I was Wrong! I Paused Starlink for a Better RV Internet Solution (Update)

back in 2022 I did a video titled IA starlink for a better internet solution and I did ruffle up a few feathers from starlink users but for us as full-time Travelers a cellular based service just makes more sense than satellite although this did make me realize I was wrong with my best RV internet thumbnail and there really is no all-in-one solution for everybody in that video I shared the installation and review of a system called instc connect how's everyone doing welcome to the video today we are going to be talking about what we do for full-time internet on the road and that is this little guy the insta connect so this setup is actually pretty unique because not only is there a 4x4 mimo antenna setup in here there is also a 4G and 5G Modem with two SIM slots and you might be asking why is the modem up here on the roof well apparently if you keep the wires as short as possible that's going to minimize signal loss and give the motom the best reception so then to wrap it up it connects to a category 12 router down in the RV via a USB cable and that's it pretty cool huh so let's get started Chris and I have been full-time rvers for going on 6 years now we run her online Fitness and Nutrition coaching business as well as this full-time YouTube channel so internet is pretty important to us let's quickly look at our internet progression Journey we started out with just Tmobile phones and using them as a hotspot to our laptops we quickly found out that was not going to work and we upgraded within about 4 months to a Verizon hotspot so a dedicated hotspot for our data that was a 4G LTE and it had an unlimited plan which we got back in 2019 now we bought the weeb Boost antenna booster before we even hit the road and in anticipation for needing internet on the road and we quickly found out that there was a better solution than the Wei boost which was simply just a 2x2 mimo window antenna that hooked directly to our hot spot and that's pretty much the system we used for about 3 years on the road and that was a a pretty good solution it worked pretty much all across the country of course it didn't have any long range capabilities if you're really out in the middle of nowhere but then starlink came along and we all expected starlink to be a game changer and if you've seen any of those starlink videos that we put out on the system you'll know that it was not a game changer for us it just did not work everywhere we traveled and we had lots of problems with the east coast and lots of problems with trees and obstructions and that's where Nick the founder of insty connect saw our videos saw the trouble we were having with starlink and said hey I think I have a better solution for you so he sent us out this insty connect system and said hey I want you guys to try it out and let me know what you think here we are almost 2 years later and I'm sure you're asking are we still using this system well yes and no we're actually using a newer version of the insta connect with an upgraded and new antenna design Nick and his family actually came down and visited Us in the Florida Keys this spring and I thought you guys would enjoy hearing from the owner himself Nick thank you so much for coming down to the Keys it was like pulling teeth getting you to come down here no it wasn't I mean look at this right I had to have an excuse to come down here I love it down here thank you so much for coming I'm really excited to learn about the new and improved Inc connect system for sure I bought one here so we'll just break it open this is basically how people get it when we ship it to them we have some swag of course but we have the new system right here comprises of a new anten you know as the years have gone on we've done a lot to improve the system to make it even better for the people on the road so this is our new antenna it's called the inst squared and when I I'm at shows and I'm talking to people I tell them basically our secret sauce is what happens inside and inside here you'll see that we have our x62 modem which is kind of techy but basically it's a 4G 5G modem inside and it's an updated version if you can see right there it's the ethernet version that we have so we used to have a USB from the router going up to the antenna now we have an Ethernet which allows us to have longer wires and allow allows us to have easier installation and then it can get us basically more speed wherever we go cellular is always evolving so they go 4G and 5G our very first 5G modem came out a few years back we were one of the first people to have it uh in an antenna and basically when you had that you could put in a SIM card from your cellular provider and get their 5G signals you know pretty much wherever they had them um and then so this modem here is just the next evolution of it they call it the x62 and it's futureproof in that it can do two times carrier aggregation on 5G so basically what that means is like when you get to somewhere like the keys or Florida and the cellular providers are building up their towers so that you could have more speed right cuz more people want to use the towers and so in order to get that speed and be be above the congest we need to have the best modem out there so this one here is the x62 I believe we were the first people that have it just because of the way that we make it in a modular fashion so it can go in and out so this modem I'm super excited about that's awesome and I'm starting to notice as we travel more and more 5G across the country right like it's it's literally popping up uh you know more and more places that we go so right so 5G lets you do like a lot of speed and then it has a good range to it some of the 5G bands can go really far yeah so you can have just like a really small signal but still be able to do all of the stuff like streaming and everything that you need to do so the secret to our thing is to get it outside so when you're in a spot that has weak signal like state parks national parks things that have lots of trees and everything that it doesn't have to fight your rig to get out and get a signal so that's why we created it weatherproof and everything to be outside all the time but there are some people that are just like I just want to set it down maybe they don't go out there you know they just want to set it down