So one of the most common questions that we always hear is abouT Mobile internet and
staying connected while that you're on the road now we've done lots of different things over the
four years that we have been on the road lots of different options that are out there we're
gonna share with you what we have done but we're also gonna share with you something pretty cool
about Starlink which we have been testing out now for about the last four months
and there's a pretty new cool update so stay tuned so when we first started
rving about four years ago we really had no clue about internet and that we didn't even
really need our own internet on the road we just assumed that campgrounds had wi-fi
like most of your hotels would and that that would work for us and we found out very very quickly but
it doesn't cut it and that campground wi-fI is very unreliable and you need a better solution
so we started looking for what was the best option for us to be able to have to have internet on the
road so one of the first things that we did was we actually got a plan through Verizon
now part of the reason we went ahead and got a plan through Verizon is because our phone plans
are from Verizon we just felt like that was going to be a simpler way to go and so we have
this hot spot that has Verizon service on it but we found out over the years that sometimes there
are areas that Verizon doesn't have service and also because so many people are jumping onto the
Verizon bandwagon that the service can actually be a little bit congested and we've had some issues
as of late with speeds when it comes to Verizon and so we really decided we needed something that
was an alternative a backup especially because we actually had one of our hotspot units like this
that completely bit the dust and that left us in a lurch and so we knew we needed a backup in
case that anything happened to this so now in addition to our Verizon we also got a service
through T-Mobile now this is the router for our T-Mobile service and we absolutely love having
this we actually use this almost more as a primary now because T-Mobile has had great service for us
in all of the places that we've been in speeds with this in most places that we have been lately
have actually been faster than Verizon now here's something that's very interesting too we have
found areas that this works that no other carrier does so for example last summer we were in the
northern wisconsin area up by lake superior there is very little cell service that is up in that
area but T-Mobile had coverage and thank god that they did because we were able to stay connected
I was able to actually make phone calls with my cell phone over the wireless network to be able
to make some inquiries when we needed tires i wouldn't have been able to do that if it hadn't
been for this so this is through T-Mobile and we got this originally as a backup but we've almost
used it now more as a primary option now because we always want backups upon backups because we are
working remotely we do a ton of stuff online we also have this through a tnt now this is a pretty
inexpensive plan that we have through at t we do use this more as a backup because what we have
found is that in some of these areas where you don't have a strong signal through say Verizon
or T-Mobile sometimes there is a t and t so now having three different options Verizon a-t-n-t
and T-Mobile we pretty much have service anywhere that we go that there's a sell signal and if we
don't have service then it's just one of those that is a true dead zone because being in a
true dead zone doesn't exactly always sound appealing we wanted to be able to give this
a try now what this is is this is Starlink and Starlink was actually originally designed
to be able to bring connectivity and internet to those more remote areas where there hadn't been
connectivity in the past so we signed up for this actually almost a year ago and we finally received
our Starlink router and our Starlink satellite about four months ago and we have been testing
it ever since now part of the reason we've been testing this out is because we have wanted more
of an all-in-one solution versus trying to go with the three different carriers the three different
plans the three different routers this is a potential all-in-one solution but we do want to
also make you aware of an all-in-one solution that we have recently found through internet on the go
and I will put a link in the description below because internet on the go has actually made a
great offer for just our channel viewers where you can save 50 off of one of their routers using the
code glamper20. so all of that will be at the link in the description below but the nice thing about
internet on the go is that you can actually choose up to carriers so kind of like I talked about with
this Verizon where it can be congested in some areas or just not work very well in some areas
perfect example of that is in the Florida keys Verizon does not work very well but T-Mobile works
great so with internet on the go you can choose up to two carriers they have Verizon T-Mobile
or at t available you choose which two carriers that you want sim cards for they plug it into the
router they do all of the setup you literally take it out of the box and use it and you are ready to
go so that's a nice all-in-one solution that we have found that is out there that is available
on the market that we are personally recommending for people that come to us and ask us about that
all in one solution so one thing that I do want to mention about the solution from internet on the go
is that it does automatically switch between carriers so if you choose say Verizon and
T-Mobile for example as the carriers that you want to have for your particular router it will
automatically switch if you're in an area where Verizon service isn't available or the signal is
not strong it automatically switches over to that T-Mobile and vice versa so it's very very seamless
very very what I like to call dummy proof you can kind of set it and forget it put it in my machine
and you don't even really need to do the setup so much because they're doing that for you you
just put it where you want it and connect and go now Starlink if you've got it great if you don't
there's a couple of tricks of the trade that i'm going to share with you but first
I want to take a minute to thank the sponsor of today's video campgroundviews.com now we love
campgroundviews.com for planning our trips now to be able to use their virtual campground tours
to tour a campground before we actually book that site we've stayed at a lot of national
park campgrounds and state park campgrounds where once that we've actually arrived and checked into
the site that we have we realized oh my gosh that site over in that other part of the campground
