WiFi on the go

[jarneson79]

My wife and I are full time and we both work from home. We have used several services for internet and have found the best one to be unlimitedtogo.com. The pricing is a bit high but it is truly unlimited internet with no contract. I have been using them for about 6 months and have no complaints.

[JesseS]

Originally Posted by ttavasc

The two Satellite providers that I'm aware of are Globalstar and Iridium. Back when I was still backpacking I would sometimes carry a Globalstar Sat Phone depending on just how remote I was planning to be. You can check them out here:

Iridium
Globalstar

I thought these were mostly for voice calls, and they are expensive. You can get internet service from direct Tv.

[Solbkeston]

Originally Posted by bababooey

Easy answer is correct, the real answer is 'it depends'. If you have a yagi or log periodic antenna (something with gain) up on a mast mounted to your RV, you can get signals that you can't get with your phone SOMETIMES. I often camp at a campground that has no coverage, but with this setup, I can get enough signal to surf and make phone calls. The people camping around me look at me funny when I'm sitting by the booster antenna in my chair talking on the phone. They didn't think it's possible.

Regarding T-Mobile, it's junk, it won't work in the above scenario. I use a mobley on ATT for $20 month unlimited, used 30 to 60 gig's in one month without issues. Also picked up a mifi from Verizon. I already have prepaid device with them so adding this was $50 a month with unlimited as well. Between the 2 and the booster, I haven't found a spot where I can't get something working.

I am not sure why you say TMOBILE is junk. Dont want to turn into a commercial for TMOBILE, butI manage customer servers over my internet along with heavy VOIP and have had a great experience with TMOBILE.

I work for a fortune 100 company with direct relationships with all of the carriers. I started off buying a modem and put it on my ATT. Then I found out they are limiting me greatly on how much bandwidth I could use (at 4G speed, no way 2G works for me). You may have lucked out and had an old plan that is still unlimited, but they told me no unlimited plan was available anymore for modems. They could not come up with anything I could use and what options they did come up with required me to open a separate account with ATT at like $75 a month just for the modem, and still very limited in speed.

Sitting by a huge antenna and just making calls or low bandwidth internet usage would not buy me anything.

[JesseS]

We use a Verizon Jet Pack hot spot with a rooftop MEMO dual dome antenna (has great range) for wireless devices, for wired (TV, BRD) I use a wi-fi repeater with a Ethernet connection to a small router (gets signal from hot spot). System works great, we boondock a lot in the west and seldom are without a signal (even when others don't, in fact I have had neighbors ask to make calls on my cell repeater)

[ttavasc]

Originally Posted by JesseS

I thought these were mostly for voice calls, and they are expensive. You can get internet service from direct Tv.

Both Globalstar and Iridium have data services including optimized services to help mitigate the inherent lag time in Satellite communications for email/web access. As you note, they are expensive. Given my experience with the voice service these are probably not solutions that would work under all the different conditions the OP mentioned such as from within the RV while moving. I used the Satellite-based wi-fi at Chena Hot Springs outside of Fairbanks, AK last spring when we were up there for a week. it was adequate for checking email and simple browsing and that's about it.

For our needs using our cell phone hot spots work fine and we just accept that at times we may not have coverage. I also have a need to work at times while on the road with the RV and so far this has been sufficient.

[PopRocks]

We’ve been using our Verizon Jet Pack: essentially small hot spot of your own. Works fine, although their “unlimited” data plan really isn’t, since the speed is throttled back after so many gigs of use.

[Salliemeandering]

Have you heard of Technomadia? That is their business.
They are on toutube and also have a blog.
Technomadia.com I think

[dreopell]

I also have an unlimited data plan with VERIZON. We signed up for it in Tucson several months ago. We also purchased a jet pack for $50 which we own. We pay $70 a month for on a prepaid plan for unlimited data. It works great. We even take it on the road with us when we travel. The jet pack is smaller than a cellphone and we put it right on the dash.

