Who's interested in/has used wireless internet in campgrounds?

[RockyMtnRay]

As a very early adopter (way back in '00) of wireless networking ("WiFi")...and as someone who works from home...I love the ability to use my laptop to work, browse the web, handle email, etc. from anywhere around my home (office, living room, out on the patio, etc.) without having to drag a network cable around.

Internet connectivity while traveling is for me not a nicety but a have-to-have because it's imperative that I check my servers, check email, and provide customer support at least every other day, preferrably every day, even when I'm camped somewhere in my TrailManor. To date I've been depending on using my cellphone as a wireless modem but connection speeds are pretty slow and a graphics rich web page can take literally minutes to load.

I recently had the opportunity to stay at a motel that had wireless internet connectivity in all rooms and was that ever sweet. Very high speed (about the same as my broadband at home), I was able to do all my daily morning internet business chores in a matter of minutes instead of the half hour or so that it would have taken on a dial up connection. All I had to do was bring along my WiFi card and I was up and running on the motel's network in a matter of seconds...and even better, it was totally free!!!

I've been noting that an increasing number of commercial RV parks are now offering some form of wireless internet, allegedly throughout the entire park. This is one "hookup" that might just get me to start staying in commercial parks more often...I can do without electrical/water/sewer hookups for a few days but internet I gotta have every day.

Sooooo, how many of you folks are equally desirous of this amenity? And if any of you have stayed in RV parks with wirelsss internet, how well did it work, what kind of daily fees did you incur, etc?

Have you considered satellite broadband?

My cousin is a programmer and works from home. Home is a sailboat somewhere in the Caribbean.

Admittedly, she has to be anchored to use her satellite broadband connection. Cost is somewhere around 80 bucks per month. Works everywhere that satellite TV works.

I wish I could join you, but my productivity drops off rapidly for any screen size smaller than 19 inches. Let me know when the price of 19 or 21 inch laptops drop below a grand and we can meet in the park.

[fcatwo]

We are still postponing adding WIFI capability to our laptop because we've only seen it available in two RV park in the last couple of years (one free and the other $3.00 per day). Most don't provide convenient dial-up even when they list it in the Campground Guides. More often than not "internet-availabilty" means a pay phone (often with no place to sit) with a phone cable port. Our Verizon cell phone is still our primary internet access device while traveling.

I should add that we stay in mid-priced parks, when available, along the I-5 and I-10 corridors. Some of the more prosperous TMO contributers or those who frequent other areas may have had better luck.

We use WiFi at home and find it meets our needs, we live in Texas, which is in the process of installing WiFi in all it's roadside parks. We stay in campgrounds that offer wireless when there is more than one in the area we wish to visit.

Having said all of that, we don't live buy the web and can live very well for two or more weeks without it. If we need it, we can find it otherwise it is just one more of those just nice to have.

There are internet cafes almost everywhere now a days, use them when needed or you might try parking close to a school or government office building (if your using a B card you could just kind of fall in).

[RockyMtnRay]

Originally Posted by Windbreaker

There are internet cafes almost everywhere now a days, use them when needed

Most of what I do on the internet requires use of my own computer to either get into my office network via a Virtual Private Network (encrypted, non browser access) or the transfer of files (either as email attachments or via FTP). There's very little that I do on the internet that a public computer in a library or an internet cafe will suffice for. And, at least in Colorado, internet cafes are exclusively found in towns/cities...and I avoid urban areas to the greatest possible degree when traveling with my trailer.

or you might try parking close to a school or government office building (if your using a B card you could just kind of fall in).

As for "wardriving" and "borrowing" bandwidth from networks (like schools) that I'm not authorized to join, I consider that unethical at the least and really a form of thievery so I would never do that. I use my laptop almost exclusively for business, am not at all strapped for cash, and feel the right thing to do is pay for services (including wireless network time) that I consume. Besides which, the time I'd waste trying to find such open networks is a heckuva lot more valuable to me than saving a few bucks.

[Bill]

Like Frank, I have stayed in a number of campgrounds where "Internet Access" means a phone jack in the laundry room. It may or may not be free, but that's not the point. It's a pain. I haven't yet encountered a campground with true broadband access for free.

