Our Mobile Internet Setup for Full Time RV and Boat (Updated for 2020)

we have been on the road since 2006 and our day job is running the mobile Internet Resource Center we've been doing that since now 2014 so that entire span of time staying connected has been critically important to us and the tools that we use and the plans that we use and everything we use to stay connected has changed constantly as technology has evolved and our needs have evolved so today we want to share with you a snapshot of what we're using to stay online today and I'll see you at the top [Music] you comin back to Fozzie [Music] this changes all the time our last update I think was a year and a half ago and our set up then was completely different than it is today because new options are constantly coming out and our day job is testing this stuff and as of right now we have a solution we really like this could all change tomorrow so make sure you also supplement with our mobile internet Resource Center of content we have a dedicated YouTube channel on all of this stuff you want to go over there and subscribe but this is kind of that rare moment where we're gonna be kind of merging our personal and professional lives into one video okay so our data pack yes first of all we are mostly cellular based in our internet set up that has not changed since we hit the road back in 2006 cellular is so many places coverage and speeds have just been getting better and better and better over the years that we will get to Wi-Fi and satellite you know we rarely have to turn to those as options so we focus a lot of our attention our gear on staying connected over cellular and the most important thing with cellular is I'm having backup plants like redundancy of carriers just like jumping out of an airplane you want to have multiple you want a reserve parachute with cellular we find it so useful to have more than one carrier on board especially because Internet is ultra important to us I mean we can't work online without it and you just never know before you get to a location what is going to work best so having multiple options to try so important if it is essential for you start with your phones so we both use the iPhone 11 we are filming with my is Christmas and they have dual Sims in them so the great advantage of dual Sims is you can actually have two plans active in your phone at once and it's useful if you want to have two phone come work two phone lines for incoming calls or anything like that we don't use them hardly at all for phone calls we these are our mobile data devices and we each keep an AT&T and a Verizon plan going so we've got that built in redundancy when we're out about we always have a way online with one of the two main carriers so we have an older 18t plan that retired a few years ago and it gives us each 15 gigabytes of high-speed mobile hotspot use that we can use to get laptops and other devices online it has unlimited on device data for our secondary line we have different Verizon based plans Chris right now is rocking a visible which is a prepaid Verizon brand it's $25 per month is an unlimited on device data and unlimited mobile hotspot use and that plan has become very popular so it's a great option it is a great deal and the price is hard to beat there are some downsides divisible so you'll be sure and read our review of all the trade-offs you make with visible but it is such a great plan to have always in the back pocket it's the cheapest Verizon option right now on my iPhone I actually have a verizon prepaid plan so direct with Verizon and it's just a 15 gigabyte plan and that includes mobile hotspot use and that's plenty for my needs and the reason I keep that is because one of the other plans that we have is on a verizon jet pack and this was this plan retired back in May 2000 nineteen so you can no longer get this plan and you'll see this a lot of our plans are retired plans because we when we tell people get this plan before it goes away we really mean if some of these plans are long gone from the market but it's so valuable of add them and hold onto them and so this was a prepaid jet pack plan that was unlimited just always subject to network management $65 per month no longer an option but we keep that on a jet pack and this is kind of one of our spare take it away from the boat or the RV options that we will carry with us to be mobile and it's more of a backup option but to add my phone plan to it was really cheap I think it's 30 bucks a month to add it to that so we keep two different verizon plans on our smart phones and then we also keep one on the jet pack and now well I guess we'll cover the tablet really quickly we also keep a t-mobile plan again a retired very affordable a t-mobile plan that had binge on video and stuff that we keep in a tablet so it's got unlimited video streaming unlimited other stuff and then six gigabytes so it's a low usage of just basic data 6 gigabytes of regular data and then it stashes it builds up as a reserve until there's 20 gigs in that what they call the data session we've always got a lot of t-mobile data that we can tap into for in a place where Verizon or AT&T are overloaded and slow so that is our kind of our t-mobile in our pocket are our third reserve carrier there well we also have and this is looks very similar to this device they are pretty much the same device just this one's for Sprint this one we actually go through the calyx Institute it's a nonprofit that has an old clause that allows you to get an unlimited data plan we pay $600 per year to have this plan let's make it 600 to purchase and then it's $500 to be new it's a membership that you're buying to the Killick substitute and then that gives us an unlimited hotspot plan on Sprint's Network which isn't the greatest network but that works out to a pretty cheap monthly rate and it's good for us to have as a backup option because sometimes you get someplace where Verizon and AT&T which are considered the two top carriers or saturated and sometimes because if you're on that how like in court side sprint was like the secret turbo boost