internet on the road

[tncruiser]

just returned to stix&brix after 5 weeks in fl
while parked in a wally world next to home depot on the way home
found HDepot free wifi to be a great service good signal strength and easy to connect with .technology has left this mature american far behind so this was like a gift to me,
second thing i found the higher the dollar rig the earlier they arrive and depart
wally world
brianj
__________________

[buzzards27]

Cool, what part of Florida do you visit? We did the month between Thanksgiving and Xmas in Sarasota and were always seeking those free wifi outlets. Staples was also a good service and of course any McDonalds we saw had one, real easy log in. I think we used Sheetz once, too. I think most hotels, gas stations and coffee shops now offer free wifi...

Just watch out using most of these for doing anything serious, like banking, they say crooks monitor these networks looking for passwords and banking info.

We are talking about getting a Verizon wireless hub, but we are afraid of the limited data plan they offer. Not sure we could live with 2 gig's a month. We actually saw a couple of these wifi hubs show up as an option while traveling.

[tncruiser]

Originally Posted by buzzards27

Cool, what part of Florida do you visit? We did the month between Thanksgiving and Xmas in Sarasota and were always seeking those free wifi outlets. Staples was also a good service and of course any McDonalds we saw had one, real easy log in. I think we used Sheetz once, too. I think most hotels, gas stations and coffee shops now offer free wifi...

Just watch out using most of these for doing anything serious, like banking, they say crooks monitor these networks looking for passwords and banking info.

We are talking about getting a Verizon wireless hub, but we are afraid of the limited data plan they offer. Not sure we could live with 2 gig's a month. We actually saw a couple of these wifi hubs show up as an option while traveling.

15 days panama beach
16 days at linger lodge in bradenton definatly old florida
8 days coming and going
brianj

[jimh]

Originally Posted by buzzards27

Cool, what part of Florida do you visit? We did the month between Thanksgiving and Xmas in Sarasota and were always seeking those free wifi outlets. Staples was also a good service and of course any McDonalds we saw had one, real easy log in. I think we used Sheetz once, too. I think most hotels, gas stations and coffee shops now offer free wifi...

Just watch out using most of these for doing anything serious, like banking, they say crooks monitor these networks looking for passwords and banking info.

We are talking about getting a Verizon wireless hub, but we are afraid of the limited data plan they offer. Not sure we could live with 2 gig's a month. We actually saw a couple of these wifi hubs show up as an option while traveling.

i use verizon. changed from a sprint unlimited plan because at 330 meg the shut me down (sprint doesn't like for u to roam and u roam just abt everywhere unless ur camping downtown in a major city). had been with them for more than 4 yrs.
anyway, verizon charges $20 extra to use the phone as a hot spot but u already have to have their $30 data plan on it. the mifi hotspot abt, 3 months ago, was $59 w/5g limit. u would still have service beyond but the cost was high. i believe in Feb (when i found out abt it) they started offering several plans ranging from $35 for 3gig to $80 for 10gig. each plan will charge u an extra $10 if u go over and add another gig.
i am a heavy user and don't find it to be too limiting. i took the 3gig plan. even if i go to 4.99999gig, it will cost me $5 less than i was paying.

we live between two houses. had hughes net at one, decided to put a wireless connection on the desktop (much like what u would have on a laptop...not a router). when there, we both log onto verizon. on the road we both log onto verizon with laptops. so far, it's working out for us.

u really have to be a heavy user exceed 5gig. we hit 4.3 last month but i was working on a cruise book and uplaoded lots of (large) pictures.

i can live with the $10 for each extra gig. i believe under the old plan, the extra gig would have been $50 more (assuming i got the decimal in the right place...seems like the overage was 5 cents/meg).

the other pleasant supprise is that i was getting high speed in Lake Charles. it was comprable (actually faster) with hughes net. hughes net was slower than verizon.

[buzzards27]

we recently upgraded to a smart phone that has the ability to serve as a hub. we might pay for that in the future [somewhere i was reading that there is a hack that allows you to open that app and make it a hub without verizon knowing, but i'll pass on that for now] It has the 30 buck unlimited data...

HTC Droid Incredible, good phone, it allows us to use the internet, google, lots of apps, maps, check gas prices and we can even answer emails by speaking into it instead of typing. from now on we plan on using the level app to level the RV, lol.

