If you think you're going to count on campground internet, you've got another thing coming.
If you are dreaming about taking your job on the road, whether that be RV life,
living in a schooly, van life whatever your mode of transportation.
Or if you're already living on the road, you're dealing with the frustrations of trying to connect
to the internet. This video is for you. This video is for you. We've been living in
our RV now for almost a year, and that means we visited over 70 campgrounds. I can count on one
hand the number of them that actually had Wi-Fi strong enough to support working remotely.
We work from two laptops practically full-time, we also have an iPad, we have two phones,
we have two Google home devices that we use to check the weather,
ask for news updates and such, a ring doorbell as well for security purposes and we also have two
TVs that are connected to Apple TVs. And even if you don't have Apple TVs, you're most likely using
smart TVs, which also pull some bandwidth. And bandwidth is the real struggle when you
are going to be living and working remotely on the road. So we took a look at how much do we actually
consume, because you need to figure that out when you're trying to find the solution that works for
you. If your internet usage is just basically checking some emails a couple hours a day,
and maybe streaming a movie once a week, you're not going to need the type of
internet that we need because we probably stream at least five hours of video a week watching TV.
Then we work typically five days a week, a minimum of eight hours a day. So normal bandwidth usage,
we probably have about 20 Zoom calls between the two of us in a standard week. And because
we run the YouTube channel from the RV as well, I'd probably upload, give or take maybe a 100
gigs a week. It's a lot.
So we have some serious internet usage here in our Airstream. We tried just about everything and we'd
love for you to get to learn from our mistakes and not deal with the hair pulling out that we did.
So step number one, when we moved into the Airstream, it came with what is called
Airstream connect. It's an AT&T system, has a router built into the Airstream and it actually
comes with a 100 gigs of free internet that you can use for an entire year.
Well problem, we use a 100 gigs in like a week. So we quickly went through that and decided it was
time to renew. Well, when we looked at the renewal rate, it was $300 for a 100 gigs for a month.
Ouch. Paying 3, 6, 9, $1,200 for internet on a basis
is insane. So we knew that that solution was not going to work for us long-term.
We had our two phones as backups, and they're both Horizon phones with 5G capabilities.
Each one of our phones came with 20 gigs available bandwidth to use for hotspots. Now you have to
remember, just because your phone has a 60 gig data plan doesn't mean that's what you get to use
for a hotspot. A lot of times when they give you 60 gigs, you're only typically getting 10 or 20
gigs to use for a hotspot. Let's just say we were buying a lot of extra bandwidth because after you
surpass at 20 gigs, they will either. Throttle.
Throttle the heck out of you. And you know what that's like? It's slower than 56K bandwidth, or
they charge you. And then you're buying on a per gig basis and that adds up very fast.
So we started looking for new solutions and the first place we reached out was on Airstream
addicts. We started talking to people on the internet and trying to figure out what was
working for other people who were working on the road. We met another wonderful Airstreamer
who also has a pretty intense job. He told us about a router that we would need to start.
And that router is called... The Pepwave Max Transit Duo. And the beauty
of this is that you're not reliant on any one network. So the beauty of this router is that it
comes with four SIM card slots. So you don't have to depend on one because as you probably know,
you might be in an area that has AT&T and Verizon sucks.
But I think it's important to note here for all of you non-techie people like me,
the router comes with four slots. True.
It doesn't come with any SIM cards. So when we purchased our router, it was about $1,500.
We knew that was a heavy investment, but it's a requirement for us to be
able to do our jobs. So it made sense. Now the cool thing is that the router
that we purchased is commercial grade. While there probably are more affordable solutions,
we didn't want to compromise when it came to purchasing a router.
And now that we know what we know today, we know the router is a little bit more than
what we actually need, but it gives us a lot of versatility for the future. So our friend who told
us about the router that we purchased, let us know that his work actually provided a Verizon card,
an AT&T card, a T-Mobile card and an emergency response card. The big benefit that he had
working for him that we didn't, is we're small business owners. We have small business, Verizon,
AT&T type accounts. On the other hand, he worked for a large corporation and they actually do get
preferential treatment. When we went into Verizon to look and see about getting SIM cards. Well,
that's when the problem started. They thought we were pretty much cuckoo. They
said, first off, why do you need a SIM card? You have one in your device. And we go, well, we're
going to load these SIM cards into a router so we need just a SIM card, and they go, that's not
how we operate here at the Verizon AT&T stores. You can't just walk in and buy a SIM card.
So after a couple of hours of working with them, they determined that probably the easiest way
to do it would be to give us two cards that were for iPads and just not put them in iPads.
