It seems like most of our ‘Internet on the Road’ articles lately have been about cellular technology.  Although cellular is getting to be more popular with travelers – we sure like RV parks with good Wi-Fi.  Absence makes the heart grow fonder … we did not find any parks with Wi-Fi during our travels in June.

Last month was the first month that we used our Verizon service exclusively for all Internet access.  Although we were very happy to see that we could comfortably stay under our 5GB bandwidth allotment, it wasn’t particularly fun.  We had to constantly be aware of our bandwidth usage.  We like watching Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show on his website.  We didn’t dare do that more than a few times because of Verizon’s limit of 5GB/month.  And, downloading a movie was definitely out of the question – most of them are close to 2GB.

We also turned off the automatic updates on our Windows Vista systems.  One update (SP2) was 350MB!  If both Jim and I had downloaded that using our Verizon connection, that would have been 15% of our monthly allotment right there!  So, we held off on that. 

Finally, last week, we were in a campground with good Wi-Fi.  Yeah!!  No limits here.  We downloaded our updates and had a Jon Stewart marathon! (we don’t have a TiVo – or even a TV for that matter!)

Our bottom line, as always … If you need the Internet wherever you travel, you need to use all three ways: Wi-Fi, Cellular, and Satellite.  I’m looking forward to having our Satellite service back operational … Jim’s working on that right now!

Now, if I could just find a park with a working Hot Tub!

Chris Guld
www.GeeksOnTour.com

p.s. If you happen to be at the FMCA Convention in Bowling Green, Ohio this week, we will be giving our High Speed Internet on the Road seminar on Monday, 7/20/09 at 11:45 in Seminar room #12.

Related posts:

1. How much is 5 Gigabytes?
2. The Best Wi-Fi in RV Parks
3. Wi-Fi: The Best of Speeds, The Worst of Speeds
4. Tethered Cell Phones for Internet
5. Internet by Data Card for Travelers