We’ve said it before, … and I’ll say it again, If you really *need* the Internet, you need more than one way to connect. On the road, that means wireless, and there are 3 ways – Wi-Fi, Cellular, and Satellite. See our video on High Speed Internet on the Road: 3 Ways to Connect.
We’re at a hotel in San Jose, California at the moment, and we’re using the in-room Wi-Fi … at $12.95/day! But, just now I tried to use the Wi-Fi and, even though I connected fine, there was no Internet. So, I used the Ethernet cable and plugged it into the wall connection for ‘Network.’ All is well. Wired is always better than wireless if you have that option.
You may be wondering why we’re in a hotel in San Jose? This is where Google headquarters are, and they invited us to be on a panel to discuss customer support issues. We will also be co-hosting a Webinar (seminar on the web) on Picasa. If you take digital photos – we highly recommend using Picasa, a free program from Google. Please join us for this free webinar on Friday, November 13 at 10am Pacific time.
Wired is Better than Wireless – usually
We are spending the winter season at our home park, Paradise Island RV Resort. There is WiFi here, and it is pretty good right now. But as more “snow birds” flock to the park and connect, the bandwidth and speeds do suffer. And a single infected computer can really bring things to a crawl.
We have the option of a wired connection here because there are phone connections at all the sites. I called AT&T and had our site set up with high-speed DSL for the months we will be here. They have a month-to-monthplan where you can get only data if you do not need a voice line and pay $47/mo for the highest speed. That is perfect for us, because we use our Verizon cell phones and Google Voice.
We were very happy with the speeds on our DSL connection until the DSL stopped working Friday. Tech support determined the line was bad and a tech would be out in the morning.
Back to Wireless
To get work done, I connected to the WiFi. It worked pretty good, but it wasn’t as fast as our dedicated DSL
The tech didn’t make it in the morning, but he did call and said he would be out at 2pm. He was here promptly at 2 and traced the problem to 2600 feet from our site. He found the problem, connected me back up, and we were back in business!
I sure hope that doesn’t happen again. But we are prepared. If the DSL goes down, I’ll connect to the park WiFi. If that is not good enough, I’ll turn on the Verizon Cellular Broadband.
What will we do next year when we are traveling out west? Cellular and WiFi is not always available. We will probably need to upgrade our MotoSat DataStorm satellite Internet system because we Gotta Have Internet!