The great WIFi fantasy is not going to happen people

[TheLexx]

I don't bother streaming video in the RV. I've got several portable hard drives that I have more media on that I have time to watch. I play the media using an android box.

For internet, we've been tethering our cell phones or we just use the cell phones themselves.

I'm thinking of getting a cellular router and an external antenna because the kids are now engaged in distance learning via Google Classroom. They all get online with their teacher as part of the class.

The two routers I'm looking at are:

1) MoFi 4500 http://mofinetwork.com/index.php?mai...20and%20speed.

2) Pepwave Max BR1 Mk2 https://5gstore.com/product/7865_pep...x_br1_mk2.html

I can get an unlimited data plan from eBay for any of the 3 major carriers. I figure so long as we plan ahead of time, I can check out the coverage with cellmapper.net to get an idea of what kind of signal will be available at the campground. We don't boondock in really out of the way places, so AT&T and VZW should have decent coverage for the places we're likely to visit.

[orbiker]

If you have unlimited tethered internet you are golden. All you will need is a Firestick or Roku (my preference) to plug into an HDMI port. Set your phone up as a hot spot and use the Roku to connect to it.

I think I figured out how to tether to a TP Link and use the TP Link for a hotspot. KEN

[SF-SGM]

Ok just to have a place for people to see it in a single thread. I have read this question across multiple RV forums so as a Network Engineer let me try to explain why the fantasy of streaming zoom meetings and distance learning is a pipe dream.

First off there is no real advantage of a campground or RV resort to provide you with free or even reasonable Internet services. This is because the cost to do so properly is more than 90% of you will want to pay, and it is a support nightmare.

The next issue is, rarely are RV parks in populated areas of highly available bandwidth. This causes the cost to get it to the RV resort to increase... and here comes that high price again.

Ok next issue is client density... Each RV and each device add to the density number. This matters because we are dividing up that Bandwidth per device. You face this problem today with home internet in large neighborhoods that have a lot of people using the services. That is why you can have a crappy internet connection for $30-$40 A month but they always want to sell you the $100 month connection to solve your streaming issues. Keep in mind that it cost less to solve those issues in a neighborhood because the infrastructure hardware to deliver the service is spread out between hundreds of homes and is subsidized by that cute little Federal fee we pay for ever phone/cell line we have each month. ( the RV parks has no benefit from the subsidies so they pay for the hardware).

Next issue is RVs may or may not be good at receiving a signal through their walls and without specific Hardware/ Antenna they can reduce signal.

Ok what about cell signal? Cell networks are design to deliver a basic signal to the 70th percentile of users. basic means text message and a phone call. Most cell services limit the internet bandwidth you can consume after a certain consumption threshold. Read the fine print. unlimited bandwidth does not mean 100% throughput, it means they will let you use all you want to consume no matter how slow or unusable it is.

Availability of bandwidth vs ability to stream or distance learning. I am sure you have all had an issue where you had 4 bars of service and still could not connect to the internet. This is common in big cities where over subscription is the standard practice. FYI 5G will make this worse in the short term. More people connected to the cell service than the Hardware can service.

How about Satellite Internet? This is the only real solution but if you have priced it, you will understand that it’s going to REALLY cost you and it comes with caveats. First problem is latency, the time the signal takes to go up and back is roughly 2500 milliseconds. That is a lot if you are trying to interact with someone else in a distance learning or zoom meeting. Also unlike your home cable internet you pay for every bit/bite of data that crosses the network. In the end this is the only solution you can rely on.... opps forgot to mention that rain/snow/dust/the northern light or the pretty trees overhead stop the signal.

What can you do to make this better?
Forget about streaming Netflix or other service. Download movies and content to your mobile device before leaving home or stop at a local library and see if they let you attach and download. Use a chrome cast or Appletv type device to cast it to your TVs.
Look for distant learning apps that allow offline use. ( your school district’s are going to be the problem here as they are still trying to figure all this out and to support it on their limited bandwidth for the school ) or saddle up and do real home schooling out of a book as it is the only reasonable option today.

The fantasy of living on the road and teaching the kids from the iconic RV park at the beach is never going to happen and in the end you are going to be elbow to elbow with your entire family and no place to run... add to it that the families on 4 sides of you are in the same boat and wellllll.... buy your wine by the case.

Way to many people did not understand this and RV sales went through the roof... next year you will not be able to get Mom Or Dad near an RV so be prepared for a significant price drop of as much as 50% of what you paid.

For The rest of you who will not take defeat... enjoy the wonderful world that is out there and be patient, because the crowds will fade and it will get easier to get a spot to camp.

Matt

And I will wait another year for just that reason. I got my current GD 337rls after the onwer had eye surgery and didn't feel comfortable pulling it anymore. He and his wife made four trips in it. I'm not shy about letting others fix the problems all new units come with and suck down the depreciation.

