Cell phone/Internet

[tanda62]

This is interesting, my Chevy has WiFi from the manufacture through AT&T and is 20 bucks a month. Works great for traveling down the road and you are right stops working when you shut off the engine after like 10 maybe 15 minutes. Worked great for us when we camped with our trailer but now in the Motor Home that option is gone.
Going camping starting Sunday till the end of the month. I will start looking at this situation again after our trip. I do see that Netgear has come out with a new 5G version of the Nighthawk using WiFi 6 (MR5200) but it is not available as of now. Maybe it will be here later this year and could be another option to consider.

[creativepart]

Originally Posted by Goodspike

My truck offers AT&T service with a wireless hotspot function. But it's: (1) Expensive as hell

ATT offers a Connected Car Data Plan for $20 a month for 5 gigs of data.

I think you have a Chevy truck - perhaps if you got the plan from ATT rather than GM do you think that you can do that? GM's vehicle service usually goes through OnStar, I think. And that is expensive.

Though all of the service is only when the truck is running.

[Wyatt]

This thread has gotten pretty long, but I don’t recall anyone mentioning this service. Not cheap, but seems to check a lot of the boxes...

https://unlimitedlteadvanced.com/

[tanda62]

There seem to be a number of these types of companies out there reselling service. I would be worried about their longevity in the market. This particular one does check the boxes but as you say expensive. You know back when I used darpanet in the Air Force things were simpler. Kinda dating myself...

[creativepart]

Originally Posted by Wyatt

This thread has gotten pretty long, but I don’t recall anyone mentioning this service. Not cheap, but seems to check a lot of the boxes...

There are probably 2-dozen of these Resellers that sell unlimited ATT plans from businesses that close down at $120+ a month. They used to be in the $65 a month range until ATT clamped down on a number of the Resellers and made it more difficult to operate - that's when the pricing doubled.

So, of the $65 a month Resellers are still in business - but most severely limit ordering to a few hours a week and the rest of the time list plans as "Out of Stock." If you're lucky you can grab one when they have the plans "in stock" and save some real money.

Here is one of those:

https://netbuddy.co/

The thing to know about these Resellers is they are selling plans that don't conform to ATT's Terms of Service. That doesn't mean anything other than you can't call ATT for support, you pay the Reseller directly and the plan can go away without warning. But none of those things are too much of a problem.

[Goodspike]

Originally Posted by creativepart

ATT offers a Connected Car Data Plan for $20 a month for 5 gigs of data.

I think you have a Chevy truck - perhaps if you got the plan from ATT rather than GM do you think that you can do that? GM's vehicle service usually goes through OnStar, I think. And that is expensive.

Though all of the service is only when the truck is running.

I don't know if I can go direct from AT&T--but what I recall is I cannot unless I have a different AT&T account too.

[Gentracker]

Mofi 4500 router might help. I have one on back order. A lot of videos on it and read a lot of reviews. It helps with reception; broadcasts a signal inside and helps with data caps.
Check it out

[Wyatt]

Originally Posted by tanda62

There seem to be a number of these types of companies out there reselling service. I would be worried about their longevity in the market. This particular one does check the boxes but as you say expensive. You know back when I used darpanet in the Air Force things were simpler. Kinda dating myself...

My thought is, since there’s no contract, no commitment, if they go out of business, I’ll go elsewhere.

We need full access while on the road for our business. We’re currently using a MiFi Verizon hot spot. After five days of JUST CHECKING EMAIL—no streaming at all, they throttled is down to sub par speed wherein I could even work. BS. IMHO.

[Wyatt]

Originally Posted by creativepart

There are probably 2-dozen of these Resellers that sell unlimited ATT plans from businesses that close down at $120+ a month. They used to be in the $65 a month range until ATT clamped down on a number of the Resellers and made it more difficult to operate - that's when the pricing doubled.

So, of the $65 a month Resellers are still in business - but most severely limit ordering to a few hours a week and the rest of the time list plans as "Out of Stock." If you're lucky you can grab one when they have the plans "in stock" and save some real money.

Here is one of those:

https://netbuddy.co/

The thing to know about these Resellers is they are selling plans that don't conform to ATT's Terms of Service. That doesn't mean anything other than you can't call ATT for support, you pay the Reseller directly and the plan can go away without warning. But none of those things are too much of a problem.

Good point. Insofar as THIS company, one can choose the carrier. Not married to just one. But, the better carriers cost more...of course.