back-up plan to get out of a lot of congestion and stuff like that so we really have been enjoying having that the calyx plan as an option lately and now that it's Sprint and t-mobile are merging the calyx will start be able to take advantage of all of t-mobile's coverage - as that starts to integrate we also have a hotspot plan on Netgear Nighthawk this is an 18 t device with that retired 18 t plan that we have on our smart phones back in the day you were able to add for just $20 per month an unlimited hotspot plan that had no caps or limitations on it which was a great deal before that retired we got a lot of word out to our members and our audience to get on this plan because it was such a sweet deal and it's still retired and are still retired and slow grandfathered in so we keep those we actually activate it three of those plans so we keep one on a mobile device and we'll get to the other way that we do it but all of these devices here these are considered mobile hotspots they're all battery operated they create a private Wi-Fi network that you can get your devices online with and they're portable you can also they've got antenna ports so you can plug in antennas to them to get a better signal to them but we honestly don't use these all that often these are backup options for us or ones that we take away from our homes because they're easy to carry with you put in a pocket carrying a backpack and stuff but inside of our boat here are prime and also we actually have this setup in the bus and in the van as well our primary thing is we've been using kind of getting really focused on the pep wave a mobile routers and this is a pep wave max transit to do oh it's a two category twelve LTE modem so it's two carriers simultaneously and it actually has four SIM slots so we actually have four plans loaded up and switch between them and two of them can be connected at once it actually has space for four hands for cellular antennas to plug in most of them on the roof and so that lets us bond together right now we primarily are using a Verizon it and an ATT plan running simultaneously combining the speeds and capabilities of those two plans and if one is down or they'll just switch to the other automatically and stuff and this becomes kind of just our always-on reliable connection we have a wired Ethernet running throughout our both our boat and our bus so we've got the ethernet coming out here and running our network it's connecting to our TVs it's connected to our network storage all of our digital devices and the all of our plans we've actually got set up so that they don't even have video throttling on them so we actually watch video and 4k when the cellular connections good enough now this device the reason we standardize on it used to be really really expensive to get a true dual modem router used to be in the thousands of dollars but last September pep wave came out with this model that is $9.99 now that's still pricey still pricey but when you place out getting two of these and are routed together you're getting into the same price realm so mobile must-have who is run by full timers I live in light they have a online store and they are resellers of this equipment so they hooked us up with a demo unit back in September and we've been really really just standardized on this it has been so ultra reliable we move it between the boat the bus and the van as we move between our seasons and then we have our own antenna installations on each that this just hooks into so testing this with a lot of different antennas over the last few months and we've been using the prior generations of this so that's what we've left behind in our bus and our van and stuff so we can actually still track them remotely and have those remote plans so we've got cellular everywhere in all of our vehicle the time so back on the in currently in the van and currently on the bus which were not in right now we're on our boat right now we have the old Macs be our ones which are single modem devices they're just a solid and awesome lower category modems but we keep those with our spare data plugs remember I told you we activated a few of those 18 t plans just twenty bucks a month we keep those on those and the vehicles that were in so we can do remote monitoring and tap into our video cameras and also our battery systems and then this one is our primary one in whatever vessel that we currently are traveling it now the plans that we have on this one that our primary is we have one of those ATT plans so this one actually doesn't go plan in it right now it's in here so we've got one on the bus right now one in the van and one in here all three of the plans are but to a vehicle and then we also have one of the old grandfather postpaid verizon plans those expired are retired back in 2011 we happen to have one that we're still kicking along we thank our every single month when renews that it keeps renewing it is kind of it yeah the ultimate holy grail of Verizon plans because particularly we even activated the the premium streaming feature on it so we've got unlimited video streaming as well at full 4k resolution so great plan really affordable get it anymore so you had to have jumped on that years ago so as far as cellular data plans we are constantly tracking the options that are out there and we have a guide to our current topic data plans for our viewers and voters which you can find at our via mobile internet comm slash plan picks so go check that out there we are constantly updated no it's because cellular is our primary way online of course getting the best signal so we can get the best data performance is ultra important and we pretty much have standardized on what we call MIMO antennas that means multiple in multiple out which is a core LTE technology each of these devices has Atlee - if not for antennas in them which is basically like having multiple ears hearing in stereo these devices can hear from multiple directions and combine multiple signals that are hearing into one performance so when we're using the hotspots or if we're taking these on the go or just you know focusing