Why must wifi be so bad

kohai wrote:
Ok, just back from 2 weeks on the road -- our first big trip. I was surprised at how poor the wifi was at every place we stayed.

Things I ran into:

- one park didn't even try to offer it where the sites were. They just said you had to come down near the office.

- one place even had a sign that said their wifi wasn't good and that they couldn't get anything better. Part of the truth though was that their equipment wasn't configured right to even allow me to connect.

- several places offered it but you couldn't actually get web pages to load

- I've heard people bash tenango (or whatever it is called). It was dog slow but at least I could get pages to load (about 45 second page load times)

- I can tether from my phone but some of the places I was in didn't have the best signal strength. Wifi systems have the advantage of being a land-line based setup.

I've done network administration in my day and have some familiarity with how hotels run their networks. I like how some hotels do it. You get a sliver of bandwidth for free (say, 256k) but you can upgrade and get enough bandwidth to stream video for $x dollars a day. Their systems throttle anybody consuming more than their share -- people streaming video can't steal all of the bandwidth because the system won't let them.

The technology exists to solve the bandwidth hog problem. Probably the biggest hurdle is getting a decent connection from a telecom provider. Even with a slower connection, the systems could be managed better.

I would pay extra for working internet at a park. Being a techie and still needing to do work when I'm on the road, it really is a downer (and a bit maddening) when I can't do what I need for 30 minutes before I go off to enjoy my vacation.

I assume working wifi will be more of a demand with the younger generation -- or lack of working wifi may deter them from the RV world.

Honest to goodness.

Back in the day camping was GETTING AWAY from modern day life, to find peace, to enjoy nature at it's finest, take a "holiday".

Hope you are not planning to camp at State parks, most of those barely offer electricity let alone "free wifi"..

If the parks spent money on "improving" wifi then they will either need to CHARGE a separate EXPENSIVE charge for the wifi OR ADD THE COST OF IMPROVEMENTS TO YOUR OVER NIGHT COST..

BE HAPPY that they "offer" some sort of free wifi EVEN IF IT DOES NOT MEET YOUR "STANDARDS".

If you are planning to make camping a "habit" and can't live without your Internet "fix" then YOU NEED TO PAY FOR YOUR OWN WIRELESS INTERNET.

It is the way it is.

Quit whining about something that is free (NO EXTRA CHARGE) for you to use.