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Old 05-18-2020, 01:01 PM   #1
Larry LeBeau
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Internet

Hello, going to take off a year and travel in our 35 Montana. What or how do I get to always have access to the internet. Larry
 
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Old 05-18-2020, 01:10 PM   #2
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We use Verizon and have worked for Fish and Wildlife in some remote locations and always had service.
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Old 05-18-2020, 01:12 PM   #3
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Will look into it thank you
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Old 05-18-2020, 01:14 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry LeBeau View Post
Hello, going to take off a year and travel in our 35 Montana. What or how do I get to always have access to the internet. Larry
To answer that question, we probably need to know a little bit more about "how" you use the internet, or more likely, how you plan to use the internet while travelling.

This is probably the most important question:
Do you expect to have everything available to you while traveling that you have have available to you now in your fixed location?

Other questions:
Do you just want to surf some occasional pages?
Do you want to stream TV/video?
What locations will you be in? Rural / City / Major City / mix?
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Old 05-18-2020, 01:15 PM   #5
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We use Verizon and have worked for Fish and Wildlife in some remote locations and always had service.
But, depending on the usage case, you may or may not need a hotspot device...
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Old 05-18-2020, 01:19 PM   #6
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We have dish so just watching regular TV is good. Using the laptop to surf websites while out boondocking is what we are after.. nothing special..
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Old 05-18-2020, 01:31 PM   #7
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We have dish so just watching regular TV is good. Using the laptop to surf websites while out boondocking is what we are after.. nothing special..
That's great information!

So, like Dick indicated, you should probably go with Verizon, but you should be able to just use a phone, and then use it as a hotspot when you want to surf the internet. I believe that the Verizon plans come with 15GB of data when used as a hotspot, and that's a LOT of just surfing. If you watch a lot of videos, you could run out, but for just general surfing, it will do well. Its a feature that you turn on on the phone, but then don't need to invest in and pay for another device.

Verizon has the rural areas blanketed better than any of the other major carriers, but their plans are not always the cheapest either.

Do you need help on how to activate hotspotting on a phone?
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Old 05-18-2020, 01:34 PM   #8
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We hot spot or tether straight through our cell phones. No need for an stand alone hot spot gadget.
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Old 05-18-2020, 01:37 PM   #9
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Yes I do but I would probably get the wife involved as well...thx
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Old 05-18-2020, 01:43 PM   #10
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Yes I do but I would probably get the wife involved as well...thx
No problem. Just reply to this thread when you have the phone that you want to hotspot / tether with, and I think we can figure it out.

The first step would probably be to go to a Verizon store, (don't know if any of those are open right now), and see what phones are out there. You're probably going to want to stay a little more mainstream with a phone, Apple iPhone, or on the Android side, Samsung Galaxy S10 (probably don't need a 5G model) or Google Pixel. Those phones might cost a little bit more, but they will have the features that will make starting and stopping hotspotting / tethering easier, and there are more people that have them, if you have issues, and need help...

Happy hunting!!!
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Old 05-18-2020, 03:17 PM   #11
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We use the hot spot on our phones. We are with AT&T and have an unlimited plan on 3 phones (with an unlimited price tag too!). We both work from home, but needed a secondary internet service, so we beefed up our phones. We use them for internet, streaming, and hot spot, as well as texting and phone service, plus a whole bunch more stuff. We are not full timers, but we use our camper full time at home and at play. Our phones hot spot work well for us. Granted, I didn't have phone reception about 500 feet under the earth when in one of the caves at Mamouth Cave, Kentucky, so the service is limited in some places. But, all of them have dead zones somewhere.

AT&T also has a mobile hot spot device that only does one thing, it provides a hot spot for internet connection. We had it for a while, and realized our phones do the same thing, and we canceled the separate service.