They asked me to come back the next day, came back the next day, picked up the two SIM cards,
installed them in our router and... They didn't work. Turns out they only work
in mobile devices. And the second you load the two 60 gig SIM cards into your router, well,
Verizon didn't really like that, and they only gave us 20 gigs. That's right. So we went from
thinking that we had 60 gigs each to 20 gigs, probably not enough to do anything really.
Basic email use and Google searches, which granted we needed that too, but it wasn't enough for us to
continue our day-to-day business on the road. And I can promise you, there is nothing more
embarrassing than a client or a coworker coming online and being like, ah, really, truly, we love
getting to watch her YouTube channel, but you've got to get this internet thing figured out.
Let's give an example of what it was like to have a video call with us with that internet.
You ready? Exactly. Just like that. With a couple of [inaudible 00:07:20] and get stuck like that.
Can you hear me? That's how most of our calls were going.
It was so beyond frustrating. We couldn't get a solution directly from the carriers. We
had to find something or else we were no longer going to be able to live in the Airstream.
And we loved our life on the road. But between the Marriott, there's not always a Marriott somewhere
close to where we are when we're remote. And we had tried even going to coffee shops,
McDonald's et cetera. And from a standpoint of reliability for ensuring that you have a
quiet space to work and that the internet is going to be strong, it's just not reliable.
We had to have a solution that worked for us. I think that's probably a common solution for most
travelers, right? You go to a coffee shop, you may or may not have noise canceling headphones,
but you know what? It doesn't always work to filter out all the ambient noise you're
picking up around you. Dishes clanking, people talking loudly, moving chairs across the floor.
All of that comes up in your conversations with clients. And it's never good. When you're
having a Zoom call, especially if it's with perspective clients or an important meeting.
And not to mention the fact that their internet just simply isn't that reliable.
I had one workshop that I was doing digitally and I did it from a Starbucks. And I had this
moment where things just kept cutting out and I ended up rescheduling. It was mortifying.
That's true. Yeah. I had a podcast. I was trying to shoot from a coffee shop
and the guy goes, I think it's probably best if we reschedule. That's pretty embarrassing.
Since we couldn't figure out how to get SIM cards directly from the providers, we started
looking elsewhere. And of course, where else should we turn other than YouTube? So I watched
a lot of videos and I ran across a video from mountaintop adventures, and they told us about
a solution called Bix Wireless. And to be honest, as soon as I looked them up and saw their website,
I was like, okay, first, A, I know this is a local business, that's awesome. But B, I'm not really
sure how legit this place is. So we're just going to send an email and see if anybody responds.
When you're going outside of the main network carriers like Verizon AT&T, you just don't
know. And this really was the first time we'd ventured out beyond the major networks.
And we had heard some horror stories about unlimited cards that weren't really all that
unlimited. Bait, switch,
not unlimited. We've heard so many horror stories about those types of situations. And what we did
was we picked up the phone, we called Bix Wireless and Steve, the owner picked up.
And the cool thing about the whole experience was that first, Steve is also an RVer. So when
we started explaining what we were trying to do, he knew immediately what we were talking about,
where everybody else had treated us like we were kind of nutsos,
and then secondly, this was the very first conversation we had with someone who could
intelligently explain to us why the solutions we had so desperately tried, weren't working.
I mean, that was probably one of the biggest struggles, right? We're somewhat tech savvy,
but when it comes to the internet and bandwidth and all these available devices,
not really our forte. So the fact that Steve could explain things in a way that we could very easily
understand, because let's be real, I feel we represent all of you as well. We're not all IT
experts. And we just needed to understand what the available solutions were and how to fix it.
We started looking at the solutions that Bix Wireless has, there are multiple options. They
have an AT&T system, which is what we ended up going with. They have a Verizon system and they
have a T-Mobile system. And we've heard really good things actually about the T-Mobile system
because T-Mobile actually purchased Sprint and it's made them one of
the largest networks out there. The only downside, at least for us with
the Verizon and the T-Mobile solutions is that the carriers require you to use
a very specific router that's locked. So we couldn't use those solutions with the
router we had already made an investment in. So Steve let us know that because we already had
our router. It made the most sense for us to go with an AT&T solution. He also mentioned kind of
like our friend who told us about the router that you want to have multiple networks for
backup. And since we already had Verizon cell phones and those hotspots associated with them,
an AT&T solution as our core system made a lot of sense. It was a $15 activation
and they sent us an unlimited AT&T card, overnighted it to us so we had it the next day.