Originally Posted by jimh

i use verizon. changed from a sprint unlimited plan because at 330 meg the shut me down (sprint doesn't like for u to roam and u roam just abt everywhere unless ur camping downtown in a major city). had been with them for more than 4 yrs.
anyway, verizon charges $20 extra to use the phone as a hot spot but u already have to have their $30 data plan on it. the mifi hotspot abt, 3 months ago, was $59 w/5g limit. u would still have service beyond but the cost was high. i believe in Feb (when i found out abt it) they started offering several plans ranging from $35 for 3gig to $80 for 10gig. each plan will charge u an extra $10 if u go over and add another gig.
i am a heavy user and don't find it to be too limiting. i took the 3gig plan. even if i go to 4.99999gig, it will cost me $5 less than i was paying.

we live between two houses. had hughes net at one, decided to put a wireless connection on the desktop (much like what u would have on a laptop...not a router). when there, we both log onto verizon. on the road we both log onto verizon with laptops. so far, it's working out for us.

u really have to be a heavy user exceed 5gig. we hit 4.3 last month but i was working on a cruise book and uplaoded lots of (large) pictures.

i can live with the $10 for each extra gig. i believe under the old plan, the extra gig would have been $50 more (assuming i got the decimal in the right place...seems like the overage was 5 cents/meg).

the other pleasant supprise is that i was getting high speed in Lake Charles. it was comprable (actually faster) with hughes net. hughes net was slower than verizon.

[buzzards27]

we passed thru panama city, we came down thru vicksburg to Gulfport and then followed the coast to Sarasota. Stayed in a state park in Gulf Shores and then a night in Saint Joe's. That was an interesting park. we took 7 days going down, stopping in Nashville and then Memphis to see Graceland.

Where my daughter lives in Sarasota, there is a colony of Amish folk wintering, many of them were from Ohio.

Originally Posted by tncruiser

15 days panama beach
16 days at linger lodge in bradenton definatly old florida
8 days coming and going
brianj

[jimh]

switched my mifi in sept 2010. switched phone in Jan. feb, saw a broshure abt the rate change on the mifi and jumped on it. usually go several months with little or no usage (that will change now that i will be using it as my internet at the other house).

there is a little difference in the coverage: with sprint i could go from SW La to NE La and wouldn't be without coverage more than a couple of miles. Verizion, i have a large area S of Alexandra that has no coverage. when we go across the top of the state of La on a state hiway (abt 30 miles north of I-20, its the only one that has contineous service).

for voice, i have the facinate by samsung. it has voice comand also.

[Campingshadow]

I just switched to an iphone from AT&T and got the 2 Gig data plan. Their other option is 200 MG...but I do not know yet how much I will be using. With AT&T as long as you are using an existing WIFI signal it does not count against your data plan. Only when you are using the phone itself to connect to the net. Since I am almost always near WIFI or using the parks WIFI I figure I am totally safe and do not need to worry about going over the data plan limits. Might even switch back to the cheaper 200MG. Just need to try it for a couple months and see what happens. Love some of the apps...that leveling one is neat.

[Herk7769]

Campingshadow,

We have the iPad with AT&T 2G data plan and this month was the first time we used almost all of it. We are, I guess, "heavy" internet users and we typically use about 300 megs a month of 3G service. Mostly google earth and maps while traveling and emails on the road.

This month we had almost NO WiFi available where we were dry camping, and we used the heck out of it. We still did not use it all, but we did get a"low" warning at 1.8G. We only had 2 days to go for a refill, so we sucked it up.

Since the 2G price is the same per month ($25.00) as the 250meg (15.00) plus 1 refill of 250 meg (10.00), I feel the 2G at 25 bucks is a great deal. As long as you don't stream too much video, you will never need to worry about running out.

[jimh]

U may b able to use a lessor plan on iPhone. IPhone seems to make better use of the wifi than this one. I believe Verizon had two choices: 150m or unlimited. After ten days, I was up to 80 so upped to unlimited.. iPhone I used abt 80 in a mo. I was more cautious with the iPhone. Tended to use it sparingly unless I was on wifi

[mjones12]

We just got a Motorola Droid phone through Verizon. The phone was free, and our bill increased by $35/month for unlimited online use. It will do almost everything our laptop will and takes up a lot less space on the road. And it plugs right into our stereo on the camper to play all our tunes without taking CD's with us. Best camping accessory we've found yet. Also, I thought that was a joke about the app for leveling the RV, but I just found it online. Pretty cool. http://www.pcworld.com/appguide/app....9&expand=false

[buzzards27]

same operating system as ours... the level we got is a free app from the droid market, if you lay it flat it displays a bullseye level with a digital readout of the out of level in each direction. of course, i need to find/create a flat surface that'll let me check level as I drive up to the site.