it so we designed it to do that too but then we have which is we going to put on errands here the ladder Mount basically looks like this and then inside our box here when we ship a new system we have our router as well and so basically the router looks like this it's a vehicle type router it's pretty hardened you set it inside your system or inside your rig uh it can use power from like Shore power or you can hook it up anywhere from 10 to 24 volts you can it directly we have a 15t cable that you run from the router to the antenna that goes up on the roof and so since this one is poe so it's brand new Poe means power over ethernet um I'm pretty excited about it because like I said we could have a longer cable um so with that you have this little thing called the injector that you hook up right near the router and then you put Power into it and that powers the antenna over the wire here's the adapter for plugging that in if you need to and then we have the little cables just to power them okay and that's how we can uh hardwire it for 12vt right or hardwire it to our battery system yep so in your uh in your install we're going to put this one yeah uh to your batteries and then we're going to split it for both the router and the poe injector okay perfect yeah that I love having it hardwired to the system that way 24/7 our RV is basically like an internet Hotpot right and we can check our cameras check our dog temperatures uh look at our electrical system all that stuff so right so as we're doing install here uh we're going to have to be disconnecting our old NC connect system and Chris is inside doing work right now and Nick had a great idea he actually has an iny connected to his truck so his truck is basically like a Wi-Fi hotspot as he travels around and so Chris is on the inside right now and she's connecting out to their insty here pretty cool so that antenna has been up on our roofs for a year and a half and I don't even know 20 30,000 Mi and looks pretty new yeah doesn't look bad at all nice yeah this was our original 5G design and the modem inside here it looks a little different so that is our original 5G modem and this is what the new modem looks like made it a little wider for the poe section uh and the antennas in here are a little bit different too what we wanted to do was we wanted to make the most sensitive antenna that you could possibly get so that when you have this up on your rig and you're driving around it's going to do the best that it can to bring it in a signal like especially if you're out in the woods in the trees and all that stuff having a really sensitive antenna is like the most important part for doing cellular internet so we made it actually a little bit bigger it's still omnidirectional so it means that it picks up a signal all around it but we made these antennas even bigger so they're more sensitive wherever you go aesthetically it's pleasing it's very streamlined I guess you can say so one of the things that really intrigued me about you guys Nick is that you're a small family-owned business and you guys are rvers and you make these things at your home right and so yeah we make these in our shop in Tennessee it's our family business right so I love this right I love going to the keys I love camping um I think what I really love the most is the freedom to go to like a spot like this but at like next week you can end up in the woods in the state park and everything so I get like the draw for rving but I needed to work so I needed to have internet so like I used to teach people how to do it how to run the wires and how to you know set up antennas and everything but then I thought you know what what if I just did it myself and to be honest I love this too I I love like going places figuring out how to get internet in spots where like nobody's ever gotten internet before and so that's where this kind of it's like I don't know when you do something you love yeah you just kind of have yeah it's not a job you just love doing it and so when like we took this we we we designed this antenna out at Center Lake Campground in a spot where nobody's phone works you can't do Set uh you can't do satellite there nothing works there and we set up camp and we designed this antenna there so we could stream there without having to set up anything more and when I talk about more I'm talking like directional antennas you know anything like that like the switchblade there yep to get a signal in a really really hard to reach spot having the modem inside the antenna is like key and so that's why designed it like this uh but I also love to be able to pull the modem out so that we could use this in other things like stronger directional antennas like the switchblade so originally we had what we called the binoculars and now we call this one the switchblade binoculars I wanted to make one that you could actually fold up and put inside your rig for you know when you don't need it and then when you want it knad it you can set it outside you actually take the modem and you put it inside there and you wire it up and you put your ethernet cable in right there here and then you deploy this and you aim it in a Direction so that if you're ever somewhere that's really really far out this has one of the best chances to get a signal anywhere so when you have like cool stuff that you can use with cellular you can really have a huge reach with it well I think that covers all of the equipment and I really appreciate you showing that to us Nick and we're going to do a quick install probably won't show you guys every single little detail but uh we're going to get this thing installed and I'm excited to uh to see how it works it'll be pretty straightforward that the router actually stays the same and so we're going to be keeping that router there we have to hook up a different power cable we have to do the barrel on there so we can split it so we can put Power into the injector so then all we have to do is just run the new cable so that's the USB we're going to be putting the ethernet to go up and then across back to the ladder okay so that should be all we need to do uh we're all finished with the wiring here I just took your uh direct wire right there and spliced on the new Barrel connector so it looks like this right there and then we plug it in to the splitter that goes to the power injector and then back to the