Using tow vehicle wifi hotspot for camper

[JKellerJr]

It’s a 2015, and yes, I pay the same as you as you’re correct you do need both. JKellerJr, it’s not cellular, it’s satellite through o star. I have no phone in my truck and on star told me it’s satellite.

Not sure what Onstar was trying to say but its not satellite. Doesn't matter if you have a separate phone or not. Onstar itself is a cellular phone that runs off At&t's network. When you push that blue button its a cellular call to onstar's call center. The only thing Onstar has to do with satellite is GPS location. To the best of my knowledge there is no mobile satellite internet system in the wild, at least at the normal consumer level. Starlink is working on it but its not available yet.


https://www.onstar.com/us/en/support/4glte/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnStar

[AmeliaKD]

Hi, I tried the same idea, using my GMC Sierra 2020 wifi as my traveling hotspot ($200 for a year unlimited). I love having it when we drive as my hubby prefers to drive so I work on my laptop all the time, but it didn't work out as a solution when not driving. I will say it has gotten the STRONGEST signal of all of my devices - phone, mofi, weboost. When all of them get No Service, usually the truck will still get something much better or at least minimal - enough to get out a text message or download emails, but that's better than nothing.

The biggest downside to using the truck, as others have mentioned, is that it has to be on - either engine running to keep it on, or using auxiliary (engine off, electronics on) but even on auxiliary it turns off automatically after 15 minutes. I even tried the remote start feature, but remote start doesn't activate the wifi.

I tried Visible several times (different sims, different accounts, different phones) but had nothing but horrible (or no) data speeds and the worst ever tech support. They even required me to pay for the next month of service while they were still trying to fix the issues otherwise they refuse to continue to work on it (after 3 weeks already), and no email or phone support available, only chat window support. Twitter support was a little better. If the think they've resolved an issue, they close the case, and if that didn't fix it, you have to open a new case and give them 2 weeks to start over and look into it, again.

Finally I settled on using Ubifi.net service which is an AT&T provider, which was recommended by another camper. You get the SIM card from them. You buy the hardware for the router/receiver from Ubifi and then own it.

I've been very happy with my Ubifi service (uses AT&T cellular) with a MoFi SIM4 4G LTE Gateway. The MoFi cost $315 up front, so I now own it. It has be GREAT hardware (easy interface but with a lot of control over what bands I connect to and can lock into and the signal strengths, etc). The monthly service for unlimited data is $99.99. So far I've had excellent coverage with either very good speeds or good enough speeds (in remote areas) including OH, GA, FL, AL, LA, TX, UT, AZ, KY, TN, MD, VA, NC, SC, NY, MA, NH. I am at the first time in our travels to get to a spot where my Ubifi/MoFi/AT&T can't get a strong enough signal inside the RV to be useful - we are in VT. If I plug it in outside the RV, it is good enough for most basic things (but I don't want to leave it outside when we are gone or sleeping). I do have a Verizon Jetpack as a backup so I activated the plan on it for $70 for 30GB for this month to cover me in VT but hopefully will be able to drop it after our time up here.

I'd love to get up and running with Starlink once they design a good way for it to be safe with a lot of people potentially using it in close proximity of each other. I'll be watching it unfold.