 LTE Models each with a sim , one verizon or partner, one ATT or partner,, This gives good coverage, add a Tmobile for back up LOL ( I have a Mint 35g card, as my area works better some days on it..)

Any way 2 dedicatd modems patched to a load balancing wifi router and you are Golden..
Modems should have good omni antennas on RV roof for travel,, YES directional antennas are the bomb.. but in motion... ??

Expect to have an investment.. $1500 plus and subscription,, unlim ATT I found for 99,, visible 40,, many others ,, many prices.. GOOD LUCK

[rvneil]

The MIRC is a great resource. I thought I would need a mobile router but did well last winter with just a Netgear Nighthawk hotspot. It needs an ATT network so I'm using Cricket Wireless's hotspot plan. Cricket is owned by ATT. Our phones use T-Mobile. I'm going to put my wife on Visible so we have a Verizon option, too. Visible is a Verizon subsidiary.
I did but the $35 external antenna for the Nighthawk. It helps with weak signals.

[KenZ71]

@metalfarm given the stated objective & budget you might do better with asking a Livery or Ambulance company for a referral to a vendor. Sounds like a vendor for install & support after the fact would be ideal.

[lemodrop9344]

Originally Posted by sibe

docj here is pretty good at this stuff.... I have played with a few cheaper solutions, for ATT, Verizon and T Mobile.. I have RV and a Rural getaway house..
If you need a one carrier basic setup to stream some tv and basic internet .. you can get by with plans like visible(verizon),mint(mobile)t,ATT(NWTowers) get a cheap cell or lte routers and tether or connect and enjoy.. Traveling in motion may be a hit/miss with these..

Stuff like wifirangers etc RV speciifc, peplink, cradle point.. will all take you up a notch..

IMO, I would did deep and get a dual sim unit that load balances, or 2 LTE Models each with a sim , one verizon or partner, one ATT or partner,, This gives good coverage, add a Tmobile for back up LOL ( I have a Mint 35g card, as my area works better some days on it..)

Any way 2 dedicatd modems patched to a load balancing wifi router and you are Golden..
Modems should have good omni antennas on RV roof for travel,, YES directional antennas are the bomb.. but in motion... ??

Expect to have an investment.. $1500 plus and subscription,, unlim ATT I found for 99,, visible 40,, many others ,, many prices.. GOOD LUCK

The above pretty much sums it up.

From my perspective, understanding the available cellular plans is as important as understanding your equipment. You don't want to spend $1500.00 on equipment only to find out you can't take advantage of the technology because your data plan can't support it.
The GUDP (grandfathered unlimited data plans) are bringing higher monthly charges now, along with increased set up fees. Just be sure you understand what you are really getting with your cellular data plan.
Good luck.

[sibe]

The big thing is your expectations..... I do not travel the country, so my info is biased on waht people say.. LOL

I do consitantly travel from Maine to Virgina with me living in PA. and a trip to Florida now and then..

I have not tried this travel with my new AT&T data sim but have with Verizon,visible and Mint(tmobile) .. I did not have a tv set up streaming, while in motion .. I just would watch two cell phones and a hot spot for their service with an ipad to play on and hook thru a hot spot..

Coverage fades, you get in spots where it drops or is dead,, 3 miles and you are back, some times it is 3 tenths ..
MY point it is a moving target.. I have been n Virginia on RT 81 and very little service for 10-15min at a time, been in NC a few places where locals say ATT only works..

BLAH BLAH,, I true SAT link system would be nirvana with a live track and lock mini dish on roof..

This industry is changing... all these LTE plans area stop gap since 5g is a pipe dream that is now being split into different bands to try and maintain a blanket coverage..more towers and relays are needed than current systems.. I scratch my simple head..
I dont understand the tech but enough with point to point to multipoint networks, line of site etc... to atleast question it..

SO for RVers.. be wary of the investment as it will change one way or the other in a year or two,, Pay as we go regardless...

[tetranz]

You need to get an idea of how much data per month you need. If you really want an "all you can eat" data connection that you can use similar to how you use home broadband then there is no perfect solution.

