What Do You Use To Help Your Wifi?

[TNFLineage]

Typical campground beef, lousy wifi. Sure, the sign says wifi available but try to use it anywhere but the clubhouse and it's impossible. What do you all use when in this predicament? We're not tech beginners, we know our way around the computer, it's just that we can't get past this hurdle. There are repeaters, extenders, adapters, etc. Is there any one method or product that seems to be the "go-to" for help?

 

[TucsonJim]

If we can't get a good signal from the campground wifi, we use one of our smart phones as a hot-spot. When that happens, we try not to download too much so we don't exceed our data plan. However, even if we have a terrific signal from the campground wifi, we will use the hotspot any time we want to pay bills or do banking. That way we don't have to worry about our private financial data being hacked.

Sometimes if were on the road, and we can get into a McDonalds, they have free wifi.

 

[CloseToRetirement]

I'm do the same as Jim and Ginnie. We have a separate hotspot device from our cell carrier. I can work from where ever I set my laptop down so the hotspot has been great to avoid the less than stellar campground WiFi signals. I have yet to overrun my plan but am careful not to do large downloads.

 

[Lingerlonger]

I use a separate Verizon Hot Spot, called a Jet Pack. It's 4G where available. I have it bundled with our cell phones & MLB's iPad, so we share
10 Gigs of data a month on the 4 devices. I'll pop into a McDonalds, Starbucks, or other place when I need to download/upload big files. For me, that's usually photos.

K

 

[SkiSmuggs]

I use the Pepwave Surf-To-Go. It picks up weak signals, you connect to the best one and your devices connect to the network created by the Pepwave. This means you don't have to configure your devices for each campground or whatever, just the Pepwave.

 

[Renee]

We also use Verizon hotspot on our phone. We switched to Verizon for this reason. We check into satellite internet but it was way too expensive.

 

[dloase]

Like others we use a seperate hot spot from our cell provider. That usually seems to work, unless we are camping where there is no cell service.

 

[offtohavasu]

Another option is, which depends on two factors, 1. if it's an Android phone, and 2. More importantly, how brave/techy you can be, you can make just about any Android phone a mobile hot spot. There are some Android forums out there that teach you how.

 

[TNFLineage]

We have AT&T for cell with 3Gb shared data. We used the smart phone for a hotspot until we saw how much data it was going through. the Pepwave device might be the way to go. Thanks for the suggestions, if anyone else can contribute a workable idea I'd like to hear it.

 

[Lingerlonger]

I use the Pepwave Surf-To-Go. It picks up weak signals, you connect to the best one and your devices connect to the network created by the Pepwave. This means you don't have to configure your devices for each campground or whatever, just the Pepwave.

I took a look at the Pepwave device. As I understand, it is essentially an amplifier. In my experience in RV Parks, the problem is not always a weak wifi signal. I can frequently get a strong signal, but I have very slow download/upload speeds. I have attributed that condition to too many users on the network or "not enough bandwidth." Will the Pepwave, or a similar device help with that situation?
(I'm a liberal arts bozo, so Keep It Simple please.)

K

 

[Barbara & Dave]

I took a look at the Pepwave device. As I understand, it is essentially an amplifier. In my experience in RV Parks, the problem is not always a weak wifi signal. I can frequently get a strong signal, but I have very slow download/upload speeds. I have attributed that condition to too many users on the network or "not enough bandwidth." Will the Pepwave, or a similar device help with that situation?
(I'm a liberal arts bozo, so Keep It Simple please.)

K

The Surf On-The-Go can be used in a couple of different ways. One is as a Wi-Fi amplifier. This would amplify an existing Wi-Fi signal, but wouldn't provide any additional bandwidth. It would be like moving your site closer to the office (or wherever the campground's router is located) to get a stronger signal, but you will still be sharing the available bandwidth with everyone else in the campground.

It can also be used to set up a cell-phone Hotspot, provided 1) you're within range of your cell provider's signal, and 2) you have a data plan on your cell phone. Check with your provider before buying, since (AFAIK) not all support Hotspots.

Dave

 

[SkiSmuggs]

Dave got it right, nothing can put 10 lbs I to a 5 lb bag. Too many users makes it slow and the stronger signal can't fix that. However, I have picked up unprotected WiFi signals and connected to them to get faster service.

 

[Paul & Deb]

Dave got it right, nothing can put 10 lbs I to a 5 lb bag. Too many users makes it slow and the stronger signal can't fix that. However, I have picked up unprotected WiFi signals and connected to them to get faster service.

You sneaky devil you

 

[SkiSmuggs]

Opportunity knocked.

 

[RamGunner]

Another way to go is the Netgear PR-2000. It can be used several ways - but does not support directly connecting to a USB cell device. It will hook up to any WiFi source (including a 4g hostpot WiFi signal), and gives both wired and a WiFi signal of it's own.

In our trailer, we are going to have what we will call our core network. In our case, we have a router with both wired ports and WiFi. The wired ports will be connected to things like a Roku and a media server. WiFi will be used for laptop and tablet connectivity. Nothing on this will ever change.

For WAN (Internet) connectivity, we also have a cable modem, a DSL modem, and a Netgear PR-2000. This way we can connect to just about anything anywhere - just plug in the functional modem to the WAN port on the router. If we need to piggyback onto the park WiFi or access the hotspot from a cell device, we plug the PR-2000 into the router. One benefit is that the park WiFi sees only one connection - even though it is shared to all of our devices via our router. They normally only talk amongst themselves, but can each reach the Internet if required.

However, it won't speed up a connection that is overused. No amplifier will do that for you. If the park WiFi is too crowded, you need an alternate source - a 4g hotspot device is a good option in that case. Finding something that gives you enough data for the month is the hard part.