satelite internet/telephone services

[mlmarch]

anyone attempted the above with their satelite dishes? i hate getting to camping areas and have no telephone service. it makes it harder to stay camping/traveling.

[jordandvm]

Originally Posted by mlmarch

anyone attempted the above with their satelite dishes? i hate getting to camping areas and have no telephone service. it makes it harder to stay camping/traveling.

My Avalanche has Onstar.... and I subscribed to 100 phone minutes for $39.99. Granted, no one can call me when I'm in my AS, but I find it very comforting to be able to call out from almost anywhere and pick up any messages on my home phone. This way I'm not completely cut off from the rest of the world!

Jim

[warbler5]

We also have OnStar in our Yukon....works great from all the California National Parks, where cell phone service is spotty at best. You are probably more intersted in internet access, though, and I figured that such services as the DirecTV internet service probably work well, as long as you aren't in a canyon somewhere. However, they are pricey!

Dee & Paul

[mlmarch]

I have access to onstar and really never thought about using the phone option. Onstar, I think uses the old digital style access, which is why they have good coverage. My cell phone uses the same access, due to my jobs sometimes being in rural areas (where the new network does not work). However there are still camping areas(trout streams, etc) where phone access just stinks-does not exist-etc.

We take the mh w/o another vehicle alot anyway, therefore no onstar access. I really need a reliable phone and internet connection would be great. Since I still work(own business), I need to stay connected to my clients. There just has to be a way to do this-I am surprised there is not a package out there that would provide that built in feature to a mh/trailer.

The old phones that were built into the cars had a higher wattage, which might work-you just cannot get them anymore.

[LeeMo]

Perhaps the best solution for short-term remote telephone service is Satellite phones. There are several companies out there who provide fulltime service and part-time rental services.

Iridium offers a handheld satellite phone that work anywhere in the world with a flat rental rate of $1.75 per minute.

GlobalStar has great coverage of the Americas and the Caribbean with low $1.55 per minute rate, and uses a Qualcomm handheld phone.

Inmarsat offers high-speed data and voice capabilities. Small size and portability give you Voice, Fax, and Data anywhere in the world.

There are a number of service providers to choose from on the Web. Check them out.

[robandzoe]

I use Road Runner here at the camp ground. More and more campgrounds are going with wireless connectivity. If you have Internet, you can use an internet telephony service like Skype.com to connect to other internet users for free, and for a small fee, internet to old lan line phones. If you have Direct TV satellite service, you could go DirectWay which is there two way satellite internet. Then, you could use that with something like Skype and have telephone, via internet, via satellite, anywhere you can have access to the southern sky. Let us know what you decide to do.

Rob

[Minnie's Mate]

At one time Iridium was going to offer satellite phone service anywhere in the world for a flat $60/month. They got all of the satellites in orbit and then went bankrupt. The new company is trying something else, I guess. I would have gone for the $60/month even though the phones were larger than cell phones at the time and looked kind of wierd with the bent antenna.

I guess there are more players in the market now and more plans to choose from. If you are just interested in satellite internet, Camping World sells TracNet at the following: http://www.campingworld.com/browse/c...ffiliateid=464. Very expensive, but you might find it cheaper. You could subscribe to one of the internet voice services for phone. Also, if it is for business purposes, you might be able to deduct the cost, or at least part of the cost.

[LeeMo]

"that's a whole lot better than what I had!"

LOL

[Pick]

I think what mlmarch is asking is, "Will an internet phone service such as Vonage work with DircWay internet service?"
I do not believe "Voice over IP" will work with DirecWay satellite internet service. There are issues with latency and QOS, that prohibit it from working, last I knew.

[AirConditioner]

Originally Posted by mlmarch

anyone attempted the above with their satelite dishes? i hate getting to camping areas and have no telephone service. it makes it harder to stay camping/traveling.

I'm using GlobalStar Sat phone services and Verizon 1xrt/EDO local "cell" tower provided high speed internet services. The web services come with email and are faster than DSL in many cases. Currently, in my locale, the PC card is free (Sierra Wireless/Audiovox brand) and the unlimited web services are $70/ month. Not cheap, but available in many areas. A word of caution - don't go for anything but the unlimited service. We have a user that ran up over $2,000 in airtime/ data rate charges over a weekend! Of course they had to pay. The GlobalStar is cheap compared to a few years ago. We're paying about $80 a month for 100 minutes. We use it only when cell services don't work. I'm hoping to get a more extensive article published soon on the full spectrum (pun intended) of wireless services available to us on the road,, and a few tricks.

[LeeMo]

Vonage was a good recommendation. It's worth a gander at http://www.vonage.com. They offer interoperability with the public switched telephone network for incoming and outgoing calls anywhere. Kind of cool!

[alfalsetto]

Vonage Looks good, think I'll try it for year. Frist I'm do more research before I junp in to it. But it looks good.

[grizzy]

I did a good bit of research on this -- all of the satellite internet providers say their systems do not do a good job supporting Voice over Internet services such as Vonage. The problem is the upload speed which typically runs only about 56 kbps. If upload was as fast as download (~400 kbps) it would work fine. There is a company, WildBlue, that is starting up a new satellite internet service soon. They are still testing but claim their technology is quite different and that they will have much faster upload speeds. I finally decided to go with Verizon Broadband/Nationwide Access ($79.00/month) with a Sierra 580 AirCard for internet service which I use both at home and on the road. This works quite well in most parts of the country. However, it still doesn’t solve the phone problem as their upload speeds are still too slow to support Vonage. However, Verizon Cellular service seems to have excellent coverage all over the country.

[Cracker]

Originally Posted by mlmarch

I have access to onstar and really never thought about using the phone option. Onstar, I think uses the old digital style access, which is why they have good coverage. My cell phone uses the same access, due to my jobs sometimes being in rural areas (where the new network does not work). However there are still camping areas(trout streams, etc) where phone access just stinks-does not exist-etc.

We take the mh w/o another vehicle alot anyway, therefore no onstar access. I really need a reliable phone and internet connection would be great. Since I still work(own business), I need to stay connected to my clients. There just has to be a way to do this-I am surprised there is not a package out there that would provide that built in feature to a mh/trailer.

The old phones that were built into the cars had a higher wattage, which might work-you just cannot get them anymore.

It is my understanding that the earlier Onstar systems work on Analog rather than digital. In the more remote areas Analog is a lot better than digital - but it is suppose to be phased out in 2006. Many of the earlier Onstar systems are set up for conversion, whereas the latest Onstar gear is already set to operate on Analog or digital. The Onstar website tells you how to determine if your system can be converted - but they still have not established any cost information.