Internet Connectivity from the road ....

[JasonMK]

We are planning on spending the next at least year traveling in our airstream and working from on the road. We were wanting to get some good internet connectivity in the airstream, but there are pro's and con's with the different options and I wanted to see if anyone else has experience or suggestions from lessons learned. I am still not sure what amount of data I should count on, but I suppose that is probably more a lesson learned with time (some streaming, updating my website with new content - I'm a photographer and software engineer, and social media for marketing).

Option 1: we were planning to install the airstream connect at our local airstream dealership. The $1600 install price seemed high, but the $360 annual unlimited data was a great deal. We were also going to install the WeBoost X RV for our cellular phones (verizon) that would could duplicate for access to online information, and I purchased a SureCall Wide Band Omni-Directional antenna that I was going to have roof mounted and tied into the airstream connect modem (possibly need a booster on that as well, but if a park had wifi it could at least hopefully get that and use the wifi instead of always using cellular data). However, after talking to our local airstream dealership yesterday, we learned that the unlimited AT&T Airstream Connect deal will be dieing on January 15th, and the prices will be higher (22Gb for $90, 50Gb at $175, 100Gb at $300 - all per month).

Pros with Airstream Connect:
Somewhat cheaper install cost including equipment
Appears the modem is not AT&T specific - can maybe also use a hotspot sim card from another carrier (although I am not sure about this)
If we can get it before January 15th, maybe can get 1 year of the $360 unlimited data package before it goes away
Can go month to month it would appear - with no 2 year contracts

Cons with Airstream Connect:
Runs off the AT&T network - not sure how the coverage and availability is all over
Plans are changing to a much higher cost - now it is relatively equivalent to satellite internet
If it can only use AT&T, then I am paying $1600 to tie myself to one carrier - and in the future they can do whatever they want with pricing - I'd already be HW invested

Option 2: With the changes coming to the Airstream Connect, it led us to consider installing a satellite system on the trailer instead. The prices are relatively equivalent monthly, but the initial setup can be much higher, depending on what one uses. Also, it looks like the satellite wants 2 year contracts - and I hate contracts. However, the contract does tend to lend itself to more ability to estimate future cost as it is less fluid. Satellite appears relatively new in the trailering community though - and there are several setups - tripod, permanent mounting, and auto-deploy setups. I tend to prefer the permanent mounting, and do not want to have to go on the roof every time we want internet to find the satellite, so the auto-deploy sounds like the best option - but I have heard it can be very costly initially ($5000 - $6000). I think I would still do the WeBoost x RV for the cell phones and the wifi booster for the RV grounds that offer WIFI. So, my pro's and con's below.

Pro's with Hughesnet (more budget friendly) and Viasat (faster speeds):
Not reliant on cell towers - assuming there is more coverage with satellite (but maybe I am wrong here too).
Contract's generally mean the prices will not fluctuate in that time period
Faster speeds than with the airstream connect, I think
If I have the satellite internet - do I have the same hardware for satelite TV if I want it?

Con's with Satellite:
Two year contract
Expensive up-front cost to add the equipment
Still pricey month to month - but now the same price mostly (maybe even a little cheaper now) with AT&T's forthcoming change


I may be missing other things. But, I am just starting. Anyone that has experience with either, I'd really appreciate it. With the unlimited data, it would have been airstream connect. Now, it's really a tossup. Also, if you see I am missing an option or a pro/con, please let me know.

Thanks!

[n2916s]

Buy a Weboost or other cell booster.

Sign up for a VPN.

One of you get a Verizon account with hotspot.

One of you get an AT&T account with hotspot.

You will have coverage 99% of the time with one or the other.

Lots cheaper than satellite.

If you need to upload or download something huge, practically every public library nationwide has decent WiFi (again, use your VPN)

[ghaynes755]

Since you don't have an airstream that can be controlled remotely like the recent Classics then no reason to to get the Airstream Connect system. Take a look at the most recent releases from WiFi Ranger with their Converge systems. Pair that with your wifi hotspot of choice and you should be good in most locales. Verizon seems to have better coverage especially in the west.

For your phones then get the WeBoost system, though I am getting it setup less and less as coverage is getting better, at least for Verizon. I do have it for those remote locations that are problematic.

