Does "free WiFi" ever work?

[Farm_Camp]

Just visited two different KOAs, two days, in a row, both offered "free" WiFi... I hate to say it like a complaint because it's not exactly something I'm going to loose sleep about... I'm just wondering what others experiences are/have been, not naming parks specifically, just generally, does it work for you generally, or are you generally better off just sticking to your own connections like a Hotspot (as I'm doing now.). Sorry, not wanting to start a rant fest, just taking a gauge of others experiences..

[holstein13]

westernrvparkowner wrote:

holstein13 wrote:

rwbradley wrote:
Unfortunately there is a reason the worlds backbone and most large organizations are built almost exclusively on Fiber optic cable. I am not aware of any over the air solution that is capable of delivering remotely close to the bandwidth required, is stable under load and stable under adverse conditions like weather. Fiber optic is the only solution that is capable of delivering high bandwidth over any long distance with virtually no errors.

Line of sight and wireless technologies are virtually the only thing our military uses these days. It's pretty reliable under virtually any conditions.

Obviously you are correct and the people who work in that industry, or have to buy bandwidth and install wifi systems are wrong. There is no reason you shouldn't have unlimited bandwidth for streaming in an RV park no matter where it is located. And it shouldn't cost a penny. So I agree 100%, people should boycott all RV parks until they get wifi right. I mean if the government can do it with it's unlimited budget and access to frequencies that are restricted only to military usage, why shouldn't a campground be able to do it on the 11 frequencies that are used for wifi throughout the country by everyone.
People should stay at Walmart, in the National Forest Campgrounds, casinos and every other free location and really put the screws to the park owners who are keeping all that good wifi out of their parks for no reason other than to make life difficult for the RVer. Your boycott would really bring them to their knees and I am sure wifi would improve overnight.
Personally, if everyone who needs to stream HD movies boycotted my parks I would be ecstatic, that would mean the wifi would work much better for the 95% of the guests who only need to check some e-mails, do a bit of banking, check the weather and do some recreation web surfing.

You're right. Now I understand that every park owner is a certified network engineer and they've optimized their systems to the best most cost effective degree possible. Thanks for your snarkiness and showing me how it's impossible to improve internet at any location at any time and it's impossible to use wireless or line of site technology unless you have an unlimited budget.

I love how dogmatic you are in your beliefs. Me, I try to keep an open mind and I believe firmly, almost anything can be improved (except the way you run your park, of course.)

[rwbradley]

noplace2 wrote:

westernrvparkowner wrote:
Obviously you are correct and the people who work in that industry, or have to buy bandwidth and install wifi systems are wrong. There is no reason you shouldn't have unlimited bandwidth for streaming in an RV park no matter where it is located. And it shouldn't cost a penny. So I agree 100%, people should boycott all RV parks until they get wifi right. I mean if the government can do it with it's unlimited budget and access to frequencies that are restricted only to military usage, why shouldn't a campground be able to do it on the 11 frequencies that are used for wifi throughout the country by everyone.
People should stay at Walmart, in the National Forest Campgrounds, casinos and every other free location and really put the screws to the park owners who are keeping all that good wifi out of their parks for no reason other than to make life difficult for the RVer. Your boycott would really bring them to their knees and I am sure wifi would improve overnight.
Personally, if everyone who needs to stream HD movies boycotted my parks I would be ecstatic, that would mean the wifi would work much better for the 95% of the guests who only need to check some e-mails, do a bit of banking, check the weather and do some recreation web surfing.

I'm still LOL as I type. I could not agree with you more and the bottom line is that you can dress 'em up in 3 piece suits and the finest kind of niceties but they are still bovines.

LOL x2 could not have answered it better myself 🙂
One point on line of sight... the reason the military uses it is not due to its speed and stability, but due to its flexibility and ease of implementation. Think back to the old days. During WWI some poor kid had to run notes back and forth from the trenches while the bullets were flying, during WWII some poor fool had to run a spool of twisted pair back to a command post for phone access. Now days they just point an antenna from the trench, bunker etc. If they move, they just repoint. I cannot imagine trying to cleave and terminate fiber in a trench, my personal worst nightmare was dealing with new fiber while a building was being drywalled.
Honestly no disrespect meant to anyone who has served, but I somehow cannot imagine a forward position where there are 100 guys huddled behind sandbags all pissed off because there is not enough bandwidth on the line of sight military link for all of them to watch the latest season of Orange is the New Black on their iPads.