router there so we got power already at the router so all we need to do is just run this cable up to the antenna nice and so since we direct wired yours that's why we had to do this the uh splitting or the splicing right there if you wanted to you could just plug it in right directly into the wall and then you'd have that Barrel connector right there and that just plugs right in okay Yeah we actually ran it off 110 for a while and then uh I like to have everything just direct wired to the 12vt or the batteries that way it's just it's always on no matter what you don't have to worry about your inverters if you do a lot of boondocking and stuff like that right yeah we we do the same thing run at 12 volts that way we can have actually have the Wi-Fi on in the car you can pick it up in the car the kids love that yes okay Nick is up here taping off the fish line nice B and this is what our access hole looks like it's just a weatherproof box that we use for the solar install and uh this is a factory uh roof access so all it is is a tube that goes from the top to the basement which is nice so Nick is going to run uh the cable down there I'm going to go down and hopefully it'll be an easy pass through that sounds good okay yep I see it so this came right down through the back nice and easy so here's the old USB cable so on our old system the USB cable had a length of 30 ft that's as long as you could do it with the new system you can go 100 plus feet depending on the wire that you use so we ran up here with a 15 ft cable and we're going to have just a quick coupler since this is protected and everything we're just going to put a coupler inside and then we have a 30ft cable that we're going to run from here to the back we're going to keep quite a bit coiled in here just in case he needs some for running it up a pole if he wants to do the switch plate but if you wanted to you could run a single wire uh all as long as you wanted right correct and since this a standard ethernet you can cut it you can you know put the plugs and everything on it a lot of people have those kits and uh but we're going to just do it simple with this and run this through here I don't know if I've ever had an install go so easy I haven't done a lot of these installs just my own and like two other connect the wires like that and then we can just run this over to the ladder and then pull back what you don't need I'm actually going to snake this cable underneath my panels okay nice and clean hide the wires underneath the solar panels This is a very clean install I really like it yeah it turned out really slick it's the great thing about lithium and solar once you get it installed and get it you know working as it is it's that's it it just works and it just you just you have now your RV running pretty much like your home it's pretty sweet smaller LEL very nicely very basically how it's going to work is we have our ladder Mount right here just going to bold it right like that so this piece has one channel you either do it vertical or horizontal like that that's a great design as soon as I saw that ladder Mount I'm like yes that's perfect for rvers I love mounting stuff to the to the ladder back here so you don't have to drill any holes right yep that was one of the big things big improvements of the system we wanted to make it easy for people to just set it up put it right there get them all nice and snug and then you take this and slide it onward just going to test fit it make sure that it fits on there good so we'll just pull it up and then we'll run the water wire in basically goes through here and we'll pull a put a little plug there too but you know we want to make sure no water can follow that wire inside there gotcha that just plugs right into the modem right there locks it in and then we make sure the wies between the little holder right like that creep it back a little bit and lock it in but we will wait on the zip tie to make sure everything works so this is the final you basically put it through there and zip it in but we're going to go plug it in and make sure everything's good oh you know what we forgot to do put your sim card in oh yes that's important so we got to put the SIM card in that is important so we'll go ahead and pull this back up now they ship with the SIM card in them right yes they ship with the SIM card that we install SIM cards in it so that we can activate and deactivate your system for you so we now have service plans of our own and we wanted to make it because we wanted it to be super easy for the people on the go to start and stop service anytime they want so they can do it right from our app right from the dashboard and everything so it's pretty slick so we have SIM 1 and Sim 2 and we're just going to pop this Sim number one out so that's the Sim that chips with it going to take it pop it out and we're going to use the plastic as the adapter for yours basically pop it in like that and then pop it back in here and some people might have concerns with their Sim being all the way up on the roof um I can say from my experience we don't ever take our Sim out so it just sits in there so if it gets a better signal up on the roof with the modem up there then I'm fine with that yeah I think the days where people used to swap Sims are kind of done yeah you know now people get their own Sim and it has its own plan and I could have two Sims in there at the same time but not I would have to switch back and forth between the plans if if I wanted to correct correct so we actually left one of our Sims in there on slot number two so if you ever wanted to you can turn that one on and just switch it between your Verizon and that Sim and you're uh using T-Mobile as your provider correct yes so we are a provider now in of ourselves and so but we use the T-Mobile towers one of the reasons why I really liked working with them is because they've done a great job in their 5G build out around the country yes so it's been pretty huge is that that secret band that I hear a lot about band 71 yes the antenna is very optimized for band 71 so has a great reach way out and it goes through trees and branches really well nice okay yeah so the very last step is to actually plug the antenna into the injector right yep you can all zippy tie that a little bit later you can see the WAN Port right there yep see how that lit up yeah so that means we got