Hypothetical ..... if money were no object...

I'm not sure that what you are looking for is all that expensive. Most full-timers rely on cellular internet service because almost the entire country is covered these days, more and more of it with 4G service which makes possible streaming video and most anything else you would want to do.

Many (most?) full-timer RVers use Verizon because its coverage area is the greatest; it you wanted to have a backup AT&T can provide coverage in a few places Verizon can't. How much data you choose to buy on your monthly plan is your own business. I have a grandfathered unlimited data Verizon plan and like to stream video. We use ~35GB/month.

You can get your cellular internet access by using your smart phone as a hotspot or with a MiFi-type hotspot device. That's really just a matter of preference; they both do exactly the same thing.

(I'm not going to discuss satellite internet, since these days that's only a consideration if you absolutely must be able to get on the internet everywhere.)

To improve your cellular reception I suggest getting a Wilson Sleek 4G/3G amp with magnetic mount antenna. Put your phone or MiFi in the Wilson's cradle and get substantially higher signal strength.

Even though you could connect all the equipment in your RV directly to your hotspot, I suggest getting a "RV-router" and having all your devices connected to it. That way when you get to a campground and want to try out its wifi all you have to do is let the router connect to the new network and everything in your RV will be connected to it. Routers with this capability are made by a number of companies and you can search for them in this forum using terms such as "wifi range extender". You can spend $100-$500 for such a device depending on how much range (distance) you are looking for it to provide.

That's pretty much all you need in order to obtain state-of-the-art high speed internet these days. 4G cellular provides downlink speeds of ~5-15 Mbps which is more than is needed for HD video streaming. The cost issue is how much data you want to pay for, not what equipment you need. You can support a lot more than 3 users with this setup; the network in my RV consists of 2 laptops, an iPad, a Nexus tablet, a Roku, a printer, and a DirecTV DVR!

Verizon 4g

Wow Joel... I somehow thought it was a lot more complicated
(and expensive) then that.... so that is all those million
dollar Prevosts that I see the Country music stars trick out
utilize ? Guess I was faked out by all the bling. Your set up
definateley sounds doable for our clan.

I offered up the option to the family of satellite dish or high speed
internet... hands down the internet trumped. We are all currently
with ATT so I will have to see what kind of deal Verizon can cut.
Is security an issue ??? I see all these parabolic gizmos/signal
amplifiers that campers use to "borrow" internet connectivity. My
bride is very (?rightly so) paranoid about that issue...me not so much.
I thought a firewall would be in place ?


Good stuff.... after following the forum conversations on related
topics I misunderstood and thought the costs were prohibitive.

Charles

Millenicom Hotspot 4g plan with Verizon

The 3G/4G Hotspot Plan is a no-contract service that allows for 20 gigabytes of data transfer for $69.99/month. The service automatically allows for up to 10 wireless devices to connect simultaneously and is backwards compatible to 3G in the event the device is outside the coverage area. The service supports 802.11 b, g and n and is also VPN compatible.

Initial charges require $99.99 device purchase fee, $49.99 activation fee and $15.00 shipping fee as well as the prorated balance of the first month service fee.

http://millenicom.com/plans/

We're planning our first extended four month stay this summer in a remote area that no major provider reaches for internet service. The cell phone is on roam to the only local provider in the area. After a month or so Verizon and ATT both want you off the roaming situation. That's when the threats begin.

We're considering purchasing the Hughes Net system for the house with the free installation, then buying another tripod and dish to take on the road. The Hughes net equipement; router etc, is portable so we can load that in the trailer and take it with us like we can do with the Direct TV recievers.

We're pretty good at setting up the HiDef Direct TV dish on tripod, so this can't that much more difficult.

We're going to buy the Ooma internet phone box, hook it into the Hughes net, so we'll have direct internet phone and internet without going trough a local provider. Sound logical?

Verizon 4G Jetpack with a DomeAnt antenna :)

If money were no object, I would have one of my secretaries/assistants worry about it. :)

gbopp wrote:
If money were no object, I would have one of my secretaries/assistants worry about it. :)

This.

But, in the real world my Verizon 4g Droid set to Hotspot works pretty darn well. Netflix & Hulu.

Entire country is not covered by Verizon nor anyone else!! Out in the open wilderness I find poor to no signal at least in the Western States. We're often 100-200 miles from the nearest city. Land is rugged and mountainous so any towers nearby are quickly blocked by terrain. This issue is mainly when boondocking as most RV parks have WiFi albiet often slow.

Boxer Lovers wrote:

We're considering purchasing the Hughes Net system for the house with the free installation, then buying another tripod and dish to take on the road. The Hughes net equipement; router etc, is portable so we can load that in the trailer and take it with us like we can do with the Direct TV recievers.

Be very careful! The current HughesNet (Gen 4) system is NOT portable. Period!
To use a Hughesnet service in a mobile configuration you will have to ensure they set you up with an HN7000S modem which likely means they will not do a free installation if you can get them to agree to it at all.
Assuming you work all of that out, I am pretty sure I remember that the Ooma system will not work with the slow speeds and high latency of satellite internet.