on something something simple to connect we always keep the Netgear MIMO antennae with us and it is just a 20-dollar simple suction treatment it's up to 30 now it was 27 such an affordable antenna and it is does wonders use plug it into the here suction cup and into a window and that has been amazing for us in so many places and it's so easy to quick to set up so we always keep that antenna with us because it's easy to carrying a backpack of stuff even round about and then plugged into here we've got several different ailments that we've been using on our currently installed on the van we've got a mobile mark 9 in one it's overkill overkill but we've got the four cellular antennas and we're using two of the four Wi-Fi antennas it has all in a little dome on top of the van gives us a great basis to test from you know all in one simple little compact unit on the top of the van we're very happy with that antenna but we test a lot of other antennas on the boat we've got it's a pointing 402 so it's a very tall marine antenna and it's got two cellular antennas inside in a MIMO configuration so can only use one of our modems with it at a time I think if we had known we're gonna like that antenna so much we might have found - we might have gotten - and installed - so that we could have two at once but when we installed it we had a single motor we also have a weboost marine etta which is a single not MIMO antenna that I have hooked up to just one of four the second modem just one of the antenna ports and then I'm just using the internal small cellular antenna to go with it to give it its second year so it's kind of out of balance but it does work in a pinch and especially on our boat which is made of fiberglass which doesn't block signal as much as our van and bus do which are made of metal so it's less important to have it higher but when we're off shore it definitely helps to have antennas so this way we've got one cellular modems got the 402 antenna which has got this best possible reception the second cellular modem is still doing pretty good with the libras Marine antenna and an internal antenna combined with it and mobile must have also provided those antennas for us to test and we have a lot of testing data with each of those we are not affiliates with mobile must-haves they did offer that to us instead we ask them to give our members of the mobile Internet Research Center a higher discount than they offer directly through their affiliates so we prefer to pass the savings on to our members we prefer not to be compensated by vendors because we like to be unbiased yeah that's our focuses the members of the site now continuing on cellular everybody's always excited and eager to ask us about cellular boosters and honestly we hardly ever find a need to use a cellular booster we've tried just about every cellular booster that exists we're almost always happier with direct wired antennas but we do keep a booster round these every so often it is a useful tool to have and our current favorite booster is the we booster reach this right this one came out amid 2019 it is their new flagship one unfortunately do not have an antenna kit yet specific for rvs or boats they're only selling one that goes for cars with just a little 4-inch stubby antenna we actually preferred this in our testing the best one is with that 4G OTR antenna which is that really long one would like the black beer can on top that one works best with it but they don't have a kit with that yet so you at the buy it separately but that's the costs but we do find that when you are very distant from a tower it is the best option with something like a mobile hotspot device or even a router but if you're standardizing on cellphones that's when the booster comes in extra handy because cell phones don't have antenna ports so boosters are the only way you're gonna get a better signal other than holding your phone up like the Statue of Liberty so they help that's boosters again something we hardly ever pull out and again another thing we hardly ever pull out people always ask us but what about getting into the free Wi-Fi at the marina or the free Wi-Fi at the campground or tapping into the free Wi-Fi that's in so many other places getting better long-range Wi-Fi our cellular we have so many cellular options and they usually work so well that Wi-Fi is hardly worth even testing because it's almost always disappointing sometimes more in more marinas and campgrounds are doing a really great job of bringing in enough capacity for their customers so that you can actually stream Netflix it's not across the board though and there's still lots of times where there just isn't enough bandwidth coming in to share with everybody because you know most people today they want to be able to video chat with their friends back home they want to do able to do zoom calls watch YouTube videos and those are all high bandwidth things that a lot of publicly shared resources like Wi-Fi networks just aren't set up to do so but when we do stumble across the Wi-Fi network that is is a really good option or our only option are we found that sometimes the Wi-Fi on 2.4 gigahertz you know the low band 5 Wi-Fi is usually not great it's super saturated but if you've got a device that can tap into 5 gigahertz Wi-Fi and the local network has that suddenly Wi-Fi becomes really interesting we found some arenas and campgrounds have that but almost no Wi-Fi extending gear talks 5 gigahertz so that's why we our go-to tool is the Wi-Fi Ranger lead AC so this is dual band 2 point 4 or 5 gigahertz the upcoming a Wi-Fi Ranger converged Everest will also be dual band but there's not a lot of dual band options out there but we found this to be the the best thing we've ever tested for getting long-range Wi-Fi and fast Wi-Fi and supporting both bands and normally you would plug this into a Wi-Fi Ranger interior router and we do have like the Wi-Fi Ranger go AC or the spruce that we would plug this in and connect that way but we also would just use a power of Ethernet adapter and plug it in as a LAN input into our pep wave is kind of our