We’ve come a long way since dial-up. Just five years ago, if you wanted to get Internet while RVing, you had to schlep your laptop up to the office and plug into the one phone cable. It was very slow, and you needed to limit your time so other guests could use it.
Now you have 3 choices for high-speed, wireless Internet access:
- Wi-Fi
- Satellite
- Cellular
We depend on our Datastorm Satellite Dish to give us Internet wherever we are. But we also use Wi-Fi when available, and we tether our cell phone to the computer when the other two methods are not available.
All three of these, when working well, will get you high-speed. Almost as good as the DSL or Cable you can get at home. What they won’t get you is unlimited high-speed like you can get at home. The satellite option has the most clearly regulated limit. It’s called ‘FAP’ and it stands for Fair Access Policy. You see, everyone with a satellite dish for Internet is sharing the satellites. The satellites I’m familiar with are owned by Hughes and Hughes takes care of managing everyone’s usage so no one customer takes more than their fair share of the bandwidth.
Getting ‘FAPPed’ means that Hughes has caught you going over your limit and they throttle your bandwidth down to just barely a trickle. You can still get online, but getting anything done is painfully slow. What is the limit? Well, it depends on your contract. Mine is for 350 megabytes/day. That’s a lot. Both Jim and I can do all our work with websites within that limit. But, if I decide to download a movie from, say, Movielink.com – that’s at least 2 gigabytes. No can do. If you want to understand more about it, you can watch the video: Bandwidth Limitations on Satellite Connections.
Cell phone companies who provide high-speed Internet either with an aircard, or with a tethered cellular device (phone or pda) also have limitations. According to Verizon’s broadband plan, $59.99/month gets you 5 gigabytes of bandwidth. If you go over, you’ll be charged .49 for every extra megabyte. 5 gigabytes is a lot. But, if you watch online videos, and especially if you share the connection with your spouse or others, you could certainly go over. Up until recently, Sprint’s broadband plan was truly unlimited, but that is changing. Make sure to read the small print! Verizon has a page which gives examples of browsing activities and corresponding bandwidth. And, if you need to brush up on the megabyte/gigabyte math basics, here is a Geeks On Tour newsletter – the last article is a beginner tutorial on byte measurements.
I left Wi-Fi for last because every Wi-Fi hotspot is different. You never really know what you’re going to get. Although equipment for a Wi-Fi hotspot often has the capability to limit bandwidth to individual users, it is rarely used – especially in RV parks. The amount you can use depends on how considerate you are of others. A hotspot is a shared connection. If there are a lot of people using it heavily, everyone suffers. Think of an old telephone party line. You would get pretty angry if one person was hogging it all the time. Same thing with Wi-Fi, it’s just harder to identify the culprit. Then again, if there are only a few people in the park and the Internet source is a nice fast connection, go ahead and download that movie. You could brush up on the original Andromeda Strain before going to see the new one!
Chris Guld
www.GeeksOnTour.com