power to the antenna and then it's turning on right now so all in all that really was an easy install and if we weren't filming or messing around uh you know that literally could have taken a half an hour to to get that up and going right very simple yeah so we're back linked up to Verizon we have b66 and we got two bands of 5G so that's what the new modem does links up to two bands of 5G so we'll go ahead and run a speed test looks like it's connecting to Miami and we are down in the Florida Keys right now all right yep so I don't know if that's showing up on the TV or the screen or not but uh 31 down and roughly nine up so before I was getting right around that speeds anywhere from 20 to to 30 you know depending on what it's picking up so down here in the keys is kind of interesting cuz you don't know exactly where it's connecting too yeah so this was through Verizon right uh Nick's carrier is through T-Mobile and that's going to maybe be a little bit different speeds right so we maybe quite a bit different speeds so in comparison to Verizon and T-Mobile you know it really does matter where your provider's at where the towers at y so T-Mobile is pulling down over 200 right down and you know 35 up right so big difference from Verizon big difference yeah yeah and that's because it's using multiple 5G bands right right right and like I was saying on my phone like Verizon had like one bar hardly had much of a signal here so the nconnect is going to do a good job trying to pull in just and work with that one bar of signal so what's right for you well as I mentioned there is no one fits-all solution out there so you might be okay with just working on your cell phones most cell phone plans and cell phones allow you to Hot Spot directly from the phone but if you're like us you'll find out very quickly it is a pain in the butt not having a dedicated internet solution we're all used to having that at our homes where your Internet is just on you don't need to get your phone out Hots spot it connect it and then go through all the Hoops so a dedicated internet device like a modem and router allinone kind of like the jetpack that we had is a really good solution it's very similar to what you're used to having in your house you know it's always going to be on it's always going to have that connection from the internet company and you're always going to have service but that's really the big problem with being in an RV is that we don't always have that clear view or that clear clear reception uh of service so that's why taking that device and giving it a rooftop antenna really does make a lot of sense that's how you're going to get the best signal is by having your antenna Up on the Roof and Nick like he explained at insty connect that having the modem and the antenna Up on the Roof gave the best signal that he could find so is the Inc connect the absolute best out there well I can't say that with certainty but what I can say is that we've used it for tens of thousands of miles and almost 2 years and it really does seem to be the best solution for us it works in almost all of the places we go and that's the reason we've only had to use starlink a couple times a year okay so speaking of starlink do we still have it yes yes we do and we probably end up using it a couple times a year but every time we do turn it on it costs us $150 whether it's one day or the entire month now we only need to use it when we have absolutely zero cell connection but we're actually traveling to Canada this summer and that's another use case where we're probably going to use starlink as our primary solution that is unless something else comes up first we have a couple older videos on starlink so you can kind of see all the reasons that it just didn't work out for us the biggest ones is that you need to have that clear view of the sky every single time we do move locations roughly every week and so having to set that up tear down and make sure you have that clear view of the sky just didn't always happen and if you didn't have that clear view of the sky then the up time was not at 100% so if you're in the middle of a conference call or a video call those could quite easily drop off and there's nothing worse than having that happen I know starlink is continuing to improve and they do have new high performance dishes as well as inmotion dishes that go on top of your RV those do look like great options but again I just don't know if that's going to quite be 100% Factor cuz usually when we do need to bust out the starlink I do need to run the cable out and get that clear view of the sky we're usually covered in the trees so time will tell on that for right now cellular based service is what's working best for us well if you made it this far you're either a dedicated fan thank you or you really are interested Ed in finding an internet solution if you think the insta connect system fits your needs I'm going to share a discount code below for everyone I think Nick did a great job with the redesign improving the system's performance but also addressing some of the things from the previous design like moving from USB to PO so you can have longer than 30ft installations Poe also gives you more router options if you have a specific one that you want to use with the antenna we've had no issues with the one that iny connect provides but it's nice to have the flexibility as an option if needed also the new vertical and horizontal ladder Mount gives you great mounting options without drilling holes as well as the ability to move it to another RV or new location in the future current pricing on the insta connect antenna and modem is $5.99 and the router is a $200 add-on and again don't forget you can save 5% with the discount code Irene iron one word now you can use this system with your own data plan or you can purchase one from insty connect they start out at $19 a month and go up to $129 for unlimited data plan and $149 for the priority business plan I want to thank everyone for watching as well as Nick and his family from inconnect for providing us with our internet solution as we travel full-time around the country we'll catch youall on the next one [Music]

Channel: Irene Iron Travels

Views: 27,527

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Id: IUcgmi6t1Gs

Length: 26min 32sec (1592 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 03 2024