We loaded an app called Pandora that allows you to "create" themed radio stations, check it out. With the bluetooth on our Fusion we can listen to Pandora thru the car speakers.

Originally Posted by mjones12

We just got a Motorola Droid phone through Verizon. The phone was free, and our bill increased by $35/month for unlimited online use. It will do almost everything our laptop will and takes up a lot less space on the road. And it plugs right into our stereo on the camper to play all our tunes without taking CD's with us. Best camping accessory we've found yet. Also, I thought that was a joke about the app for leveling the RV, but I just found it online. Pretty cool. RV Companion Version: 1.1 Utilities App - PCWorld

[j2detroit]

we have verison palm pre plus phones with unlimited talk text and built in hotspot for up to 5 devices two phones two lines 5mb per phone 10 mb total works great at our camper in our home in our car or truck driving down the road i hav my printer hooked to the net wirelessly through it we got rid of our local internet provider because this works so well it is as fast or mabe alittle faster than the high speed we had

[Herk7769]

RV Companion is also an iPhone and iPad (in iPhone mode) App. Still works very cool. The flashlight option is a bit goofy, but for a phone it might be ok...

Sent from my iPad using Forest River

[BigRed]

I-pad !!

[Wildwood Danny]

We just got rid of our snail mail dial up at our homeport and replaced it with a Verizon 5-Spot, we now get high speed broadband at the house and anywhere else we have a Verizon phone signal. Our phone signal at the house is spotty, but the signal for the 5-Spot seems to work everywhere here at home.

We got 3GB for $35.00 a month. So far we have been able to surf the web and email all we want and not use up our allotment. If so it is just $10.00 a GB more. It looks like you can search and email quite a lot and not run out. Downloading movies and heavy picture sending and downloading might be a problem. We don't do the movies and seldom do that many pictures at a time.

So this looks like it will work out fine for us here at the homeport and on the road. We will use Wifi hot spots whenever we can to keep down our usage.

[buzzards27]

Just wondering, is it possible to connect a laptop to a smart phone with a cable and use the laptop thru the phone? Not so much creating a wireless hub but rather making the laptop's monitor and keyboard operate like the phone. That would be all I'd ever want, the keyboard on the phone can be difficult at times, and it is always cutting into the viewable space. The screen on the phone is big for a phone, but it isn't big enough. LOL, I really should get some reading glasses...

[Campingshadow]

I fought for a very long time upgrading to the iphone. Friends INSISTED on texting me and it was a nightmare to do so on the old flip phone. Now I love the iphone and all the apps and texting is easy. Only problem I have with it is the sound. It can be nice and loud for a ringtone or a song or video, but the conversations are disgustingly low. I have to put all of them on speaker and then still hold it right up by my ear to hear anything. Being hard of hearing sucks!!! As for the apps....there are some really good ones for RV'ers on the go. I particularly like the GPS Drive, Where'd I Go, Around Me and Wi-Fi Finder.

[Ehlendt]

Wife has a Droid X and comes in handy for supplying wifi to the laptop while camping. And did I mention it's free? You do not have to pay Verizon for the service! If you have a droid, you can "root" your phone and do all kinds of great stuff. One thing is to install an app such as Barnacle tether. With this app, you can broadcast wifi to up to 5 devices at once! Keep in mind, you need a descent phone signal. We went camping a couple weekends ago. I told my wife to turn the thether on so I could connect to it. Not 30 seconds later......so did someone else who was looking for wireless. Haha. Must have been a camper within a couple sites. No worries. I still had great speed! Love that Droid X! You iPhone users can keep them. I have a iPod Touch and don't care fot it. To each their own!

[toshu]

We switched to Verizon recently, in anticipation of traveling

I have the Droid X and installed the Easytether App. It cost $10 for a one time installation cost, although they have a trial version as well. Now, I hook my Droid X to the laptop via a USB cable and since the data plan is unlimited from Verizon, I have unlimited download for the laptop.....

Speed is excellent, and the app apparently works with other droid phones....I have downloaded 8 gig movies using it