[Hansoncarla]

[/URL][/QUOTE]With the ENS202EXT (EXTernal antenna) I was able to connect to a Home Depot store that was located (with in view) on a higher location about 1.5 miles away, and watch a home baseball game on my SlingBox at home. Should I have been using Home Depot's Wi-Fi, well if you saw what I deposit in their annual net income account, they should have been running a cable to my TT, but there again, your service will only be as good as the AP you are connected to and the data service the CG is getting from their ISP. You can also mount the Omni Directional Wi-Fi signal booster antenna on the rear ladder.

[/URL][/QUOTE]

Hi Don, I purchased an ens620ext that added 5ghz range to the 2.4ghz. My question is, do you set it up as an AP or a client and does it matter what router you connect to it. The 620 looks like it is the same as the 202 with added frequency, but when I look for networks, none show up.

Thanks, Carl,

[Mustang65]

Good morning Carl,

Set the 620 up as a Client bridge and no it does not matter which router you hook up to it. I went to a resale shop and picked up a used D-Link (12VDC power source) for around $10 and use that in the TT. Works great!!!

If you have the 620 set up as an AP you will see no networks. Also, all campgrounds (at least the ones I have been to ) only use 2.4 and not 5.8. it would be GREAT if they added 5.8.

Let me know how the new 620 works out

Don
My Registry

RVing with SOLAR

[RAurand]

QUESTION,
If you have unlimited data on your cell phone, Why not just use your cell phone as a hotspot?
Why also have a jetpack and spend the extra money?

[tom35758]

Originally Posted by JesseS

We use a Verizon Jet Pack hot spot with a rooftop MEMO dual dome antenna (has great range) for wireless devices, for wired (TV, BRD) I use a wi-fi repeater with a Ethernet connection to a small router (gets signal from hot spot). System works great, we boondock a lot in the west and seldom are without a signal (even when others don't, in fact I have had neighbors ask to make calls on my cell repeater)

Where did you get the memo exterior antenna with the cable that fits the Verizon mifi?
Can't find them

[SloPoke]

Stacy and I both have our offices in our Home. I am an IT manager for a fortune 50 company, she is a Real Estate Finance professional.. we both have corporate laptops from our repsective companies in addition to our personal laptops.

We travel for 6-8 months of the year in our Seneca while we work full-time. Stacy has a dual monitor setup mounted to the wall at the dinette, I have a stand up desk using the large TV that swings out in the overcab bed area. Our mode of travel is: Work Monday-Friday and travel to the next destination on Saturday and/or Sunday. Places we choose for our next destination include a search of data coverage by T-mobile or Verizon.

Our Seneca has all of our network equipment powered by the 12-volt house batteries and consists of a Mikrotik Router that provides an SPI-firewall, LAN WiFi and Wired connections to our docking stations. The WAN connection goes to a multitude of devices we use that will bring the public internet into our Seneca.

We have a Mikrotik SXT we sometimes use in RV Parks that have GOOD WiFi service. It has a 16dbi gain directional antenna that we can pinpoint to the specific access point in the CG we wish to use. It is in CPE mode and allows hunt groups to be defined if we suddenly have a park WiFi issue and it will fail-over to a secondary AP or our smart-phone Hotspots we can use as an emergency backup. The SXT can be mounted on the outside of the Seneca and is powered POE into a Cat-5 connection on the outside of the Seneca.

Our primary source of network connectivity is over Cellurlar (LTE). We have a Mikrotik LHG LTE antenna/modem that is mounted on a mast we attach to the mirror of our Seneca. It has a 21dbi gain directional dish antenna that is powered by the same POE connection on the outside of the Seneca. The LHG takes a SIM card from any carrier and we can swap between the Verizon or T-mobile SIM cards when we have coverage opportunities.

The majority of our connectivity is actually with T-mobile, we just added an additional line to our Family Plan with unlimited data and the LHG does not differentiate between a MiFi account or a typical smartphone account. We get 50GB a month at full 4G+ data rates before they sometimes throttle us back to 3G speeds. Only once has that happened with both of us traveling during a 6-month trip, and we were only impacted one day before our billing cycle turned over. We can swap out our SIM to Verizon, or use our Hot-Spot function on our other phones if we encounter this again.

