Hotspot confusion

[CharlesMoore]

If you are researching hotspot system the first place I would start is https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/. They have so many videos on what to chose and what are the currently the best systems for various needs. These videos are free for you to view.

In this thread I have found a lot of good information but is conflicting so, in the end, you will have to make a decision that fits your online style and budget. We are with Verizon and have been so for the past 8 years. We have very few complaints with Verizon except they do not do a good job about meeting excessive peak bandwidth demands for
RV Parks that totally trunk out the system, e.g. Rainbows End and Rainbow Plantation Escapees. These two parks have internet access that slows to a crawl but we can almost always stream Netflix. We use a huge amount of data each month streaming videos.


I would check out Visible (by Verizon ). You are limited to 5mbps down but you can stream Netflix and it is unlimited data for $40/month. T-Mobile has some attractive plans right now ( see the link above for details). ATT is starting to have some attractive plans too. Do not get too caught up in 5G unless you are close in Urban where they are deploying the infrastructure.


We have a WeBoost signal amplifier but rarely do we need to deploy it to get high speed data. Check out the link above (Mobile Internet Resource Center) for info on MIMO info into MiFi and Cellular Phone hotspots. WeBoost is not MIMO so you get one antenna, whereas, MiFi and Cellular hotspots is MIMO and have 4 antennas or more.

This is a very complex subject and most service provider tier 1 sales/ techncians cannot prove reliable decision making information. Cheers & best to you.

[Mashmaster]

For the record, I have been researching and watching the videos from rvmobileinternet.com

Yeah, I have been looking at Vision along with others.

[CharlesMoore]

Originally Posted by Mashmaster

For the record, I have been researching and watching the videos from rvmobileinternet.com

Yeah, I have been looking at Vision along with others.

VISIBLE....


https://www.tomsguide.com/us/visible...view-6036.html


https://clark.com/cell-phones/visible-review/

[CharlesMoore]

Here is a video I came across this AM. Consider it as informational and not for the product to purchase. This company has a dozen or so videos and if you wade through them there is something to be learned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7H5vLWb68o

[ConnoClan]

We bought the mifi and streamed TV for the kids for our trip. We bought the unlimited plan and they slowed our data WAY down once we blew through the 15GB. For our return trip I downloaded movies and am casting from the ipad to the Roku. When we stop I will have to see how much data we used. The 3 kids all have iPads and if I had to do it again, I would get the ones that are cellular enabled and get them their own accounts for $10/mo. My MiFi is $20/mo. I have ATT wifi in my car and we are used to just using that for car trips with no problems. We are also newbies to the RV world.

[creativepart]

Originally Posted by ConnoClan

When we stop I will have to see how much data we used.

We use about 3-4 gigs every day and on 6-week trips usually see around 300gigs. It's just the two of us, but two iPhones, two iPads, one MacBook and two Roku streaming devices.

We were ever so lucky and got totally unlimited ATT and Verizon a number of years ago and pay less than $65 a month combined for both.

At this moment, if we lost these (HORROR!) we'd probably use Visible and NetBuddy. But it would never be as good.

[ConnoClan]

Originally Posted by ConnoClan

We bought the mifi and streamed TV for the kids for our trip. We bought the unlimited plan and they slowed our data WAY down once we blew through the 15GB. For our return trip I downloaded movies and am casting from the ipad to the Roku. When we stop I will have to see how much data we used. The 3 kids all have iPads and if I had to do it again, I would get the ones that are cellular enabled and get them their own accounts for $10/mo. My MiFi is $20/mo. I have ATT wifi in my car and we are used to just using that for car trips with no problems. We are also newbies to the RV world.

FORGET WHAT I SAID! Just casted 2 movies and we killed our 15GB 😠😭 good thong we have a lot of old DVDs. Now to find out how to put one in...

[Goodspike]

For people running up against carrier limits you can download content to your Amazon Fire tablet and then apparently cast it to a Amazon Fire Stick type device. I've never done the second part, but I do regularly download content before trips and plane rides (particularly before planes had so much entertainment on board).

https://www.support.com/how-to/how-t...e-tablet-12391

Amazon Fire tablets are incredibly cheap, and ironically they tend to last a long time. They are more than adequate for watching video and reading magazines.

If you're going to do this I would: (1) Get one with a higher level of storage; and (2) Wait for one of the many sales. You can use this site to set up an alert for a sale on the tablet you choose.

https://camelcamelcamel.com/

BTW, in case you don't have shore power or otherwise cannot fire up the TV, I'd recommend the 10" model and also picking up a cheap Bluetooth speaker system.

[Mashmaster]

I have a shield TV unit, I think I may just see if I can configure it to download movies and tv to an external hard drive for the trip and save streaming for only things that truly need to be live.