because this is our normal all we set up network inside and so we on occasions have found use for this and it does it's our Wi-Fi option when needed and then satellite right now the state of satellite for broadband there is HughesNet out there but you can get some high speeds on you stand faster but you're having a long term contract and you need a satellite huge satellite dish and you're not gonna use that on a boat because they have to be aimed and built moves but so it's only appropriate for RVs and of course low-earth orbit satellite options like SpaceX could become a reality by the end of this year start becoming consumer accessible which will be super exciting but until then and until then there's a category of devices called satellite messengers that they're basically tiny devices handheld devices they don't particularly need to be aimed they just need a clear view of the sky and they will give you no internet access no browsing no surfing nothing like that but you could send text messages and get maybe weather updates and you can let people track you over satellite and we keep this this is a Garmin in reach we keep it keep this as a way to you know always have no matter what cell signal is an option for pressing an SOS button and being able to be in communicate for communication of help or if we're you know gout in the extreme boonies and our team needs to reach us they could send us a text message and know that they'll it'll get to us and we just like that extra safety and confidence of having something like this onboard and we keep it wherever we go even when we're traveling internationally and stuff so we've found this handy there's hopefully going to be a whole new generation of next next generation of satellite products coming to market over the next few years that will take it from text messaging to broadband everywhere but we're not there yet and of course as 5g is rolling out all the carriers are in a race to get their 5g networks deployed for as nomads I don't think it's gonna really be part of our Arsenal's for maybe this time next year yeah we're excited to start getting 5g gear there's nothing I would jump on at the moment as of April 2020 there's stuff out there there's nothing I would jump on but we've got our eye on things that hopefully by the end of this year next year that will start to be interesting and maybe replace some of this stuff so there are options there are mobile hotspots that are coming out this year that will support 5g data plans are still iffy as to what they're going to offer as far as for data limits for data use for hotspot these industrial grade routers it's probably gonna be quite a while before their 5g compatible signals enhancing like antennas and boosters it's gonna be even longer before there's consumer accessible options for that so this is I guess kind of the big snapshot of what we personally use right now we are cycling out stuff all the time for testing reasons and stuff like that we do get asked it if this wasn't our day job to have all of this when we have all of this not all of it but we'd have a lot of it because we are connectivity junkies that we got into this is our day job because we were using this stuff all the time staying connected staying connected is what makes being nomadic techno Matic possible for us and having all these multiple ways online and ability to work almost anywhere we go and there are other approaches to mobile internet a lot of people do like to standardize on these mobile hotspot devices or just smartphone hot spotting off their smartphones and then you can tether these to some mobile routers like the Wi-Fi rangers roofs and Aspen you can just tether these to those routers and use multiple hotspots get multiple carriers so we're not saying go out and copy our exact set up these are this is what is working for us but go study go go to our resource under the mobile internet infocomm we've got a new course there as well video of course we just felt that is debuting that will help you figure out what your personal set up an arsenal and ideal configuration for you would be and you will have completely different choices than we are making because the options are changing all the time in each of our needs are so unique now a lot of people ask you how much data a month to do we use um we can easily use two to three hundred gigabytes a month because we do a lot of video streaming as well we do a lot of video broadcast or YouTube lives and uploading these videos and if we got really good video very good bandwidth you know we're up on it to 4k and we can go up to four or 500 gigabytes yeah but the not important nice thing for us is that we've got so many plants and so many options and so many you know we've done such a good job of hunting down truly unlimited plans that we don't have to actually stress or think about our data usage much at all we did we don't even bother to track it closely anymore just because we've got an abundance of options but those are mostly options we have right now aren't available anymore and that the data plans are changing so often as to what is available and we're kind of in this pre 5g phasing out LTE world where the carriers aren't focused on unlimited plans on LTE right now for data only use so it's we're constantly trying to find the best options out there so do you pull up with that plans guide and when we send out alerts saying get this plan before it's gone I mean that's probably the most important reason to follow our site is to be aware of when there's a great option and when it might be about to go away all right that's our update for now next time we make it up I'll have another update out for you we treat these videos just for fun and we love having you along for the ride if you like this video give us a thumbs up leave a comment or if you haven't already subscribe to the channel see you next time [Music] you you

Channel: Technomadia

Views: 139,402

Rating: 4.8982649 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: JPgeGO5WPH0

Length: 24min 18sec (1458 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 14 2020