For us, this works. Actually, as I'm typing this post, I am at home and our house internet went dark (probably scheduled maintenance again). So, here we are, driveway camp, and flipped on my phone.
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Old 05-18-2020, 03:22 PM   #12
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I have a galaxy s8+ but with atnt....
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Old 05-18-2020, 05:51 PM   #13
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You can’t be assured you will have internet service. Verizon will probably come the closest but I’ve been places where the radio wouldn’t work and cell service don’t even think about it.
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Old 05-19-2020, 04:42 AM   #14
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and remember that many campgrounds have internet too.
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Old 05-19-2020, 05:49 AM   #15
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I work from home and sometimes from the road. Have hotspots from both ATT and Verizon. I go with prepaid plans. I enable them both when I have the grandkids. They get the one that is unlimited but throttled if tower gets busy.

With Win10 you can see how much data you use on your laptops currently and figure out what works best for you as far as data limits
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Old 05-19-2020, 06:22 AM   #16
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Originally Posted by mlh View Post
You can’t be assured you will have internet service. Verizon will probably come the closest but I’ve been places where the radio wouldn’t work and cell service don’t even think about it.
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and remember that many campgrounds have internet too.
These are both great points! If you're in the sticks, enjoy being in the sticks, and forget about the internet!

When you're at a campground (if you'll be at some), best to use their internet if you can. That saves on your data plan, in case you're using more than you expected.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry LeBeau View Post
I have a galaxy s8+ but with atnt....
You'll be good with that phone for hot spotting / tethering, so you don't necessarily need a new phone. If I were you, I'd see how I got along with AT&T, and go from there. That might mean that you won't be able to get internet at one of your stops, and when that happens, then you can go to a Verizon store, and either get a new phone, or just have your current phone moved to a Verizon plan. BUT, before you do that, you probably want to know if you're going to have coverage with Verizon there, and places you're going to in the future. As stated above, you might be in a dead zone, and there is no cellular service there...
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Old 05-19-2020, 07:15 AM   #17
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Going out in a few weeks and going to try my phone hotspot, I have a tech at work that walked me thru the process. Thx for all the quick reply's, will check back with results..
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Old 05-19-2020, 09:11 AM   #18
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Phones are ok to use as a mobile hot spot but will not give you a reliable and constant connection because of everything running in the background. A hot spot is the better choice. The Mobile Internet Resource Center is the best place to research devices and plans. They also have a new course to guide you to find the best options for you.


https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/
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Old 05-19-2020, 09:29 AM   #19
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Will look into that ,thx
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Old 05-19-2020, 10:23 AM   #20
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Phones are ok to use as a mobile hot spot but will not give you a reliable and constant connection because of everything running in the background. ...
Hummm... I'm not for sure that I agree with this. I don't know if this is a hold over from the original days of hotspotting phones, when it was a little more dicey, and you had to actually have programs that you installed on top of the phone to make it work. With today's "modern" phones, this is a feature that's built into the phone, and it's easy to turn on and off. We don't have "great" cell signal on our phones at our house, and recently when we lost our REAL hotspot which was supplying internet to our house, I used my phone as our hotspot to watch TV on, until I ran out of data (which didn't take very long). I didn't have any issues watching TV, or using my phone at the same time. I have a Pixel 3. I would expect other modern phones to provide the same experience, but can't swear to that.

We have used previous phones (Pixel 1's) as hotspots with no issues either.

I think a hotspot is a better choice, IF you're going to be pulling down copious amounts of data, like in the 100's of Gigs of data range. Otherwise, a modern (current) phone will do just fine. The phone isn't the limiting factor, the PLAN is the limiting factor. That's my opinion.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Route66Rambler View Post
... The Mobile Internet Resource Center is the best place to research devices and plans. They also have a new course to guide you to find the best options for you.


https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/
There is a LOT of good information on this website for sure, and I've been there, and used some of their information, but good gracious, it doesn't take 44 lessons to figure out mobile internet, or that much time to figure it out either!! Let alone $129 worth. I openly admit that I'm a cheapskate, and I have a hard time paying $129 for anything that I can figure out on my own, or with help from others. Again, my opinion, and others may have a different opinion...
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