We’ll see, and I’ll report back. We sell homes, and we cannot afford to lose a sale over $100 a month bill.

[RocknRoll]

Originally Posted by creativepart

This is all address in previous posts -

1. 5mbps is fast enough for streaming TV
2. Connected to a router you can have as many other devices as you wish connected
3. Their TOS provide a lot of restrictions that they do not exercise - but obviously can in the future if they wish

I know some of these threads/posts are long, but they do include all of these details.

@creativepart: Thanks for your informative, detailed posts including posting the visible info from irv2. If I may add, according to the thread, in may be as slow as 5MB, but it is UNLIMITED.

Here is the summary from that thread posted by the OP (includes post #10)
https://www.irv2.com/forums/f53/40-m...ml#post5626337

[37NG]

Originally Posted by creativepart

One option you haven't mentioned is the Visible service sold by Verizon. You buy a cheap phone from them and pay $40 (or less) per month for truly unlimited internet. On the road and in the campground. You can connect it via USB to a qualified router - such as the Nighthawk - and share the internet with all devices. And recently, they've been letting slide the folks that use the Visible SIM card in a few Verizon Jetpack devices.

The Visible service is kind of overkill for what you want, but at it's cheap price that doesn't really matter. With it you could stream TV, add tablets and laptops and use the internet to your hearts content.

The only thing you haven't mentioned is the products from WiFi Ranger which we also have but I don't see you really needing any thing they offer based on what you've said.

Hope this helps.

Anyone use Apple TV to the stock TV via WiFi hotspot (Visible or otherwise) directly from phone or via a WiFi router? If you use this type of a setup does it outperform available WiFi at various campgrounds and negate the need for any kind of WiFi booster setup? I like the idea of a router so multiple devices can hookup via the hotspot simultaneously

[Morich]

One big thing to keep in mind is the details and that this is an area which is fully deregulated, meaning that the business can change the way it works as often as they feel important to them. If you are investing a large amount of money in equipment, make sure to check the contracts for what happens if the service is changed.
On simple cell service, we have very simple uses and go for the lower price of a reseller which we love for the price. We use Consumer Cellular as it allows us to pay a very low price when at home as we use a landline for reliable service, but when we go out we get great service on the ATT network they resell, but we also know there are times when it will be throttled pretty severely.
The only time we found that to be a problem for our limited use is during the current Texas ice storm when service of all sorts was down.
Deregulation is often sold as an idea to let the customer choose more without mentioning that it is really the service which decides when and how much to change.

During the current crisis, the folks who had signed up for variable rate electrical plans are now finding they are facing thousands of dollars a month on bills because the service price is not regulated!!

When the power plants are not maintained and they go down, the price for electricity goes way up to cover the costs!

[rprochnow]

When purchasing our 2021 View, having high-speed internet for streaming and gaming was a requirement. What we use:

• While driving, we use the Sprinter's AT&T hotspot. We purchased an annual plan for $211 (discount over the monthly plan).
• We have a WeBoost 4G/5G cell phone booster with their Reach booster (faster than their previous X booster) and the upgraded interior wall-mounted antenna (the small desktop antenna only works when a cell phone is adjacent). This combination can be purchased in a Drive Reach Extreme RV kit.
• Wineguard Connect 2.0 WiFi booster is used when there is high-speed WiFi nearby. If there isn't fast WiFi nearby, we can connect the Wineguard to our 4G/5G smartphones (my 5G phone has 100GB of hotspot data per month).
• We recently purchased an Inseego 5G MiFi M2000 with a Sprint/T-Mobile 100GB/month plan. If there isn't nearby WiFi, we now connect directly to the MiFi, which has basic router capabilities. Plus, we can establish a VPN link from our View directly to the router at our house.

For video streaming - while our 32" Samsung 4K smart TV has built-in streaming apps, I will frequently use screen mirroring from my phone and streaming using a smartphone app instead of the TV's apps. Because our plan provides unlimited data - using the smarphone app doesn't count against our monthly hotspot limits.

We're usually able to get HD and sometimes UHD streaming quality video whereever we go. Though we did stay at a park in Phoenix late last year where they didn't have WiFi and cell phone service was spotty - and we dropped back to playing videos we had stored on local devices, than trying to stream.