Yes. there will soon be a huge glut on the market.

[morttt]

Some more info about Starlink since there were questions. I personally can't wait for the Monopoly/Duopoly of Internet to be broken.

Today's Satellite internet goes to geo-stationary satellites that are 22,236 miles above the equator (Note for scale: Diameter of the earth is 7917 miles). That's *really* far away, but that's what's needed (thanks, orbital mechanics) to get the satellite to orbit the earth at the same rate the earth spins (1x/24 hours).

The closer a satellite is to the earth, the faster it orbits. The International Space Station orbits at an altitude of 254 miles (no typo there - two hundred fifty-four miles vs. 22 *thousand* miles). And it orbits the earth about once every 90 minutes.

Starlink is going to be a constellation of *thousands* of satellites orbiting (mostly) at an altitude of 340 miles. Orbiting about every 95 minutes.

To answer the question then about reception - think about the Hughes satellites over the equator. They are off the coast of Ecuador in South america (90-110W longitude). They are very high up there, but still quite a bit south of us - that means trees get in the way, especially at northern latitudes, because you're looking low in the sky to find the satellite.
Also - you have to poitn your dish at the satellite because it doesn't move, but you do (or have an automatic device to do so).

All that changes with Starlink. Now we have a constellation of thousands of satellites orbiting the earth every 90 minutes. There's *always* one DIRECTLY overhead. When it moves out of the way, another one comes in. They keep themselves distanced and spaced apart automatically. And they are 340 miles away instead of 22,000 miles away.

The prototype leaked images of the receiver dish look like a dinner plate on a stick, and it won't matter which way you point it because it will always be pointed at or near a satellite. Probably multiple. And the signal will be strong and latency low because its so close.

Also, they won't care where you are for any technical reason. DirecTV does beacause to save bandwidth they use spot beams - your local networks are only beamed down to your local area - then they can use those same frequencies to beam another market's stations to them. With Starlink, its all the same - you connect to whatever satellite happens to be overhead, not the specific signals that are coming to you based on your location. Now, they may limit your reception for geo-political or legal reasons - your receiver may be programmed to not work in countries that haven't approved use of the frequencies, but that's not a technical reason, that's them covering their a**.

So why hasn't anyone done this before? Becasue you need So. Many. Satellites.

Already launched in orbit: 715 satellites
Approved by the FCC: 12,000 satellites
Spectrum available: 42,000 Satellites

Again, for reference, there are currently 2,666 satellites in orbit. Total.

Nobody can afford to launch 42,000 satellites....well, unless you are already a re-usable rocket company...

This is truly a game changer for so many people, the least important of which is RVers, but whom will certainly be taking advantage of it....And I learned a long time ago not to doubt Mr. Musk. He proves us wrong time and time again.

Hope this helps somebody out there. fingers crossed it all goes well and becomes available to common folk in lower latitudes soon!

[bertschb]

...And I learned a long time ago not to doubt Mr. Musk. He proves us wrong time and time again.

I'm all in for Starlink when it becomes available. But, I disagree about Mr Musk when it comes to his dream of colonizing Mars. Will we send people to Mars some day? Yes. Will we colonize it? No way. Don't get me wrong. I'm really glad he's obsessed with colonizing Mars. I hope to see people walk on Mars in my lifetime and there is a very good chance I will as a direct result of Musk's dream. But walking on Mars and having thousands of people living there are two entirely different things. He's planning on launching 3 ships a day to Mars. 100 people per ship. 1,000 flights per year! Yeah...not gonna happen. Mars in an incredibly inhospitable place.

Either way....

Go Starlink!!

[morttt]

I hear you. That one seems far out... but TBH, so did 42,000 satellites a few years ago. So did an iPhone 14 years ago. And i saw the starship prototype fly last week...so who am I to say?

though i think you can only launch for Mars once every 2 years (there were 3 missions this summer). So, not quite 1,000 flights per year every year, and let's start with one.

And some better internet for my RV.

[bertschb]

... i think you can only launch for Mars once every 2 years (there were 3 missions this summer). So, not quite 1,000 flights per year every year

Musk is the one that claimed 1,000 flights a year with 100 people per flight. You are correct that flights to Mars and done when the Earth and Mars are nearest each other in their orbits.

I'm a space flight junkie and have been my whole life. I still watch every SpaceX launch and probably always will - well unless Musk is launching 1,000/year :-) I never get tired watching the 1st stage land. I still can't believe they can do it even though I've watched it dozens of times now.

The Starlink constellation will grow pretty fast. There are three flights planned this month. 60 satellites per launch. The FCC has granted SpaceX the licenses for their xx,000 satellites but they have to be lunched within a few years. I think around 5 or 6 years? They have a very busy launch schedule for non-Starlink flights so they will need to dramatically increase Starlink launches to meet the FCC requirements. Even if they launch once a week that's "only" about 3,000 satellites per year.

