Cost of staying connected.......

Bob Vaughn wrote:
We just returned from a trip around the country and up to Alaska....For too many of those days we were devoid of any contact with the digital world. While at home it cost around 300 bucks a month for cable, internet, and cell phone service........I am thinking I can reduce that cost by going with satellite tv and a different cell service plus a mobile hot spot. I think these options would work great at home but am not sure about how they would work out while traveling. I just need to reduce our costs.......Some real life experiences would be appreciated.....

In Canada we add phone only service to Verizon for $15/month. Cell towers are limited on the Alaskan Highway. We only had internet service when we could get WiFi which was often limited and marginal on the Alaskan Highway. AT&T service in Canada is $$$ so that phone was turned off. No issues with Verizon phone and MiFi in the US including Alaska. Generally Verizon has better service than AT&T for us.

We take our home DirecTV receiver with us in the rig.

AT&T smart phone on our sons account: $40
Verizon smart phone and MiFi: $147
DirecTV: $75

So about $225/mth for one smart phone, MiFi and DirecTV. Plus the one time cost of rig setup for DirecTV.