Wireless On the Go
Written on January 17, 2009 by Katherine W. Prawl
While it is not new technology, until now we have not had a satisfactory way to consistently get true broadband internet away from home. We’ve tried WiFi at various RV parks and internet cafés, smartphones, and even an internet-connected satellite dish, but they all have serious drawbacks. WiFi connections operated by uninformed park caretakers can be worse than nothing, since sometimes we’ve paid extra for it only to get little or no throughput. While we love our iPhones, they do have awfully small screens that cannot display even a full email subject line sometimes. The touch-screen keyboard makes it difficult to write anything of any length, and of course one cannot download files or use Flash or Java-enabled webpages. The satellite dish sounded like the best solution, but even when we managed to get a half-way decent signal, Hughesnet throttled our usage to such an extent that even though we were paying as much as we do at home for a fast, unlimited business cable account, we couldn’t do things like keep up with podcasts or use Second Life. The Hughesnet account, of course, was on top of the cost for the tripod-mounted dish and modem, which set us back over $1,000.
Maybe, just maybe, now we have an answer.
Yesterday, after reading an article by Tony Cornett on RV.Net, in which he discusses some of the essentials for fulltime RV living, I called up the 3G Store, which was referenced in Tony’s blog post, and ordered a wireless modem (“AirCard”), router and booster antenna. Of course, this entailed signing up for a 2-year contract with yet another provider, but there’s no escaping that. Following the advice of the sales rep, I decided to go with Verizon instead of Sprint since after asking where we would be traveling he said Verizon probably offers better coverage for us. I had already researched the data only plans offered by both companies, and they appear to be just about the same right now, with 5GB/month bandwidth allowance for $59.95/month.
The gear should be waiting for us by the time we get to our stopping point in the Dallas area later today, according to FedEx. What we’re getting consists of a Novatel USB727 AirCard, Cradle Point MBR-1000 mobile router and a Wilson Omni RV antenna, along with all the attendant cables, cards, instructions, etc. 3G Store will have activated the AirCard and installed all the latest firmware updates, so we should be all ready to plug it in and get started. It was a real pleasure to talk to a sales guy who knew what he was talking about, too.
As well as simply being more reliable than other people’s WiFi, with this set up we can stay at places that don’t have even poor internet connections, which ought to save us quite a bit on RV park rentals and frustration. We can even “drycamp” or “boondock” while still staying connected. Oh, and we should also be able to get online even while driving down the road. Since we travel most of the year, but I still try to run an online business, this ought to elminate a lot of stress.
I will report here on our experience with this setup as we go along, and will probably also tweet about it as things happen. My name on Twitter is katlemieux if you’re interested in following the story blow-by-blow.
January 17th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Glad to hear ya gave them a call! I think you’ll be happy with the set up. The gang there are about the best there is as far as evdo goes. Let me know how you like it! I’m pretty sure you won’t miss Hughes
Tony
aka firedude
January 18th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Thanks, Tony! As you’ll see in the post I’m about to write, I’m pleased as punch with it all. I’m really glad you wrote about that when you did, since we had just made up our minds to do something.
January 25th, 2009 at 3:27 am
[...] this blog, you might wonder what kind of amp is under discussion. Your best bet would be to start here and work forward in time to get the [...]
August 29th, 2010 at 11:37 am
broadband internet these days are dirt cheap, there are more and more broadband companies offering cheap service too`**
August 29th, 2010 at 9:19 pm
I agree in one sense. Broadband is easy to find and less expensive unless you are looking for mobile broadband. Since my blog is about tech “on the go”, well, you understand where I differ from you. Service may be getting more widespread, but with stricter limitations on bandwidth (it is virtually impossible to find new unlimited data plans anymore in the U.S.), we have to get creative if we need to use a lot of data while traveling, or if we live in underserved or remote areas. One thing I am very happy about the place we bought to build our new home is that it already has fibre optic broadband to the door. In fact, that was one of the criteria we insisted on in our land search. When we get moved in there, it might be difficult to persuade me to spend six to nine months on the road as we’ve been doing the past few years.