Internet
Hi everyone, I was wondering what everyone is using for internet while camping?
Forum Discussion
I don't this the OP ever came back so this is probably moot but there are pros and cons to any method you choose. Cellular requires a decent signal but not constrained to line of sight and the equipment and plans have gotten cheaper. Cellular can be used in motion and the equipment, once set up pretty much stays that way. Anymore you'd have to be pretty remote to not find a decent cellular signal especially with a booster. But there are dead spots. Starlink is pretty expensive especially on the outset and requires line of sight but is not constrained by the need for a decent cellular signal, it can be used literally anywhere. The equipment requires more setup and you need a roam plan to use it in motion. This is probably a better option for boats. Obviously campground wifi is a poor alternative as it's usually throttled if usable at all to stream. For these reasons most people that work remotely have redundancy (Starlink and cellular, 2 different cellular carriers, etc) as it's critical they not be without internet.
Cellular requires a decent signal but not constrained to line of sight and the equipment and plans have gotten cheaper
Both are line of sight, on is along the horizon and the other is up.
Cellular can be used in motion and the equipment, once set up pretty much stays that way.
both can be used in motion and once they are set up they are set up.
you'd have to be pretty remote to not find a decent cellular signal especially with a booster.
not really, 20 min drive up here out of town and no signal, very rare to find a campground with cell or anything unless you are in a major campground. Come up to Canada where the population is 1/10th of the US and the land mass much larger.. the only places you see good signals is in towns/cities and along major routes. if your rural and you have a signal you are lucky. you will also see that in Alberta the signal travels much farther than in say BC, so the coverage area in rural is much better because it is flat prairies. I live in the mountains where on one side of the mountain there is 5 bars and the other side there is 0. if you don't have a good base of 1 or 2 bars then a cell booster doesn't do anything.
Stop cherry picking snippets in my posts. Cellular signals do NOT require line of sight. If that were the case every single cellphone would need to have a tower visible. This is how cellular (radio waves) work by refracting the signal to reduce towers needed. I have a great signal now, can't see the closest tower a mile away through the trees and other houses. Or maybe I am employing some sort of magic and defying the laws of physics. Better signal with LOS? Sure, but not in all cases. Good signal without LOS, yes. Happens all the time.
Starlink can be used in motion but you need the roam plan. I said that in my previous post.
So you live in remote Canada where you don't have difficulty finding an area with no signal. Good for you. That's not the norm. I live on the East coast in the US and have been up and down the coast and never not had a cellular signal. I've been to the Midwest and never not had a signal. If you look at coverage maps from various carriers in the US, there aren't lot of places you won't get a signal. Again, never said it doesn't happen. Most of the state parks I visit have great cellular reception with a lot of tree coverage where satellite doesn't work. I know that because I've had Satellite.
Some of you get a little wound up in your own experiences they're jaded to the point of making things in accurate facts for the general public.
The best way to ensure coverage at all times is redundancy, which was really the moral of my post. Stop trying to make a different point for me to suit your perspective.
wasn't cherry picking the whole paragraph is there, just separated to address each one separately instead of one long confusing reply, I can change it if you like. or I can cherry pick it if you like to twist it a totally different direction 🤣
now for your next batch.. I will just answer you with out any snippets.
so 99% of Canada's population is within a 2 hour drive of the US, and if you look at your own US coverage maps for cellular you will see a stark difference between east and west and even more of a difference between north west and south west. North west USA has more areas with no coverage than it does with coverage and we are even worse as our terrain is more rugged. as you say you are on the east coast of the US that's not the norm for USA also, 2/3 of the USA has less coverage than the 1/3 along the east coast. you didn't put any area defining info in your first post so how I am supposed to know you live on the east coast and the statement was on a board that is available to people around the world, where is the OP from, I don't know. I myself live a 2 hour drive, probably 1 hour as the crow flys, but I have to drive around the mountain ranges in the way to get to the boarder, but I am above Washington state. so North western USA I used to live a 30 min ferry ride from Seattle and it was the same there. I am not in the boonies really either, my town as a pop of 100K people, 2.5 hours away is Vancouver with probably 4 mill in the area, 1 hour away is Vernon and Kelowna add another 3to 400K people and then all the towns and resort areas in between. the issue is they only put the towers in areas that are feasible when your in the mountains, not like the plains where they can put them anywhere and the signal goes much farther, or the east coast with rolling hills and its densely population where they can put them anywhere they need to. so for me I can drive 40 min down the major highway before I lose signal because it is to expensive to put a tower in that rugged of an area, or I can drive 10 min out of town and turn off to a forestry site and 2 min later lose signal because it can penetrate the mountain.