[noplace2]

westernrvparkowner wrote:
Obviously you are correct and the people who work in that industry, or have to buy bandwidth and install wifi systems are wrong. There is no reason you shouldn't have unlimited bandwidth for streaming in an RV park no matter where it is located. And it shouldn't cost a penny. So I agree 100%, people should boycott all RV parks until they get wifi right. I mean if the government can do it with it's unlimited budget and access to frequencies that are restricted only to military usage, why shouldn't a campground be able to do it on the 11 frequencies that are used for wifi throughout the country by everyone.
People should stay at Walmart, in the National Forest Campgrounds, casinos and every other free location and really put the screws to the park owners who are keeping all that good wifi out of their parks for no reason other than to make life difficult for the RVer. Your boycott would really bring them to their knees and I am sure wifi would improve overnight.
Personally, if everyone who needs to stream HD movies boycotted my parks I would be ecstatic, that would mean the wifi would work much better for the 95% of the guests who only need to check some e-mails, do a bit of banking, check the weather and do some recreation web surfing.

I'm still LOL as I type. I could not agree with you more and the bottom line is that you can dress 'em up in 3 piece suits and the finest kind of niceties but they are still bovines.

[westernrvparkow]

holstein13 wrote:

rwbradley wrote:
Unfortunately there is a reason the worlds backbone and most large organizations are built almost exclusively on Fiber optic cable. I am not aware of any over the air solution that is capable of delivering remotely close to the bandwidth required, is stable under load and stable under adverse conditions like weather. Fiber optic is the only solution that is capable of delivering high bandwidth over any long distance with virtually no errors.

Line of sight and wireless technologies are virtually the only thing our military uses these days. It's pretty reliable under virtually any conditions.

Obviously you are correct and the people who work in that industry, or have to buy bandwidth and install wifi systems are wrong. There is no reason you shouldn't have unlimited bandwidth for streaming in an RV park no matter where it is located. And it shouldn't cost a penny. So I agree 100%, people should boycott all RV parks until they get wifi right. I mean if the government can do it with it's unlimited budget and access to frequencies that are restricted only to military usage, why shouldn't a campground be able to do it on the 11 frequencies that are used for wifi throughout the country by everyone.
People should stay at Walmart, in the National Forest Campgrounds, casinos and every other free location and really put the screws to the park owners who are keeping all that good wifi out of their parks for no reason other than to make life difficult for the RVer. Your boycott would really bring them to their knees and I am sure wifi would improve overnight.
Personally, if everyone who needs to stream HD movies boycotted my parks I would be ecstatic, that would mean the wifi would work much better for the 95% of the guests who only need to check some e-mails, do a bit of banking, check the weather and do some recreation web surfing.

[holstein13]

rwbradley wrote:
Unfortunately there is a reason the worlds backbone and most large organizations are built almost exclusively on Fiber optic cable. I am not aware of any over the air solution that is capable of delivering remotely close to the bandwidth required, is stable under load and stable under adverse conditions like weather. Fiber optic is the only solution that is capable of delivering high bandwidth over any long distance with virtually no errors.

Line of sight and wireless technologies are virtually the only thing our military uses these days. It's pretty reliable under virtually any conditions.

