Ray,
That can happen but there is a $35 activation fee each time you activate. Why not leave it on and use it while at home in place of another service?
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Ray,
That can happen but there is a $35 activation fee each time you activate. Why not leave it on and use it while at home in place of another service?
Gary, That is what I am considering doing (using in bus and at home), but I am afraid that the 1 GB per month won't be nearly enough. I only pay $25 for my current DSL service, so I don't want to go to a $60 plan.
I find the hardest part about shopping for a internet or cellular service is trying to decide how much is enough. 1 Gig will easily satisfy 95% of peoples needs so the question is are you the 5% of people that do bandwidth intensive activities on the internet? To help wit this question you need to analyze what type of activitities you do on the internet and how often. Do you watch youtube videos each day or just occassionally? Do you down load multiple songs from places like iTunes everyday or just occassionally? Do you build websites or upload large size files to an online server everyday or just occassionally? If the answer to these are yes, every day then you are correct 1 gig is not enough. If you and your spouse only browse the web, retreive and send email with attachments and occasssionally download extrememly large files (100 Meg plus) then 1 gig is fine. Another means of determining if you need more than that is to find out how much you have used over the past several months from your current provider. good luck.
I really only need this service for when in the bus. My home service get's me 12Mbit download at the moment, so it's hard to move to anything cellular.Quote:
Originally Posted by GSwaim
Don't know if anyone suggested this yet but this is our preferred connection:
http://shop.sprint.com/NASApp/online...=34208&x=0&y=0
It's a Sprint MyFi they call it and it is wireless hot spot for up to 5 devices and works great. The speed is good. If you have (or buy) and Apple I pad it will let you online with that also but you have to have ATT wireless service for the new 3G I pad if you want the GPS on the I-Pad to work so I bought the new 3G I pad because the GPS was important to me and consider the price of the I-Pad worth it just to have the nice big screen GPS while driving.
I also have a Verizon Air card that slides into the lap top (in addition to the Sprint MiFi) and have found (so far) that the coverage is always working on either of them.
Ray, this is a month at a time with no contract. 5GB will get you by if you're careful.
http://3gstore.com/index.php?main_pa...FQJL5wodIx1Xxg
Thanks Jim, I'll take a look. At first glance they say the $90 price is a lease only, and you have to return it if you cancel before 2 years?
Maybe I read that wrong. I thought it was on/off any time, a month at a time. Might not be that. Probably not.
Since we were already Sprint subscribers, I got the Sprint Overdrive™ 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot for the bus and so far, we love it! Our experience has been that the WiFi service at the various RV parks is spotty at best and nonexistent at worst. It's critical that Vita have dependable access to the internet at all times while we're travelling for her work at the CDC and depending on RV park WiFi was just not cutting it! So far the Sprint solution with the Overdrive Hotspot has served us easily and flawlessly!
Here's a link: http://shop.sprint.com/NASApp/online...SKU=SWW8013G4G
From what we've heard, the MyFi is a good solution for basic users. We chose the Overdrive for a few advantages. First, it is a dual-mode 3G/4G device, with access to dependable 3G speeds and accelerated 4G speeds (up to 10x faster than 3G) where available (a lot of places). Also, it is GPS navigation enabled, has a memory card slot, and has an AC adaptor so we don't have to be at the mercy of the battery life.
Initial set up was easy and fool proof and operation is automatic - just press the power button, wait for it to boot and we're online! Vita can be online while we're rolling and we can both be online at the same time (when we're stopped, of course) :p
We had gotten the Overdrive the week before we moved to our new house. After the move, it took Comcast a little over a week before they could schedule to come and reinstall our cable, phone, and broadband internet. In the interim, we used the Overdrive at home for internet access and found the speeds comparable to those we experienced with our regular Comcast broadband cable modem!
Again - so far, we're very pleased!
I've been using the autonet router for about a year and a half in the bus, but only really started taking advantage of it the past 6 months where my wife is using it more as we travel and I use it quite a bit when we're stopped when traveling (I'll often drive early or late and spend a few hours mid-day catching up on work phone calls and e-mails). So far it has been great and I've even opted to use it over some campground wi-fi due to it being faster (I'm not sure of the actual speeds). So far I'm on the 1GB plan and haven't gone over, but we're really only surfing and doing e-mail with no really heavy file transfers.
It's easy to link multiple devices to securely just like a home router and I've thrown it in my carry on when I travel so that I have internet in any car that I end up driving (I wired the leads to a 12V car lighter plug). My last biz trip I got a barrage of phone calls so I pulled up to a restaurant, plugged in the router and went inside, ordered lunch and worked on my laptop to put out some fires. For this purpose, the aircards are probably more convenient, but since we originally purchased it for multiple users in the bus, this is a bonus use. The bottom line is that when I started really using it, I found that my appreciation has grown.
One option which is new to the conversion market but is being used extensively in commercial buses for bulletproof in-motion internet access for multiple users (up to 45 passengers) is Hobnob. I use our coach (1999 H3 Vantare) both for work and for play and need robust in-motion internet service for the work part of the day that importantly works in a VPN environment without interruption. Upload/and download speed is consistently strong (modest T-1 speeds) and Hobnob is the only (moderately priced) service that I've found that achieves this in a VPN environment (short of mobile satellite which is prohibitively expensive). Hobnob uses multiple air cards from separate carriers, a multiplexer and a router to constantly seek out the strongest signal automatically, combined with high performance antennas on the roof of the coach. After researching many different options and purchasing a couple of different sets of equipment for our needs (and being disappointed), Hobnob finally provided the solution. we were looking for. The combination of 4 cell cards and Hobnob's active signal management service costs between $300.00 and $500.00 per month so it isn't the right solution for the casual user, but if you need business grade internet service while in motion, based upon our experience, this is the ticket. If this is what you are looking for, you can try hobnob.com for more info. or email me for more detailed questions. I'm a new member and wouldn't usually post such a long message, however the in-motion internet challenge has been a big one for us and if we can save a fellow member from the process we went through to arrive at the solution I'd welcome the opportunity to help.
I recently upgraded to a Verizon MiFi with 5 gigs a month and have been very happy so far. It can handle 5 users at a time so that's more than enough for us. It's about $60/month. I don't use it every month but it's nice to have when I need it.
That's an interesting point. I could be wrong, but I got the impression that the Autonet carries contracts w/multiple providers so that it automatically uses the strongest signals. I'll have to check where I got that idea. I have also used it for VPN access and have found it to be very stable. Again, I don't move huge files, etc back and forth -- primarilly e-mail, etc.
By the way, welcome aboard. I know for sure that my first post didn't have nearly as much useful information as yours did!
edit: just did some reading on hobnob and definitely seems like a great solution if you've really got to have an on-demand reliable solution for internet.