as for your understanding of how radio waves work, I'll try to clear up what myself and others are trying to say, yes AM signals will travel and bounce for ever, it is a low wave form which does but they still rely on line of sight, in the parries where I was from you can go 180 miles away and still get your favorite am radio station, drive 60 miles away in the mountains and you can't get it. so any obstacles in te way degrade the signal, until when there is enough it is just static on your radio dial. now look at FM which is a higher frequency it degrades faster up here when I drive to work I loose the fm stations at about 25 miles. cellular is even a higher frequency, much higher than fm which has the bonus of being able to transfer more information in a given time frame, but makes the signal even weaker in the sence of traveling. now our old standard in 1994 when I got my first cell wasn't bad, you could talk and text, but it wouldn't do pictures now days we have 5g and 5g+ that rival your home computer for speeds, but the distance is very limited that is why 5g and 5g+ is concentrated to major population centers where it is easy for them to set up antennas.
so here is a snippet of what affects cell signals
"Here's a more detailed breakdown of these factors:
- Distance from the Cell Tower:
- Signals weaken as they travel further from the cell tower.
- This is especially noticeable in rural areas or when buildings and other obstructions block the signal.
- Building Materials:
- Materials like concrete, metal, and Low-E glass can obstruct cellular signals.
- These materials are common in modern construction and can lead to poor indoor coverage.
- Weather:
- Rain, snow, and fog can weaken signals, potentially leading to dropped calls or slower data speeds.
- Heavy weather can disrupt cellular signal waves, causing them to scatter or weaken.
- Network Congestion:
- During peak usage times, like during major events or in densely populated areas, network congestion can reduce signal strength.
- This is because the network is overloaded and struggling to handle the increased demand.
- Interference:
- Electronic devices, power lines, and other wireless signals can interfere with cellular signals, weakening them.
- This interference can make it difficult for your phone to connect to the network or lead to dropped calls.
- Obstructions:
- Trees, buildings, and hills can block or weaken cellular signals.
- Anything that obstructs the line of sight between your phone and the cell tower can negatively impact signal strength. "
yes you did mention you need the roam plan afterwards in your paragraph as a afterthought. I don't like the cost associated with the roam plan myself otherwise I would already have one with the ability to tun it off in the months when you are not using it. I think if the cost of the plan dropped from 180/ month to say 120/month it would be a great value I wouldn't use it in motion myself though, I would just set it up when I get to the camp site. the benefit of the satellite over the cell, non of the stuff listed above applies except weather as you are looking strait up, and I have seen them work really nicely with only a tiny hole in the canopy above. they are both line of sight, just different factors reduce the strength of any system using a sign wave.
Cell signals are line of sight. If you have a hill/mountain between you and the tower, it will cut the signal off. An old trick is to move the phone up higher to "see" over trees/buildings/hills. Back when we lived on our boat, I had an antenna I could plug into the phone and then I would hoist the antenna up in the rigging.
Outside built up areas, it's still quite common to not have a signal, so the OP really needs to consider where he will be camping. There are online maps showing coverage, so he can pre-check where he thinks he will be traveling.
Starlink needs a clear view of the sky. While technically line of sight, there are thousands of satellites, so all of them need to be behind trees/cliffs/etc before you lose internet. We've been in some pretty heavily forested sites where there is only a small pocket of blue and it still works. Phone calls can pop in and out but internet and streaming issues are far less noticeable.
While a direct line of sight between a phone and a cell tower is ideal for a strong signal, cellular signals don't strictly require it. Radio waves can bounce off buildings, hills, and other structures, allowing signals to propagate even when there's no direct path. I can't see the tower(s) nearest my house about a mile away and through trees and houses and yet I get a very strong signal.
Satellite and cellular both use radio waves and if you work with ratio installations, they are considered line of sight. But once there is significant blockage of the fresnel zone, you lose the signal. If it's close and the signal is strong enough, some of the signal can leak past an obstruction.
Bouncing off buildings can occasionally happen. Bouncing off hills and other natural formations is much less common as trees, grass and other organic items tend to absorb/scatter the signal. Maybe if there is a nicely placed cliff with nothing growing on it.
But again, it's still quite common to find areas with no cell coverage when camping, so the OP should look at where he plans to camp and compare that to some of the easily searched coverage maps.