Legitimately, we had a card and we were up and running within 24 to 48 hours,
which is mind blowing. So as soon as we got the card,
we literally installed it into our router and called Steve, got them to activate it
and boom, we were up and running and with speed tests that were showing impressive rates.
That's true. When they say unlimited, they truly mean unlimited, unthrottled, full-fledged internet
the entire time. Now there are different packages of course, there's a 500 gig package, there's a
750 gig package, which is more than sufficient. For most people.
Exactly. I mean, that's a ton of data. We went with the unlimited because we're just data hogs
and we didn't want to ever have to worry about any throttling or hitting any limits
whatsoever. And we have been so happy with the solution, but because of our previous experiences
that were mostly all horrible, trying to connect to the internet.
We were skeptical. We were really, really skeptical. And we
wanted to make sure that this solution was going to last before we ever mentioned it to anybody
because we have YouTube channel. So we never want to represent brands that we don't believe in.
But now we've been working off the big solution for four months and we're still loving it.
And we've been using just the router this entire time. We don't have a Wi-Fi booster,
we don't have a cell booster, we have nothing but our router and that's it.
Granted what we decide in the future that we want to invest in one? Maybe. Are there times where we
run into places that don't have as strong of a signal and so therefore we don't get the as
fast upload and download speeds? 100%. But from a standpoint of it just working, it's been working.
So we really haven't spent the time to figure out what we needed, in addition to that.
If we ever decided to go with something new and it increases what we've already got
tenfold, we'll make sure to make a video about that and update you on it as well.
Now, here is the downside to the router that we have because we discussed a little bit
earlier that it may be somewhat overkill. It has four SIM card slots, which allows us
to leverage different networks. Versus your standard router, which
only has one SIM card solution. And just to be straight with you, we actually only use two of
those slots right now. And since we know that Verizon and T-Mobile require their own modem,
we can't even really create a backup solution with another unlimited card from Bix.
At least that's the way it is today. Now here's another downside to that router,
because we're just working the heck out of that rider. I mean, we're uploading constantly. It gets
hot. So we do not keep it in any of the cabinets. And if you have one like this you'll understand,
it can be hot to the touch. Sometimes it's so hot, we'll cool it with some ice packs or we make sure
we always keep it in a ventilated space. So that is probably one of the major downsides
to this multi-SIM card monster of a router. So in the description, we'll definitely leave
our link to our router, but we'll also show you what some of the similar ones would be
with fewer SIM cards, which is obviously going to decrease the price. And it's good to note,
of those two SIM cards, we still have one backup Verizon card directly from the carrier that we
kept from our initial conversations with them, just so that we would have a backup. Have we used
it? No. But we need redundancies because of how important our internet is for our work. So we keep
it in play because it's only 40 bucks a month. That's true. That's probably one of the things I
would recommend as well. If you have a multi-SIM card set up, you can set up those redundancies so
that if one of them fails, it automatically rolls to the other SIM card, which is great because like
we discussed a little earlier, sometimes you're in an area where AT&T reign supreme and sometimes
you're in an area where Horizon reign supreme. So you want to be able to leverage both networks.
But at the end of the day, it's all about creating an internet system that works for you, which is
what makes this whole thing way more complicated than we wish it was. And while you'll get
different answers from pretty much every single person who is living full-time on the road.
So what we would suggest is we're not internet experts. We're happy to answer your questions
as best as we can, but I would simply pick up the phone and call the Bix Wireless team because Steve
and his team really know what they're talking about and they can easily help you figure it out.
And the thing that I love about them is a family owned business at the end of the day.
You can tell that they really just want to make sure you get something that works for you. So if
it's not their solution, I'm very confident that they'll point you in a different direction.
And if you're like us and you've researched already, and you've seen the very intricate
RV solutions... When I saw all those RV solutions where everything was wired and hardwired in the
RV and cabinets and stuff like that, I thought to myself, I wouldn't even know where to start
with that. While it may not be the perfect solution, it definitely fits our needs.
There, you have it. The RV internet solution, we utilize to work remote full-time on the road,
but this is our story. We are not internet experts. So what we're going to do in the
coming weeks is we're actually going to bring Steve from Bix Wireless on to a YouTube live
so that he can simply answer your questions and speak to the more technical aspects of RV
internet and its complexities directly for you. So if you haven't already, go ahead, subscribe
to our channel, click the little bell so you'll get a notification of when we're doing that live
and also feel free to follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Wander Local, because we'll also be
making announcements about it then too. But until next week my friends,
make sure you get out there and wander local. Because you know, it's good for the soul.