[[email protected]]

Ok just to have a place for people to see it in a single thread. I have read this question across multiple RV forums so as a Network Engineer let me try to explain why the fantasy of streaming zoom meetings and distance learning is a pipe dream.

First off there is no real advantage of a campground or RV resort to provide you with free or even reasonable Internet services. This is because the cost to do so properly is more than 90% of you will want to pay, and it is a support nightmare.

The next issue is, rarely are RV parks in populated areas of highly available bandwidth. This causes the cost to get it to the RV resort to increase... and here comes that high price again.

Ok next issue is client density... Each RV and each device add to the density number. This matters because we are dividing up that Bandwidth per device. You face this problem today with home internet in large neighborhoods that have a lot of people using the services. That is why you can have a crappy internet connection for $30-$40 A month but they always want to sell you the $100 month connection to solve your streaming issues. Keep in mind that it cost less to solve those issues in a neighborhood because the infrastructure hardware to deliver the service is spread out between hundreds of homes and is subsidized by that cute little Federal fee we pay for ever phone/cell line we have each month. ( the RV parks has no benefit from the subsidies so they pay for the hardware).

Next issue is RVs may or may not be good at receiving a signal through their walls and without specific Hardware/ Antenna they can reduce signal.

Ok what about cell signal? Cell networks are design to deliver a basic signal to the 70th percentile of users. basic means text message and a phone call. Most cell services limit the internet bandwidth you can consume after a certain consumption threshold. Read the fine print. unlimited bandwidth does not mean 100% throughput, it means they will let you use all you want to consume no matter how slow or unusable it is.

Availability of bandwidth vs ability to stream or distance learning. I am sure you have all had an issue where you had 4 bars of service and still could not connect to the internet. This is common in big cities where over subscription is the standard practice. FYI 5G will make this worse in the short term. More people connected to the cell service than the Hardware can service.

How about Satellite Internet? This is the only real solution but if you have priced it, you will understand that it’s going to REALLY cost you and it comes with caveats. First problem is latency, the time the signal takes to go up and back is roughly 2500 milliseconds. That is a lot if you are trying to interact with someone else in a distance learning or zoom meeting. Also unlike your home cable internet you pay for every bit/bite of data that crosses the network. In the end this is the only solution you can rely on.... opps forgot to mention that rain/snow/dust/the northern light or the pretty trees overhead stop the signal.

What can you do to make this better?
Forget about streaming Netflix or other service. Download movies and content to your mobile device before leaving home or stop at a local library and see if they let you attach and download. Use a chrome cast or Appletv type device to cast it to your TVs.
Look for distant learning apps that allow offline use. ( your school district’s are going to be the problem here as they are still trying to figure all this out and to support it on their limited bandwidth for the school ) or saddle up and do real home schooling out of a book as it is the only reasonable option today.

The fantasy of living on the road and teaching the kids from the iconic RV park at the beach is never going to happen and in the end you are going to be elbow to elbow with your entire family and no place to run... add to it that the families on 4 sides of you are in the same boat and wellllll.... buy your wine by the case.

Way to many people did not understand this and RV sales went through the roof... next year you will not be able to get Mom Or Dad near an RV so be prepared for a significant price drop of as much as 50% of what you paid.

For The rest of you who will not take defeat... enjoy the wonderful world that is out there and be patient, because the crowds will fade and it will get easier to get a spot to camp.

Matt

Thank you, I am an engineer, as well!! I've been trying to explain this for years. I live in Colorado and boondock frequently. I go early and have pretty good service until others come near and begin to use the service. We have a strong LTE signal and no internet, when allot of people show up. I've include a link to a Sat system that I think would work. WOW, what a price to pay!!

https://satellitephonestore.com/cata...issionlink-350

[RonH1031]

The Starlink constellation will grow pretty fast. There are three flights planned this month. 60 satellites per launch. The FCC has granted SpaceX the licenses for their xx,000 satellites but they have to be lunched within a few years. I think around 5 or 6 years? They have a very busy launch schedule for non-Starlink flights so they will need to dramatically increase Starlink launches to meet the FCC requirements. Even if they launch once a week that's "only" about 3,000 satellites per year.

And, try this on for size...once Starship becomes operational, the number of Starlink satellites per launch increases to 400. That will grow the constellation in a big hurry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink

[Jstmatt]

There are a lot of future possibilities, some people seem to miss the point of this thread. I am not saying you cannot get the WiFi ever... I am saying it is a lot less possible depending on where you are. Getting a reservation near the ocean or other high traffic spots is getting VERY hard to do, thus pushing the limits of signal and technology. For those of use that ride the adventure and peace of this lifestyle... we are less likely to care about the Internet or TV... give me a star filled night, a glass of wine and fellow adventurer and I am happy.