[creativepart]

Originally Posted by 37NG

Anyone use Apple TV to the stock TV via WiFi hotspot (Visible or otherwise) directly from phone or via a WiFi router? If you use this type of a setup does it outperform available WiFi at various campgrounds and negate the need for any kind of WiFi booster setup? I like the idea of a router so multiple devices can hookup via the hotspot simultaneously

We have Roku devices on our RV’s TVs and use both an ATT MiFi and a Verizon Jetpack to provide internet to our devices.

To answer your question... YES in about 95% of the time these out perform campground WiFi.

There are not really WiFi “boosters” only range extenders and extending the range of poorly performing WiFi doesn’t help one bit. Cellular boosters are similar, but can be a help in a few instances. We have a WeBoost Drive 4G-X cell booster and it helps about 30-40% of the time.

We have a WiFi Ranger “booster” as well. The router that comes with the WiFi ranger is a must have for us, but the rooftop antenna “booster” is really of no help at all. We leave it off 99% of the time.

I have both ATT and Verizon so that we have good access everywhere. We stream 100% of our TV and this works well for us. We were lucky to get totally unlimited data plans 4 years ago that cannot be purchased now.

[37NG]

Originally Posted by creativepart

We have Roku devices on our RV’s TVs and use both an ATT MiFi and a Verizon Jetpack to provide internet to our devices.

To answer your question... YES in about 95% of the time these out perform campground WiFi.

There are not really WiFi “boosters” only range extenders and extending the range of poorly performing WiFi doesn’t help one bit. Cellular boosters are similar, but can be a help in a few instances. We have a WeBoost Drive 4G-X cell booster and it helps about 30-40% of the time.

We have a WiFi Ranger “booster” as well. The router that comes with the WiFi ranger is a must have for us, but the rooftop antenna “booster” is really of no help at all. We leave it off 99% of the time.

I have both ATT and Verizon so that we have good access everywhere. We stream 100% of our TV and this works well for us. We were lucky to get totally unlimited data plans 4 years ago that cannot be purchased now.

I see that Verizon limits the amount of hotspot shared data to 15 or 30GB month. However if you have an Apple TV and use an iPhone you can screen mirror wirelessly with the same data limits as your phone plan, and can keep it on a charger as opposed to the lightning to HDMI option

[RVwithDogs]

i was talking with the owner of a RV Camp we spend time at about their slow internet, she jokingly said if you even think about streaming on us we will throw you out! (just a few users streaming on a small network can bring it to a crawl for everyone). She said its all about money, to provide enough bandwidth for 100 people to be streaming they would have to invest thousands to provide that kind of service. Glad I had my phone to fall back on.

[Carolinagurl]

I’ve been looking at a Pepwave router which holds 2 SIM cards. I’m also considering a roof mounted Puma omni-directional antenna which is connected to the router. Then, I’ll need to add a data plan with enough GB’s to stream TV, peruse the internet and do a little work. Does anyone have any tips on mounting an antenna to their roof?

[gurroz]

Originally Posted by Topsail

Creativepart, would you expound on this a little more. It doesn't sound as though Verizon throttles this after reaching a plan limit. Also, why isn't this offered with their jet pack? We have an older jet pack and liked it but didn't use it much at the time so we cancelled that service.

What could be any limitations with using this? Distance etc... Thanks in advance. We are going to lose our high speed wifi soon when we leave our homestead (selling our house). I need a crash course in this and it's such a big topic. I just pointers since I don't have time to study this subject. I can at a later date, but need a simple solution now. We stream tv and seem to be news junkies, plus I'm all over YouTube when I have to make repairs!

We travel 5 months per year. Last year we used our Verizon phones and our SureCall cell booster. The cell booster generally adds about 1 extra bar. It can be the difference between having usable service. The killer for us was data usage. We had to call and increase our usage to unlimited which gets expensive. Enter Visible! When we returned in October I began researching phone services with Mobile Internet Resources on YouTube. They recommended Visible a Verizon subsidory. They offer unlimited calling, text, and data for $40 per month with no throttling. You can reduce it by $5 per month by adding additional lines up to 4 lines or $25 per phone per month. We have been using our Visible phones since December 2020 and have noticed no difference other than cost. When travelling we use a firestick on the TV and use one phone for streaming. You are limited to one device for streaming so, one phone might stream the TV and the other phone might be streaming a laptop at the same time. We are now saving about $200 per month off our Verizon bill. We have considered picking up an AT&T hotspot for extra coverage.