[rwbradley]

You are certainly right about urban campgrounds. It is much more feasible to wire them up with higher capacity solutions. However there are still some roadblocks to overcome. When calculating your bandwidth budget, you start with your worst case scenario, lets say 7pm, assume 2mbps per campsite (enough to do one Netflix stream or one low bandwidth Youtube) despite there may be multiple devices per site (the average these days is about 2-3 devices per person, so a family of 4 could be as many as 12 devices (not likely but possible). Then multiply the 2mbps per site by the number of sites, say 100, that makes 200mbps. Any good network engineer would then add 40% for unknown, just in case, and what if. That gets you to about 280mbps. Now if we look at the options a campground could have access to in an urban environment:
T1 1.54mbps
DSL abt 25mbps max
Cable abt 100mbps max
FIOS (not sure, we don't have in Canada so I won't comment on it)
Fiber basically anything you want up to about 10gbps if infrastructure supports it
You can then bond multiple connections of the same type with expensive specialty hardware and if your ISP supports it. You could theoretically cover the bandwidth budget above with 3 bonded 100mbps Cable feeds at 3 times the cost per month plus the hardware. This could possibly give a working solution for under $500 per month.
You could also do it with Fiber at several thousand dollars per month but only if there is Telco Transport fiber on the street out front and you are willing for them to run a conduit from the pole to your building ($10,000 or more). If no Telco fiber is near by you could be looking at hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to get it run to you.

I have not included any over the air or line of sight solutions in my scenario as they are typically just too unstable for long distance, high bandwidth, multiple users (like dozens or hundreds of Netflix users). I have run WIFI many miles and it will work OK under low load, but as soon as the Netflix starts your error rate will skyrocket, and in the fall when the leaves drop, or during a storm, there goes your bandwidth. Unfortunately there is a reason the worlds backbone and most large organizations are built almost exclusively on Fiber optic cable. I am not aware of any over the air solution that is capable of delivering remotely close to the bandwidth required, is stable under load and stable under adverse conditions like weather. Fiber optic is the only solution that is capable of delivering high bandwidth over any long distance with virtually no errors.

My personal opinion is free WiFi at hotels and campgrounds is a thing of the past, it is simply not sustainable. It is just too expensive for them to deliver the needed bandwidth to do things like Netflix. I think in a few years we will be seeing free unrestricted WIFI disappear and different models like pay to surf daily rate like some hotels and campgrounds already do, pay per MB, filtered access (blocking media rich services like Netflix and Youtube will be the way of the future. I no longer expect anything useful from "free" WiFi anymore and rely on a hotspot, but would be willing to pay for some guarantee that I would get usable bandwidth at a campground especially if it was cheaper than my hotspot plan.

[Parrothead_Mike]

When I've used the "free Wi-Fi" in a campground I found it best to use it very early in the morning (6-7 a.m.) or late at night (midnight or so). I got the best speed during those times. Now I just use a Verizon jet-pack any time I want.

[holstein13]

rwbradley wrote:

Gene&Ginny wrote:

holstein13 wrote:
... After all, with today's technology, there is no reason why we shouldn't all be able to stream video simultaneously. ....

Bandwidth costs money. When I was in the business we got paid BIG bucks for an OC3 (155Mb) internet connection. How many campgrounds want to pay $1,000 per month so campers can stream video?

I was going to answer that one too. It is not the monthly costs that will kill you though, even though they are quite a bit higher it is the capital costs to build a network that does not yet exist. There is nothing stopping todays technology except: time, infrastructure, money, enough customers to make it cost effective. It is hard enough to get DSL or Cable to the boonies where the campgrounds are(and a couple of other neighbors that maybe able to leverage a new service build). Try squeezing 100 campers all trying to stream Netflix on a 50mbps Cable connection (hint Netflix at 2mbps per user x 100 users = 200mbps). This is not DSL or Cable speeds, it is Fiber optic speeds.
Now for me, local Telco costs to extend their fiber network have had 6 digit price tags just for 10mi of fiber. Imagine running it 100mi from the nearest town, now we are talking 7 digit numbers, all on the back of the campground.

As much as I would like to see a network that is more stable and can handle Netflix for everyone, I am not sure I want to have to pay a few hundred a night for a campsite so they can pay down a million dollar loan for decent internet.

Why do we need fiber optics? Why not use a microwave link from a provider to the campground? Why not use a laser? WiFi, itself, can travel a few miles using antennas. Yes, you are correct that if we need to dig 100 miles or even 10 miles of cable, it would be prohibitively expensive, but why would you do that? Just use the unregulated bandwidth available through the airwaves or a laser router or just license a point to point solution. It's much cheaper.

