Chucking it all and going mobile

[rubble express]

Hey guys. We (I) recently retired and are looking forward to getting away for extended periods. Not ready to give up the homestead, but the phone/internet situation needs serious attention. Presently we have our home phone/mobile smart phones(2), internet/WIFI bundled through Cincinnatti Bell for @$180 /month. We get a 10% discount on Direct TV through them which brings that to @ $86/mo for tier 2 service (no HBO, etc).

We've finally gotten all our normal bills to where we pay them online manually. That was a huge step! We're not techies by any means. And we're still in the "iffy" mode as to how this is going:-(

What we'd like is to chuck the whole thing and go totally mobile. Get 2 new smart phones and a tablet of some sort (instead of a laptop). Thinking Verizon or ATT. Not sure if we want to go Apple or stay with DROID's. Not sure where things are headed.

I know this has been discussed before ad nausium but things change so fast now days I just wanted to hear the latest thoughts.

Again, thanks for your input.

Barney.

[HamRad]

Barney,
We gave up our landline phones and cable TV systems about 10 years ago. To deal with television(DirecTV) and internet we first tried the Huges Net mobile system. Gave up the Huges Net when the cell phone system got large enough. We moved all our banking to the internet. We have all our recurring bills on an automatic payment system. Can't remember last time we had to write a check. We were very worried about the bill paying thing at first but time has shown that as long as you check things on an ongoing level you will have few to no problems. But it does take some getting used to.

We looked at ATT and a couple of other systems but ended up with Verizon.

You will need to look at where you expect to travel and see which company has the coverage and rates that fit your needs. We have two "droid" phones and two MacBooks. This system has worked well for us. We also have a Verizon internet card. But we will be dropping that system soon and just going with the internet connection available via our phones.

Just do a bit of research and go with what works for you. Enjoy, Dennis.

[mazboy]

verizon for phones/tablets

dish for tv...the reason i say dish is that they will probably be selling internet along with tv in a couple of years.

[Wild Horse]

verizon...2 droid cells, 1 mifi, 1 tablet, 1 sony internet tv ( so nice ) and 1 home connect plan, so our home phone literally travels with us. when droid plans are up, will drop at least 1. have dish net tv too.

[Mrs. CountryGuy]

Two cells, Sprint, cause that is what works at our stick built when we are there, cause Verizon won't. No house phone/land lines for a lot of years. Current phones iPhones. I had an older Windows phone, did not like it. Android is a good system, many love it.

Millenicom air card, month by month, Verizon wanna be, 20 gigs a month, and even I, the gig hunger munger with all the blogging and such do not exceed that. We rarely however do any video or live streaming stuff. I did some a year ago, and sucked down a nice hunk of that 20 gigs in 4 days. Ooops.. LOL

One Droid tablet - - CountryGuy has now. I did not like the touch of the Droid, nor the apps. IF you are going to use mainly for reading, the Droids are great and improving.

One iPad table - - MINE! Tee hee. I LOVE my Pad, love the touch, love the apps, they have apps that do what I want. I really really love my navigation app! WAHOOOOOO!

Each of us still has and always will have a laptop computer. There are many things I don't want to try to do on a tablet, even WITH an external keyboard.

The laptop is my workhorse, web site building/maintaining, blogging, photo editing, input into my data bases. I just don't do a lot of this with the iPad, although I probably could. I have one friend who does just about everything, including traveling for one month in Europe with it, and yes, she did input during that time. So, it can be done, IF you are willing to put the time into learning HOW to do it.

All bills that can be paid online are done so. Our Pest control people, for example, for the stick built, do not do internet. They get a phone call with a charge card number. Electric bill and many others, autopay.

Only satellite telie is when we travel and Al has the "TailGater" turned on.

Unplugged and loving it!

[steelpony5555]

We have 2 smart phones and a MIFI thru Verizon. Tried to go cheaper with like T=Mobile but did not get service in most places, it was worthless. So for the 2 smart phones, MIFI device and 2G of data we pay $164 a month. When we are on the road for a month or two I may have to bump up to the 4G of data. We don't do a lot of downloads like songs or video or Netflix so in most cases 2G is plenty, even with me on my smart phone all the time and the laptop when out lol lol.... We also have a Droid based tablet but only use it when in the vehicle going down the road or sitting on the beach or outside at the pinic table etc because of the battery time which lasts a lot longer then the laptops. But when in the rig or at home we use our laptops, it's just easier to me to type and see the bigger screen. I should say in our S&B we still have cable TV and internet cause we have a really good deal with them for now.

[racerjoe]

also if you want,you can use your home phone number for your cell phone now. It's nice if you have had the same number forever and your friends and family know it from memory

[DQDick]

We have two cells, an iPad, and an IMac and we use Verizon for everything with a WIFI device. We chose Verizon because the have the best coverage in the most outback locations. For instance where we are now for the winter, Boyce Thompson Arboretum only those of us with Verizon have service.

[grampachet]

There is an app for iPad, ipad mini and iPhone that gives you a fast great web browser and the ability to have flash on your i products. I am using this now it is called "Puffin" check it out.

[DonandBonnie]

Our last stick house wasn't even wired for land line telephone. We've used Verizon cell service for the last 15 years with no problem. We started with Hughesnet internet. Had nothing but problems with them and found that using their service on the Montana was somewhere between very difficult and impossible. We now have a Verizon MiFi which can simultaneously permit the use of up to 5 computers. TV has been DirectTV. When we sold the stick house we took the box with us and when we moved into the Montana had them come out and set us up with a dish. Our first try pointing the dish took quite some time, now it's only a couple minutes.

[DonandBonnie]

We also have done our bills and banking on line for several years. It sure beats lost checks in the mail. We bank at a credit union that belongs to a sharing service between credit unions. As we travel we can do a search for participating credit unions and can use the local credit union as though it was a branch of our own.

[Mrs. CountryGuy]

Our bank now offers scanning of deposits (checks) via a iPad, iPhone, etc. Download app, scan front and back, hit enter.

Don't even need to find the bank or ATM to deposit!

[8.1al]

Our bank also offers that and I just love it. We sometimes had to carry a check around for weeks before we found a bank.