Mobile Internet: “How do you do it?”

The question of how to get reliable, mobile internet is a frequent topic among RVers and is widely written about (see Mobile Internet Resource Center). I’m writing this because I’ve been asked 2 or 3 times in the last couple of week, “How do you do it?” In fact, I probably get that question at least once a month. This is my answer as of January, 2021.

A lot of full-time RVers (if they aren’t retired) work non-traditional jobs and can get by with sporadic and/or slow internet connections, say at a coffee shop or using a cell phone. That works to send and receive emails, upload occasional videos, browse the web a little, and possibly play a YouTube video now and then. My work, on the other hand, is a full-time, 40 hour/week job with a major IT company. I’m expected to be available 8-5, Mon-Fri; including by phone, email, web conference, etc. and the work involves nearly constant on-line interactions and frequent file transfers. I need a high quality connection and I need it all the time. That’s a pretty high standard to maintain.

I’ll talk more about measuring internet speed (given in Megabits per second or Mbps), but that is the main way I evaluate connection quality. Your mileage may vary, but my experience has been that 2-4 Mbps is enough for email, text chats, etc. For attending meetings, watching a video, or slide presentation (where I can put up with a little lag) then 8-10 Mbps usually works. However, if I’m hosting a video call or presentation, then I need closer to 20 Mbps.

I just checked and my overall average for the last year (I keep logs of this) has been about 20 Mbps Download and 11 Mbps Upload. On average, and over time, I’ve had pretty good internet in a wide variety of locations.

So, how do I do it? I’ll discuss some technical aspects in a moment, but I think the more important parts of the answer are actually “procedural.” First and foremost, I obsess about internet speed and I constantly monitor it so I know what to expect. If we’re doing an overnight stop and I don’t have any meetings scheduled, I can handle pretty slow internet. If I’m hosting a video conference, or might be, then I have to have pretty fast internet.

That leads to the other important “procedural” bit: planning around connectivity. Where we stay is very strongly influenced by connection quality. When we look for a place to stay, one of the first things we check is the internet. Campendium and some other sites try to give a rating of cellular strength, but even when available, I’ve found those ratings are not very reliable. That’s not because people are wrong, but rather they may have different standards and the ratings are usually in “bars” (“4 bars” doesn’t really say much about how fast the internet is). Occasionally, a reviewer includes actual speed test results and that is very helpful, but it is rare. I used to put off committing to a very long stay until I’ve tested the internet speeds for myself, but that isn’t practical with the crowding in RV parks these days. One time, we reserved a week, hoping to stay for five, but the internet turned out to be lousy. So, I limped along for most of that week and/or went out to a coffee shop to host a meeting. At the end of that week, we moved to a campground a few miles away, AFTER we had visited and tested our internet speeds there. I can scrape by with lousy internet for a day or two, but it really makes it hard to do my job (and my internet-enabled job is what makes this lifestyle possible).

Now to the technical stuff… Above, I mentioned testing internet speed. The best known testing service, and the one I use, is the website Speedtest.net. There are android and apple apps for it, as well as a command line client (which I use to run periodic, automated tests). Speedtest gives download and upload speeds in Mbps. For my work, the speeds for upload matter almost as much as download, but for recreational use (streaming video, web browsing, etc.), the download speed is all that really matters. Speed changes ALL THE TIME, due to variations in traffic, weather, or sunspots (ok, mostly it’s about traffic), so a single test doesn’t give the whole story. Two or three in a row is better, and then periodic tests through the day. I find that if internet speed bounces around a lot, then I may have more troubles. A note of caution: You can overdo the testing! Each test uses about 32 MB on average. That doesn’t sound like much, but it can add up and chew through data.

I almost never use RV park WiFi. Even when it works, it is usually slow to start with and is also badly overloaded, so I mostly use cellular internet. While a phone hotspot will work in a pinch, it’s much better to have dedicated hardware (better antennae, etc.), and even better to have hotspots on multiple carriers. I currently have two hotspots with unlimited data plans and a third with a 100GB/month plan. An aside about “unlimited” data: Most plans that claim “unlimited” data will actually cap your high speed data at some point, usually much sooner than you would like, perhaps at 20 or 40 Gigabytes per month. That may sound like a lot, but streaming a single movie can chew up 2-4 GB of that.

I don’t necessarily recommend the specific hardware and plans, but the details of my current setup are:

• Verizon Jetpack 8800L hotspot with a truly unlimited data plan (that plan is no longer available).

• Winegard Togo Roadlink C2 rooftop mounted AT&T hotspot with a 100GB/month plan (actually a Cricket data plan). The Togo is also a WiFi repeater/extender so if we do have decent WiFi around, we can pull it in from further away with the roof-mounted antenna.

• Sprint (T-Mobile) Mifi 8000 hotspot with a truly unlimited plan (available for donors to the Calyx Institute).

• An external, directional antenna for the Jetpack or Mifi to improve reception.

• WeBoost Cellular booster also with a rooftop antenna. This can help in marginal signal situations, but sadly, doesn’t help at all if the problem isn’t cellular signal strength. I actually wouldn’t recommend this for an initial set up, though you will see a lot of folks singing its praises. Most of the time, it seems that my problem is more about the capability and load of the local tower, rather than the local tower being too far away.

• A router that can switch among the various internet sources as well as provide a single LAN for all our on-board devices (there are a LOT of miscellaneous networked devices in our very small space!). I change the WAN connection on the router to use the best service at the time and location. This means that all my devices keep the same connection settings (to the on-board LAN) and only the router requires any changes when we relocate. Note: this also introduces a firewall for added security.

This set up has worked well for us so far. However, there are some things that no amount of gear will help – notably tower location and tower capacity. There are some places that are simply too far from any tower to get a decent signal. A booster can help that, but only to an extent. Even if you have a signal, it may be fairly weak. And there are times that the available tower is simply overloaded. These two effects can interact, as well. Staying at an otherwise really lovely, and sparsely populated, RV park near Dallas, we had a weak, but usable, cellular signal which was fine for part of the day. As soon as a few other people were around, the internet speeds dropped to barely workable. In another case, we were at an RV rally in Salida, CO. The cellular signal showed as “full bars” (it was a strong cellular signal at about -75dB), but there were roughly 300 RVers all trying to use that for their internet. If I was up very early (say 5:00am) I might get 20-30Mbs download, but during the day I was lucky to get 1 Mbs. In these types of situations, no additional equipment would help; it is simply a matter of tower distance or load. Also beyond our control is the amount and type of hardware deployed on the towers, which can, of course, impact the total throughput available. The only option for those scenarios is to commute to someplace with good WiFi (coffee shop, etc), leave the area, or take vacation time!

I haven’t included low earth orbit satellite systems that are coming in the next year or two (like Starlink or Project Kuiper), nor 5G cellular connections. Both of those hold great promise for the future, but neither is quite ready to be considered an option for typical RVers. Likewise, I’ve left out older satellite internet technology (e.g. HughesNet) because it’s too slow, too laggy, and too expensive to be a good option for most people.

So, the short answer to the question is, “Monitor internet speed, plan ahead for good connectivity, and have multiple ways to get a connection.” It’s just as easy, and just as difficult, as that sounds!

–Roger