Besides, you are only referring to remote campsites. I'd be happy if urban campgrounds had decent internet. They can easily connect to cable internet, Fios, or T1s. They have no excuse.

[Deb_and_Ed_M]

To be honest, the lack of "usable" wifi in so many RV Parks is one of the reasons why we bought a condo for Snowbirding. All we need to do is check email, so we know our business is still running smoothly in our absence; yet being able to do that is always a cr**-shoot. We know about mobile hotspots and satellite connections - but we had neither as we headed south last winter, since we planned to stay in "good parks with WI-FI". By the time we reached FL - we felt that the whole RV Snowbirding thing just wasn't going to work for us.

I found the easiest time to actually get online was in the wee hours of the morning - before all the Bandwidth-Hog kids woke up or the adults started streaming movies.

[rwbradley]

Gene&Ginny wrote:

holstein13 wrote:
... After all, with today's technology, there is no reason why we shouldn't all be able to stream video simultaneously. ....

Bandwidth costs money. When I was in the business we got paid BIG bucks for an OC3 (155Mb) internet connection. How many campgrounds want to pay $1,000 per month so campers can stream video?

I was going to answer that one too. It is not the monthly costs that will kill you though, even though they are quite a bit higher it is the capital costs to build a network that does not yet exist. There is nothing stopping todays technology except: time, infrastructure, money, enough customers to make it cost effective. It is hard enough to get DSL or Cable to the boonies where the campgrounds are(and a couple of other neighbors that maybe able to leverage a new service build). Try squeezing 100 campers all trying to stream Netflix on a 50mbps Cable connection (hint Netflix at 2mbps per user x 100 users = 200mbps). This is not DSL or Cable speeds, it is Fiber optic speeds.
Now for me, local Telco costs to extend their fiber network have had 6 digit price tags just for 10mi of fiber. Imagine running it 100mi from the nearest town, now we are talking 7 digit numbers, all on the back of the campground.

As much as I would like to see a network that is more stable and can handle Netflix for everyone, I am not sure I want to have to pay a few hundred a night for a campsite so they can pay down a million dollar loan for decent internet.

[Gene_Ginny]

holstein13 wrote:
... After all, with today's technology, there is no reason why we shouldn't all be able to stream video simultaneously. ....

Bandwidth costs money. When I was in the business we got paid BIG bucks for an OC3 (155Mb) internet connection. How many campgrounds want to pay $1,000 per month so campers can stream video?

[holstein13]

2gypsies wrote:
Campground Wifi is not meant for streaming. That's why you find it doesn't work well many times. Too many are using it as if it was their own.

This is, unfortunately, true. But why should we accept that? Maybe we should all boycot campgrounds with inadequate WiFi. After all, with today's technology, there is no reason why we shouldn't all be able to stream video simultaneously. No reason at all.

And I don't think this has anything to do with cost either. I would rather pay a nightly or weekly charge for WiFi and get a good connection than get a bad connection for free. I think it's simply that campers care more about great locations with lots of amenities than they do WiFi.

[rwbradley]

Fort Wilderness is an unusual case. Due to the large area of the park compared to any other campground and the fact that Disney never does the Chevette, they only do the Cadillac it is a big job. To build a WIFI network on that scale at Magic Kingdom is easy. They have an extensive network infrastructure with every building connected to it. This makes it easy to add WIFI to the entire park. Fort Wilderness on the other hand does not have that infrastructure in place and does not have all the buildings where they can be installed. This means building an extensive fiber optic network and putting up poles to install hundreds or thousands of outdoor grade wireless access points. This is not impossible but it is a large, costly and complex task. I suspect one day they will have a pervasive WiFi network that is as stable as the network in the rest of their parks and hotels and nothing like the average campground.

[Farm_Camp]

I have not had the chance to read the other thread, but, it is interesting that here at Fort Wilderness if you want internet access, you have to either be very close to one of the trading posts, or near one of the cabins. Otherwise, if you want wifi at your site, you have to borrow a cable modem from Disney, and supply your own wifi router. That's a clumsy solution, but, the wifi actually works great once you get it set up.