For satellite I do have a Hughes Gen5 system with VOIP. I use it for those really remote locations when nothing else works. See the folks at www.MobileInternetSatellite.com. There are rooftop systems that can be mounted but they will only do satellite data and don't work for satellite TV. Pretty big footprint and if you really are that far off grid I would rather use the space for solar panels. Setup time with the the Gen 5 is about 20 minutes. Service speeds have been generally 30mbps down and 5-8mbps up. I'm able to do skype calls and run VOIP phone without issue.

[stevejones]

A big consideration is, what will your data needs be when you are working from the road? Will you need to participate in video teleconferences? Will you need to download or upload big files? Will you need to collaboratively work on documents with other people? Based on what your job is, I'm thinking you'll probably need pretty robust Internet.

We have both AS Connected and a Weboost RV system. Our phones and iPad are on Verizon with their "beyond unlimited" plan.

The advantage of AS Connected is your devices will automatically connect if you have them paired and it is like being on WiFi at home. You don't have to think about it. You can stream movies using your Apple TV, Roku, whatever. The data rate varies from location to location, but that will be the case with whatever system you go with. It is truly unfortunate that AT&T has cancelled the unlimited plan. However Airstream is hopefully trying to identify a new plan provider. Others on this forum have used their Sim cards from different providers on their AS connected system, so that is supposed to work.

Before we got AS Connected, we used our phones as hotspots. Having the Weboost RV system helps with that. The problem is though, for whatever reason my phone was constantly loosing the WiFi connection with my laptop and I had to keep "recycling" the connection to get things done. Also when using the phone as a hotspot, even with "beyond unlimited" there is a data quota per month for hotspot usage. It is 25 Gb a month I think. Once you exceed the quota they can throttle you. 25 Gb probably sounds like a lot to some folks, but if you stream a few movies you can quickly eat that up. So if you're going to use your phones as hotspots for work keep track of your data usage. Don't want to run out of data in your plan when you have a project due...

We learned not to use our phones as hotspots for streaming. Instead I used a lightning to HDMI connector, and hooked our phones directly to our TV. This worked well and didn't incur the hotspot quota. However, for some reason, Netflix didn't work worth a crap over Verizon. So it was great to get the AS Connected system. With AT&T and AS Connected and our Apple TV we were able to watch Netflix shows with great performance. Now the phones are a backup for when the AS Connected system does not work well because of AT&T coverage where we are.

I expect things will change a lot over the next couple of years and we'll have better and hopefully less expensive options.

I hope you are able to pick something that works well for you.

Steve

[daleyocum]

Some good advice here. My only suggestion would be to go to the Mobile Internet Resource Center and pay for a year subscription ($85) to their service. These folks are real experts in this area and their reviews can save you hundreds of dollars and a lot of frustration. https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/

[skyguyscott]

Regarding watching movies over netflix:

Blu-ray -- cheaper, easier, better, far more reliable, less frustrating, and data-free. Just pick a selection of what you want before you head out, or buy some here and there on the way. You own them. Intentional viewing as opposed to "whatever" mindless consumption. There are a plethora of truly great films out there already, enough that will take more time than you'll have to view and many are not on netflix: curate a master-collection of classics, take this opportunity to familiarize yourself with the real legends of cinema; you'll be so glad you did, trust me. Also, many of these come with extras for more in-depth enjoyment of the film (side benefit: trade and share some of these along the way with the new friends/fellow campers you're about to meet)

Another alternative: hard drive with your own movies, including the ones you make yourselves!

Also, Over-the-Air TV for news, weather, grazing. Get a feel for the local area by watching local stations: always enlightening. And FREE, btw.

[wulfraat]

Originally Posted by daleyocum

Some good advice here. My only suggestion would be to go to the Mobile Internet Resource Center and pay for a year subscription ($85) to their service. These folks are real experts in this area and their reviews can save you hundreds of dollars and a lot of frustration. https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/

^^^^^^ this.

If a full time working professional reliant on high bandwidth mobile internet with a reasonable amount of data per month (100GB+ /mo) you’ll need to go to a small business plan or the grey market.

I’ll leave it at that. Hit up Cherie and Chris and join the community. It’s not a simple solution with currently available data plans from the big 4. Satellite is too slow to be usable in this day and age and costs a serious fortune for any amount of bandwidth / data usage.

I run through about a terabyte / month at home in data usage. When on the road I go on a diet but still easily go through 10GB+ per day. Easily. Netflix streaming at 480p is a rounding error.