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RV Lifestyle 101: How else can I access the Internet on the road?

One option that I omitted from the previous article is Hughes Net satellite Internet access. Hughes Net uses satellite technology to bring the Internet to your RV, providing you have a clear view of the Southern sky. It is necessary for a trained professional to install any satellite system that both sends and receives signals. This is required by the FCC. Installation must be done by a 3^rd party for RV installations, as Hughes Net home and professional service is only available for non-mobile locations.  This may require additional charges.

 

Purchasing a Hughes Net system costs about $300 after $100 rebate (normal equipment cost is $400) and you own it for life. Hughes Net also offers a lease option which is $99 to get started and then $9.99 per month thereafter. Both options require a 24 month agreement. There are many plan options for your system, depending on your desired speed. The slowest option is a 1 Mbps Download/128 Kbps Upload Home Plan for $59.99 per month. This comes with 24/7 live technical support, spam and virus filtering and up to 5 unique e-mail accounts. The most expensive plan made for real speed demons, offers 5 Mbps Download and 300 Kbps Upload speed is $349.99 per month with the same live technical support, filtering, and 10 unique e-mail accounts. 

 

Hughes Net is compatible with both PC and MAC and can be accessed via Ethernet connection or WiFi from a wireless router. It does require a special satellite dish to receive and send the signal. This can be a great option if cell phone service is a concern for you. For more information, visit http://www.hughesnet.com/ and click on “Home”. 

 

Some folks had questions about usage with mobile broadband, since most plans have limits on the amount of data that can be transferred each month.

 

Verizon Wireless offers two different plans.  The lowest plan gives users 250MB of data usage for Internet access per month for $39.99. The higher plan gives users 5GB of data usage (that’s 5,120 MB) which is 20 times the data of the lower plan. This plan costs $59.99 per month.   5GB of data is the equivalent of approximately 150,000 e-mails 1 page in length with an attachment, 30,000 web page views 150KB in size, 1,700 video clips at 3MB each, 1,000 songs downloaded at 5MB each or 1 full-length 2 hour movie at 1.5GB.   This information was obtained from Best Buy. 

 

In terms of equipment, I want to provide some more detailed information.

 

The USB mobile broadband device that I use is a Novatel Ovation U727 USB Broadband Card for Verizon. It’s a very reliable and easy to use card. I’m even able to use it with my “corporate” VPN occasionally for my day job. A popular PC Card is the UTSTARCOM PC5750 PCMCIA PC Broadband Card, also by Verizon. This is the type that fits into the slot on your laptop. My favorite Verizon device, which I want very badly, is the Novatel MIFI 2200 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot. This is the device I referenced that allows you to connect up to 5 wireless devices to the Internet. This is by far the best single device for families or couples with multiple computers. 

 

If you already have the Novatel Ovation U727 Broadband Card, you can create the same hotspot that you get from the Ovation MIFI by purchasing a compact PHS300 USB wireless router which can be purchased from www.cradlepoint.com. This allows you to utilize your USB mobile broadband card to create a hotspot for up to 16 mobile devices. I went to send out a big thank you to my good friend Paul for providing this information in comments on my previous article. 

 

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For questions or feedback, please leave comments below or e-mail Rodney here.