So after some last-minute preparations,
we've embarked upon a six-week road trip down through New Mexico into Texas, and
starting with next week's episode we'll be sharing those travel videos
with you. However, unlike in 2018 when we took a year off of work to travel, this
time we're actually going to be working from the road -- and that presents some
unique challenges. We need unlimited data to be able to work from the trailer, and
we can't be bumping up against any throttling, or any data caps. We need to
have dependable, unlimited data, and like I said that presented some unique
challenges. But we found a unique solution -- for cheap, actually -- and we're
going to share that with you on this week's episode of Grand Adventure, so
stay tuned! Now, the problem is that virtually all
cellphone carriers either limit the amount of data you can consume per month,
or even on unlimited plans, after a certain point they either throttle the
speed down to the point where it's essentially unusable, or they degrade
your service where you're deprioritized on the tower.
Neither of these were going to be acceptable solutions for us to be able
to work on the road. Now in researching the options that were available to us
ahead of this trip, we discovered Visible. Visible is a prepaid plan that uses the
Verizon network. It costs $40 per month including all taxes and all fees, so the
bill every month is an even $40, and it has unlimited voice, unlimited text, and
unlimited data without any capping or without any throttling. Now like I said
it's on the Verizon network, so you have more coverage across the U.S. than you
do on any other cell carrier. It's also prepaid, so you pay as you go.
You can turn it on and off at will, so you can turn the service off for the
months that you don't actually need it. Now you can either bring your phone, your
own phone, in which case Visible will provide a SIM card for it, or you can buy
one of their phones to use as a dedicated hotspot. We picked up this ZTE
Android phone for only $19 and we're going to use that as a dedicated hotspot
within our trailer. So you're asking, "What's the catch?" Well, there used to be
two, and now there's only one -- and we found a workaround for that one catch.
The first catch was that there used to be a 5 Mbps data cap.
However, Visible has just recently removed that data cap for all new and
existing customers. The other catch is that you could only connect one
networked device to the Wi-Fi hotspot at a time. However, we get around that by
using a nano router. Now our HooToo TripMate is a tiny lightweight router that
operates on USB, so you don't need a 120 volt AC power source to operate it.
In our trailer it networks all devices in our RV, including our phones, our
tablets, connected TVs and more. The power draw is minimal, it's usually only around
one amp, so it has little impact on our RV batteries while we're boondocking. Now,
we've done a separate video on the TripMate Nano which we'll link to right here
on the screen, but here's a quick overview. It uses 802.11 b/g/n
Wi-Fi networks. It's a single band, it operates on the 2.4 GHz frequency.
The throughput rate is 150 Mbps. There's a switch
right here that allows you to switch between wired and wireless connect modes,
so you can use this to connect, say, a wired internet in a hotel to your own
encrypted network, or you could add a layer of security while using public
Wi-Fi. Now it does support WPA and WPA2 Wi-Fi security. This USB port supports
network attached storage devices devices like a thumb drive or an external hard
drive, and it has a built-in DLNA server to share media files across connected
devices. Now there are newer and more expensive nano routers available
that have additional features like dual band and 802.11ac support, but the
TripMate Nano remains an excellent value at a lower cost, currently only $21.99 on Amazon with free Prime shipping. Now we've included the HooToo TripMate
Nano in our Grand Adventure shop on Amazon, and we've also linked to it down
below in the video description. So, what's the point of using a nano router with
Visible's unlimited hotspot service? Well, when you connect the router to the phone,
the phone only recognizes that as one device, no matter how many devices you
have connected to the router via Wi-Fi, so it gets around Visible's one-device-at-a-time hotspot limitation. So, by using a phone, a dedicated Visible phone as a
hotspot device in conjunction with our nano router,
we've got unlimited service that we can use across all devices, including our
connected TVs, and allows us to work while we're on the road on this
trip -- all for $40 a month. We've also connected a couple of security cameras,
one inside and one outside the trailer, that are also connected to Visible's
network through the hotspot and through the nano router. All this is on the
nation's broadest coverage network through Verizon, with no taxes and no
fees that aren't already included in the $40 a month price. Now, we have no
business relationship with Visible other than being customers; however, every
single customer on Visible gets a referral code, and that has a benefit to
you, and a benefit to us. By using our referral code you get half off the first
month's service, so it brings the price down from $40 to $20 for you to go try
it out like we did. And it also gives us the benefit of taking $20 off our bill,
so this is a you scratch our back/ we'll scratch yours kind of relationship.
Now in the video description down below we'll put the referral code, we'll
put a link to Visible, we'll put a link to the phone that we're using (the $19
ZTE Android phone) as well as the HooToo TripMate. So far, so wonderful. We've
been using this service so far throughout our trip to be able to
connect to the VPN at our company and work from the road. This has been an
absolutely exceptional and cost-effective solution to our data
needs while we're out here traveling. Right now we're in Cloudcroft, New Mexico,
and we will bring you to Cloudcroft next week, as well as continued videos as we
continue our journey down through southern New Mexico and into West Texas.
So if you like this video it's extremely important to us: please give us a big
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right down below each video. Until next week from Cloudcroft, please remember...
life is nothing but a Grand Adventure! We'll see you soon!