For those who are looking into these so-called Cell-Boosters... As an IT manager, my technical experience is in networks and Radio network Bridging. The LHG has a great advantage over a traditional MiFi box or other solution in that the overall link distance between the Cell Tower and the client end-point is limited by the client being able to have enough transmission power to reach back to the cell tower. We took the LHG with us on a test where we purposely camped at the point where our SmartPhones would not get service (Samsung Note-8) We then stood up our LHG and pointed it towards the opening of the canyon and aligned it until we got a signal. We then connected our smartphones to the WiFi in our Seneca and switched to WiFi-Calling and were back in business. In short, our phones would not connect to voice or data. Our MiFi box would not connect at all - but our LHG was able to connect and we actually got 3mb down and 1mb up connection rates on T-mobile.

[Hansoncarla]

Originally Posted by Mustang65

Good morning Carl,

Set the 620 up as a Client bridge and no it does not matter which router you hook up to it. I went to a resale shop and picked up a used D-Link (12VDC power source) for around $10 and use that in the TT. Works great!!!

If you have the 620 set up as an AP you will see no networks. Also, all campgrounds (at least the ones I have been to ) only use 2.4 and not 5.8. it would be GREAT if they added 5.8.

Let me know how the new 620 works out

Don
My Registry

RVing with SOLAR

Sorry Don, I must be missing a step. I set the 620 up as a bridge and when I scan for AP's I see a ton of them in my neighborhood. How do I set which one I want to use? Also, you talked about using an App on your phone to go in and select the AP SSID that you wanted to use. I don't see that capability in my manual. Is there something I have to change in the router? Thanks,

[Hansoncarla]

Originally Posted by Hansoncarla

Sorry Don, I must be missing a step. I set the 620 up as a bridge and when I scan for AP's I see a ton of them in my neighborhood. How do I set which one I want to use? Also, you talked about using an App on your phone to go in and select the AP SSID that you wanted to use. I don't see that capability in my manual. Is there something I have to change in the router? Thanks,

I got it Don, Thanks, I had set up the 620 as an "MDS Bridge" instead of the correct "client bridge". That then allowed me to select an AP site to use. Then the router some how was set to a static address instead of a dynamic one. Once those updates were done, I was connected. Now for the trial on our next camping trip next week for 10 days. Thanks again,

[Mustang65]

Originally Posted by Hansoncarla

I got it Don, Thanks, I had set up the 620 as an "MDS Bridge" instead of the correct "client bridge". That then allowed me to select an AP site to use. Then the router some how was set to a static address instead of a dynamic one. Once those updates were done, I was connected. Now for the trial on our next camping trip next week for 10 days. Thanks again,

You can look at your router when the 620 is operating... get its IP address that the router assigned to the 620 and put that router IP address into the 620. This will eliminate any possibility of the router changing the 620's IP address and will make it easier to find the 620.
Don
My Registry

RVing with SOLAR

[JohnRLewis]

Originally Posted by SloPoke

We have a Mikrotik LHG LTE antenna/modem that is mounted on a mast we attach to the mirror of our Seneca.

Where did you purchase this? All the ones on Amazon have comments indicating that they are not the US versions. Elsewhere, I've not found US versions that were in stock.

[colby]

I was reading this the other day and it seems to have some possibilities - https://rvlife.com/unrestricted-inte...ess-for-rvers/

[SloPoke]

Originally Posted by JohnRLewis

Where did you purchase this? All the ones on Amazon have comments indicating that they are not the US versions. Elsewhere, I've not found US versions that were in stock.

I have been talking to @Riverman on JOF He just purchased one from a reseller in Canada and had it shipped to the US. They are in very short supply!

Don't by the non US versions - The LHG-6 and the LTE units that are not designated -US wont work on the ATT/VZW/T-mo networks.

My go-to reseller is Streakwave and they have been out too.

[ebarchak]

Originally Posted by colby

I was reading this the other day and it seems to have some possibilities - https://rvlife.com/unrestricted-inte...ess-for-rvers/

I have been testing T-Mobile and band 71 recently. In an area where my AT&T service was unreliable I have been able to get a good signal and actually stream video on band 71. Saw as high as 10Mbps and usually less than 1Mbps on AT&T. Testing continues, but so far I am a fan of this technology.