Any site to get ratings on RV park Internet quality?

[Fastfwd75]

I am oncall 50% of the time but still want to get away with the family this summer. Is there any RV or geographic site that would tell me the quality of Wifi(RV park) and/or LTE coverage for a specific area?

I am near Montreal.

Also are park gates open during the night? If I need to go back top civilization urgently should I leave the truck outside or can I just roll from the campsite?

[bigdogger]

Other than limited bandwidth from the ISP the park uses, one of the biggest hinderances to a good wifi experience is the power of the transmitter in your internet device. It has been known for some time that the device makers (and Apple is the leader and undisputed champion of this trend) are de-powering the radio transmitters in their devices to increase battery life. The result is you may see the signal fine, but the wimpy radio in your I-pad doesn't have the power to make the two way communication necessary to have an internet session. It is the digital world equivalent of walkie talkies where one party can hear just fine and the other party gets nothing but static. Add to that the fact that the wifi access point might be hundreds of feet away, with a couple of all aluminum RVs between you and it, making a clean wifi connection with the requisite two way communication becomes problematic. To the original question, no resource exists that would accurately rate the wifi or cellular service at any particular park. The preceived reliability would depend on too many variables including what you need to have available when the call comes in. If it is to just notify you that you have to go to the jobsite, you will probably be OK. If you need to log on and remotely take control of the NSA's supercomputer network to stop a imminent nuclear attack, you probably should consider plans that do not include using RV parks' wifi.

[docj]

BB_TX wrote:
Many times even those with strong signal are so slow as to be barely useable.

There is little to no practical relationship between the strength of a wifi signal at a campground and its speed. As long as the signal strength is adequate to avoid a significant number of re-transmitted packets, making it stronger will have no effect on the throughput speed. The problem with most poor RV park wifi systems is a lack of capacity (bandwidth) between the park and the internet. The best transmission system in the world can't do anything about the lack of bandwidth.

[docj]

tpi wrote:
Thats one place rvparkreviews could do a little better. Even though cell signal is not in the control of the park, it is relevant to the experience there for many. I've often thought that a review category should be cell carrier and performance. Any reviews I place online I'll mention the quality of my Verizon service at that location. A booster antenna for phone, aircard, etc. can help speeds in marginal locations.

As said, park wifi is generally slow to unusable. It may be a little better at times the park is empty. If it is good consider it a welcome surprise.

You may not be aware that RVParkReviews is in the process of migrating to a new server platform and updated software. Many features we would have liked to have included on the site have been limited by our physical platform. Once we are up and running on the new system, a cellular rating ability is something we have considered. Of course, as you note it would have to be by carrier and probably would have to treat voice and data signals separately.

That would make for a lot of choices to tabulate and one concern would be whether or not our reviewers will take the time to provide accurate inputs. For example, many people are unaware that the "bars" at the top of their phone's screen provide only a very general, relative measure of signal strength. Unless the actual received signal strength is viewed through's the phone's status screens the usefulness of observing that "we had a 3-bar signal" is rather limited. As a result, we're still trying to decide how to provide feedback about cellular signals; do you have a suggested approach?

[MrVan]

If the WiFi is provided by Tengo expect the worst and you will not be disappointed.disappointed.

[whistlebritches]

The reason wi-fi is so unreliable in most rv parks is because they don't want to pay for enough bandwidth to cover the number of sites they have. Our membership campground in Branson just did away entirely with the wi-fi at the sites. Now you have to drive to the gate, the office or the clubhouse to get online. We hate that. May be selling our membership, cheap. Anyone want to buy it?

[tpi]

Thats one place rvparkreviews could do a little better. Even though cell signal is not in the control of the park, it is relevant to the experience there for many. I've often thought that a review category should be cell carrier and performance. Any reviews I place online I'll mention the quality of my Verizon service at that location. A booster antenna for phone, aircard, etc. can help speeds in marginal locations.

As said, park wifi is generally slow to unusable. It may be a little better at times the park is empty. If it is good consider it a welcome surprise.

[2012Coleman]

CGs usually give you a code for the gate so you are free to come and go as you please whatever time it may be. I've never heard of a specific guide, but this info is sometimes included on review sites, or you can just be old fasioned and give them a call.

[BB_TX]

Rvparkreviews.com user comments is about the best you can do. Rarely have I found one that was much good for anything but checking e-mail and maybe very light web browsing. Some not even that good. Many times even those with strong signal are so slow as to be barely useable.

[the_bear_II]

Usually the RVers posting on rvparkreviews.com will indicate whether the WiFi was any good or not.

One of the parks we stay at closes the gates at midnight but there is a security guard you can call to have the gate opened.

[2oldman]

You can assume park wifi sucks, and that Verizon etal have coverage maps.