Let's talk about a big question: how full-time RVers get an internet connection.
We've been on the road for just about four years now, and when we started
off I was working a full-time job remotely. That meant we had to have reliable internet connection,
which isn't always easy to do when you move around all the time. Cutting right to the chase, most
RVers get their internet access over a cellular connection. There are a couple of other options,
but we'll get to those a bit later. Getting a 4G or 5G data connection also comes with a ton
of different options. For starters we just used our cell phones. I had a Verizon unlimited plan,
and Kevin used a plan through Google Fi, which is a combination of T-Mobile and U.S. Cellular.
And I just used the tether function to get my laptop online. And that worked pretty well most
of the time. Any of the main three cell providers have nationwide coverage. But they don't have
coverage everywhere, and that's why it is a huge help to have access to more than one provider when
you need a really reliable connection. So when Christine's Verizon phone didn't have coverage,
oftentimes mine would. That isn't always the case though, so it's important to read campground
reviews ahead of time to make sure you'll have signal there. I really like Campendium.com
to check cell coverage at various campgrounds and boondocking locations. The maps that cell
providers give aren't always accurate, so it's nice to hear what other RVers' data speeds were.
You can also ask on various Facebook groups. And there are lots of campground reviews on YouTube
as well, though not all of those always give information on their data connection.
We also have a weBoost to boost our cell signal. This is an amplifier designed for cell signals.
It has an outdoor antenna and an indoor antenna, which is this one right here. The outdoor antenna
can be mounted to your ladder. But since we use ours in the front of our fifth wheel, I just run a
cable through our bedroom slide gasket and mount the external antenna to our front AC unit. The
indoor antenna picks up signals from your phone and sends it through the amplifier to the outdoor
antenna and works in reverse for incoming signals. It's been really helpful in some scenarios,
but it doesn't always do the job. To be fair, ours is an older model now because we've been on the
road for a while, and we got it in our first year. And I could always upgrade the antennas for it.
There have been a couple times when I had to work from a coffee shop. In our first year we
spent a week at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and really couldn't get a usable
signal. With the weBoost we could still send and receive text messages and that was about it.
So that same scenario happened again later that year at a Colorado state park near Steamboat
Springs. We also left a boondocking spot once to move to a campground closer to town
because we had so much work to do that week. If we had only needed a little bit of connectivity,
we probably could have stuck it out. Otherwise, my plan with Verizon was pretty good. In fact,
more often than not, when I needed to use Kevin's phone for work it wasn't actually because I didn't
have coverage. Instead it was because cell towers often get overloaded when too many others are on
the same network. This is actually really common. Then it can look like you have a great connection,
but nothing will work. Super frustrating. This was really common when we were wintering
over in Florida. We'd be at a big campground and Christine's Verizon phone was practically useless
for anything but just phone calls during the entire time that we stayed there. The nearby
tower was overloaded with all of the other people that were there. But thankfully my Google phone
would connect to a T-Mobile tower, and that would be our internet connection for the time that we
were there. Cell phones aren't the only way to get an internet connection though. Most cell phone
plans actually have a limited amount of data that you can use while tethering a device. So
even on unlimited plans we really had to watch our data usage otherwise we'd get throttled and our
speeds would go way down, sometimes to the point where the connection wouldn't even be usable.
Which is why we eventually added a 4G router with a real unlimited data plan through AT&T
that mounts to our roof. Our 4G router has easily been our best option to date. It also functions as
a Wi-Fi booster for when we're moochdocking on friends' or family property, kind of like we're
doing right now actually. It can pick up their home Wi-Fi even when our RV is parked quite a ways
away. So if you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to boost a regular Wi-Fi signal,
WiFiRanger is also a really good brand. We ended up with our current 4G router / Wi-Fi extender
because for a limited time a company called Togo was offering a roof mounted unit for $380 with an
entire year of unlimited data through AT&T for $360. It screwed into the roof, and Kevin had
to drill an extra hole to run a power cable. It was a killer deal. We couldn't pass it up,
and actually ended up being a little too good of a deal, and AT&T put a stop to it after a year
unfortunately. Yeah. So when that first year was up, we got another AT&T SIM card from
Nomad Internet which cost a lot more but also offered an unlimited data plan. Most
of the time it works pretty well, sometimes it can be kind of slow, but it still works
for what we need it to do. If I was buying another one today, I wouldn't recommend a roof
mounted one, mainly because it limits you to only being able to use it when you're near your RV.
So towing still works pretty well. Nowadays I'd really prefer a mobile router that has large
external antennas like a MoFi or something like a Jetpack MiFi that has the option to add one.
Recently we actually found ourselves in another campground for two weeks that had absolutely no
cell coverage at all. Sometimes, despite my best efforts to verify coverage beforehand,
connectivity doesn't always work out. I actually ended up taking our router off of the roof,
patching the holes, and making a separate power cord for it so that we could take
it with us in the truck when we don't have cell connection at our campsite.
It definitely isn't a perfect solution, but at least it works. It still gets the job done. 4G
connection speeds are never like regular home internet. RV park Wi-Fi is also notoriously bad
and unreliable. Though, there are some parks trying to change that, and we wish them luck. So
when it's free it almost never has enough bandwidth to do more than surf web pages, and
oftentimes when you pay for access that promises better bandwidth, it still doesn't deliver.
Starlink is probably the most exciting new internet option out there. If you haven't heard
of it, it's an unlimited data satellite connection from SpaceX. Satellite internet has been around
for a while through other companies, but it's usually really expensive for not very much data.
As of the time of this video, they don't actually have an option for RVers per se, but there are
people using it by changing their quote-unquote home address to wherever they happen to be going,
and it seems to be working out pretty well for them. And we're hoping an RVer version is on its
way. The internet speeds are a lot better than a cellular network, but we've heard it still has
a couple of other issues. Yeah, I've heard the signal can drop out as it reacquires satellites
as they pass over you. But probably the main thing that gives me a little bit of pause
is always needing to have an unobstructed view of the sky to use it. Not that 4G routers don't
have their issues because they certainly do, but I definitely have never had to worry about
having trees obstruct my southern view of the sky before. That wouldn't be an issue at all in a lot
of places. Actually it would have been perfect for all the boondocking we've done in the last year
in the southwest. It really wasn't until we came up to the northwest that the trees have
really blocked our view of the sky at times. But we actually have not tried Starlink ourselves.
It would be especially nice for heading out into some of the more remote areas where
there's definitely no chance of getting a cell signal at all. This is definitely on my list of
things I would really like to try at some point. So that's where we are on the internet connection
front. With an unlimited data SIM card in our router and our phones as our backups,
we manage to stay connected 99% of the time. We hope that this is useful for you, and if you liked
this video please hit that thumbs up button and subscribe for more. See you all next time. Bye.