A router/modem device connected to an external antenna tends to be the best way to go technically but brings with it the question of "what plan from what carrier do I put in it".

If you can keep the data below 100 GB per month then this $90 plan from Cricket / AT&T is a good legitimate way to go. 100 GB is probably not enough if you stream lots of TV etc. If money is no object then I guess you could buy multiples of that plan and swap the SIM during the month. Most people can't afford that so will either take their chances by putting a phone SIM in a router (violating T&Cs) or buying an "unlimited" plan from a reseller.

Some people seem to have luck with resellers, some have no end of trouble and frustration. Some people have luck with Nomad who sponsor this forum, some don't. There are people here happy with OTR. Yesterday I read elsewhere of happy customers with Viper. I'm really just throwing out some random names there. They won't help install anything in your RV. You'll have to get some additional help there if you can't do it yourself.

If you're traveling around and internet is critical for work etc then you probably want some redundancy, i.e., more than one way and one carrier to connect in case one doesn't have a good signal or has other problems.

Starlink might change everything but most of us will need to wait.

[X-OEM]

Visible (owned by Verizon and uses Verizon network) and OTR (a re-seller that uses the AT&T network) are in my somewhat non educated opinion your best bets.

Visible is from $25 to $40 per month. OTR is higher at $90 per month.
Both state that they MAY throttle usage if needed and MAY cap data speeds. I connect them both to a load balancing router - use MIRC as suggested to research equipment.

I have not had a whole lot of experience with them so take this advice carefully. I have experienced no throttling and no data speed capping. Using a load balancing router may disguise that effect as I do not keep tabs constantly on speeds and usage. One could be capped or throttled and the other one takes over - but I doubt that is happening. When I do check my data usage from the router control panel, it shows about equal usage from both hotspots.

I use it during the day for some normal internet usage and stream most all of my TV usage. Except Saturdays and Sundays for football games. I am retired so obviously do not need the internet for work. Have not experienced any buffering episodes that you hear about with streamers. Everything is also in HD. I would notice if the picture quality tanked due to slow data speeds, Netflix does this automatically as do some or most of the other streaming services I imagine. Again - not a techie so your results may vary....

The router cost me $160 bucks and two hotspots - one from each provider was about $400. My DirecTV bill kept fluctuating from about $100 after complaining to about $200 afterwards. Now no longer a cost to me.

I didn't "save" any money with this approach, and in fact costs me more than using DirecTV given the streaming services you have to pay for. However, I have excellent data connections wherever I am, don't have to worry about my dish being out in the open whenever I arrive at a new location and have very good data security compared to using the campground's Wi-Fi. (I know, that's another whole thread!!)

I could spend more money on cell boosters, powered antennas and the like, but why? It works fine, does what I need it to do and was pretty easy to set up once I educated myself (with others help) on the equipment. If I can do it, I would imagine most anyone could.

[arcaguy]

Just a heads up the both AT&T and Cricket have 100 GB plans right now for around $100 per month. Cricket is a subsidiary of AT&T so they are on the same network. I got the AT&T plan and the modem (hotspot) is OK and has 2 external antenna ports but your usage is hard to track as you can't see it on the modem itself. It also has to be on a stand alone plan as far as I can tell. At least mine is. The cricket plan lets you bring your own device and I would because I don't think their modem has any antenna ports but check it out for yourself.


Verizon's best plan is 30 GB for around the same $100 a month but the modem is much nicer. I have both of them right now but I will be dropping the Verizon plan as I'm stationary for a while right now.


As far as the Mobile Internet Resource Center goes, Chris and Cherie have the absolute best information on Internet for the mobile crowd. If you don't want to pay their annual fee and you find their information useful you can flip them a few bucks on their site somehow, but I forget how.

[BillJinOR]

Since Your Serious $$$ and need large amounts of reliable internet. Pay the small annual amount to mobile internet resource. That will get you to the PVT pages and specific direction or more likely direct answers to complete articles and up to the minute info and emails about products equipment setup and plans that aren't made public yet. This mobile internet space is constantly moving with Vendors of "work around" plans being terminated and others brought online all the time.

[marsingbob]

Spend the money to join MIRC. I saved more than the cost with the first question I asked