Internet in Your RV

The Internet has moved from novelty to virtual necessity for many people in recent years. RV satellite internet technology brings this necessity to your RV. For many people, the internet has become a way of life. It is used to keep in touch with family and friends. I use it to pay bills and handle banking transactions. I use it to retrieve information of all types quickly. All of these functions are as important on your RV vacation as when you are sitting at home. RV satellite internet services have made it possible to perform all of them when on the road. Now RVing has taken a turn towards the HI TECH world where you can be camping one minute and then the next, running your office from your fold down table. With the wireless option added to your internet you can now even enjoy a camp fire and surf the web in your lounge chair burning a few marshmallows.

Let’s talk about what you will need to pull this all off and have fun at the same time. First you will need a fixed/transportable mobile Internet antenna system designed for virtually any satellite VSAT platform. This can be done at a dealership by a tech and installed in 1 day. You will need a PC or a Laptop in your RV so they can set it up to work with your new Sat system. One of the many systems that are designed for internet is the WineGard DirecStar® (DT74), this unit is designed for RV’s and is roof mounted. They would install this on the roof and then run the wires down into a cabinet near a 12v or 110 volt outlet or a source of power. The next thing would be to install the receiver and PC connections. The best way I have found to make this as least invasive as possible to your RV is to make the system wireless, this way you do not have to run wires for the PC connection, and you won’t even see the system unless you open a cabinet to look at it. With this setup you can even walk 300 feet from your RV and have internet on your Laptop, PDA or BlackBerry. So as you can see there a lot of options for Internet, some campgrounds even offer wireless internet for free or for a small fee wile you stay there. Well that is all for now and when you see someone at a camp ground with a laptop and you would like to know what the weather for the week is, just go up and ask, and they will just surf the internet and tell you the 7 day forecast.

This article was brought to you by Good Sam RV Emergency Road Service

Internet on the Road, Bandwidth Limits

We’ve come a long way since dial-up. Just five years ago, if you wanted to get Internet while RVing, you had to schlep your laptop up to the office and plug into the one phone cable. It was very slow, and you needed to limit your time so other guests could use it.

Now you have 3 choices for high-speed, wireless Internet access:

1. Wi-Fi
2. Satellite
3. Cellular

We depend on our Datastorm Satellite Dish to give us Internet wherever we are.  But we also use Wi-Fi when available, and we tether our cell phone to the computer when the other two methods are not available.

All three of these, when working well, will get you high-speed.  Almost as good as the DSL or Cable you can get at home.  What they won’t get you is unlimited high-speed like you can get at home.  The satellite option has the most clearly regulated limit.  It’s called ‘FAP’ and it stands for Fair Access Policy.  You see, everyone with a satellite dish for Internet is sharing the satellites.  The satellites I’m familiar with are owned by Hughes and Hughes takes care of managing everyone’s usage so no one customer takes more than their fair share of the bandwidth. Read more