that would have been a much nicer site than this one and it costs the same amount of money so with
campground views we can take those virtual tours we can see what the best sites are before we make
our selection in booking we have a link in the description below for campgroundviews.com with
a special discount for our viewers as well back to Starlink and some exciting updates that we
want to share with you so now Starlink wasn't originally designed to necessarily be a mobile
solution it was really designed more for people that lived in rural areas that hadn't had internet
before to be able to get internet service but lately we have found out some exciting things
which we're going to share with you so when we originally got our star link it took about
six months for us to be able to be eligible to receive it with service in the area where we put
our service address now a lot of people were able to kind of hack the system by changing their
service address to where they were going to be in their RV to be able to have Starlink work for them
in those specific areas now you have to understand the way that this system works is through ground
base stations communicating with satellites in the sky and so there has to be those types of dynamics
in a specific area that you're in to be able to get the signal to your little dish or the new ones
called dishI to receive that particular signal so there was this whole rigmarole of changing
service addresses every time that you moved hoping that there was going to be an open cell
within that particular geographical location to have service well we've been testing out our own
Starlink and an exciting new thing has come about and we've got an exciting new accessory now to
help out with Starlink on the RV that we're going to show you in just a few minutes as well but
what we have found is something called roaming now seems to have been enabled in the Starlink system
so basically what that means is we have been able to take our Starlink system with us away from
our home-based service address as we have been traveling set it up and get service without having
to make that address change now that is pretty exciting because in the past the only way to
be able to do that kind of an on-the-go form was to change the service address and you ran a risk
of then not coming back to an open cell with that service address that you had originally put in
the great news is is it's getting more and more improved and you have the ability now to take it
with you and set it up where you're at now one thing I want to make clear is that this is not
a actual on the go solution meaning you can't set up your Starlink satellite on the roof of your rv
and get service as you're actually driving down the road you have to be in a physical location not
moving to be able to get that particular service most of us don't necessarily you know jump on the
internet while we're on the road anyway so you can get an idea of where the Starlink service is
actually available by checking out the Starlink coverage map which they now have available
and we'll have a link in the description below to be able to check out that particular
coverage map now Starlink could be the all-in-one internet solution that we have been looking for
for quite a while but the jury is still out so we are still hanging on to our other forms of mobile
internet which we talked about earlier until that we have been able to prove this out more so you're
definitely going to want to hit that subscribe button if this is something that you're interested
in because we're going to keep you updated all summer long as we travel throughout the united
states and let you know where we have service and if we don't have service anywhere we'll be
bringing you those updates now I want to show you a really cool accessory that flagpole buddy just
sent us especially for the RV especially for the Starlink satellite and they actually make a pole
specifically with a Starlink mount to hold the dishy satellite now this is a great alternative to
what we had been doing and that was just setting our Starlink dish on the roof of the RV because we
happened to be in an area where there was quite a bit of wind and guess what yeah our dishy got
blown off the roof and thankfully it survived with no damage thanks was built very very well Starlink
however we don't necessarily need that to happen or want that to happen again so this particular
poll from flagpole buddy has been a great solution and we will have a link in the description below
for this specific poll now the other great thing too is that flagpole buddy actually makes
flagpoles and the install process for the brackets on the ladder was super simple ben did it within
like five minutes and our kids have actually been enjoying flying some of their favorite flags off
of the RV when we don't have Starlink set up so now if you are interested in getting a Starlink
system the best thing that you can do right now is to jump over to the Starlink website
and go ahead and sign up to be put on the waiting list now we've been getting feedback from a lot of
people that they're out until about 2023 but we've also heard that there are a few hacks so what we
have heard and we had a similar experience ourself last summer is that if you find a place where you
can put in a service address that shows available and put in a shipping address different than that
service address there's a good chance that you can get it sooner versus later now it's kind of hit
and miss kind of a guessing game and obviously you want to make sure that it is a legitimate address
that you can say is associated with you somehow so what we did last summer is we actually had a
relative in south dakota we were visiting for the summer we put in that address we could have gotten
it shipped to us that week but we wanted to wait till we got back to our home base and just didn't
want to mess with it all during those travels so some hacks that you can try if you're trying
to get it sooner than later it also does seem that Starlink has some sort of selection process
that nobody really knows what the criteria is Starlink kind of is not forthcoming with a lot
of information just because things are so new so that's where it's great to subscribe to channels
like ours to look at facebook groups lots of information that's out there that you just have
to find out by trial and error when it comes to using Starlink so if you'd like to learn a
little bit more about what Starlink is and how it works we did do a video a few weeks back and you
can take a look at that right up here don't forget to subscribe for future updates and more RV living
tips if we don't see you out on the road or around the campground we'll see you in the next video