On the other hand, I have found (and used) free broadband access in cities a fair number of times. You can get a connection almost anywhere you go in a city, simply by parking outside a coffee shop, a good hotel, a bookstore, or any number of other places. They work great, but ... they are in the city. Or at least a big mall.

The other thing that concerns me is that these networks are unsecured. No encryption, no WEP, no nuthin'. You know better than I, Ray, but I think this means that once you have joined the network, anyone else in the network can peer into your computer - at least into the files that are marked as Shared. I don't know about you, but many of my files and drives are marked as Shared, because we have 3 computers in the house, linked by a wireless access point. So unless I change every file on my laptop to Not Shared when I go on the road, I think the bad guys could read these files, and under some circumstances could write files onto my computer. This makes me REALLY nervous. That scruffy guy in the van over there - or Mr. 3-piece suit in the BMW - could be doing me a world of hurt.

I'd look forward to more comments on this topic.

Bill

Ray First. Transfer of files - from your machine is what I was talking about the internet cafe's we've visited are WiFi, bring your own laptop. I don't and could not use public use machines for the very reasons you listed.

I was not suggesting that you are anyone else was strapped for cash! You pay for those networks and they are up 24/7, just don't use them when the students or employees are. Where it a concern they would be blocked, I don't care if a passer by drives off of my WiFi. (as long as it is not a regular thing)

Maybe Texas is just a lot more open than other areas.

Bill, your concern over intrusion becomes mute as soon as you turn on your firewall after joining the web. You do do that as standard practice don't you? Also I think that perhaps your limiting yourself to using these outlets only in large cities. Most of us small town hicks can be (read forced to be) as modern as you big city guys.

I set my shared files to only to the machines under my control. That is with fixed addresses. Therefore only those machines can enter or interface with my portable units but I can access those fixed addresses from anyplace at anytime.

The bottom line being security was drilled into me by a group I once worked with and even to this day I try to be aware (and that can be a two edged sword). That is not to say that there are not a few warez around that I don't have to look for in person. For most of us the standard safe guards will be fine if you do work of a sensitive nature you know how to work it or you are in trouble before you start.

Originally Posted by Bill

I'd look forward to more comments on this topic.
Bill

Some things to do to secure your computer when using WiFi. You should do some of these anyway.

1. Run firewall software on every computer. There are some good ones that are free. If you don't know what else to do, set the definitions so that all outgoing requests are permitted, but all incoming are blocked. This way you can surf the web and read email because those are situations where you send an outgoing message and then get a response. This is safe, unless you have some viruses (or is it virii?) or Trojan horses, etc. Any attempt by a hacker to send a request in would get rejected. At home, on your private network you are probably behind a hardware firewall that is built into the DSL/cable router/hub. As long as you are behind this hardware firewall, sharing files between home computers is safe. It is when you hit the road and you are connected to the Starbucks WiFi network that will get you exposed because you do not have any control over the hardware firewall definitions (web etc.)

2. If you use VPN to connect to the office then no one else on the public network can see what you are doing, as long as the VPN connection is encrypted. One of the purposes of VPN is to create a virtual encrypted connection over a real unencrypted public network. When connecting into office you should always use some soft of VPN protocol, even over a dial-up connection. The packets of data between you and the office go through many other computers. Any of these computers could be running packet-sniffing software to capture all data to and from your computer. If it is not encrypted then anyone can see what you are doing. If all you want to do is surf the web to check out the local chamber of commerce web site to see what might be going on then there is no reason to encrypt that type of traffic. If at any time I connect to the office from any location offsite I am required by my employer to run VPN.

3. Run backups. I no longer make any attempt to backup to floppies or even to CD/DVD. Hard drives are so cheap, except in a laptop, that I just run multiple hard drives. I no longer run anything smaller than 120 gigabytes. I partition each physical drive into multiple logical drives to organize the data. Then any logical drive (aka partition) that is critical is cloned (copied) to another logical drive on the other physical drive. I can't and don't clone it all, but all of the critical stuff is cloned.

I could ramble for hours on these topics, but this is sorta the wrong forum for computer geek stuff.


hth

[RockyMtnRay]

The original question was about wireless intenet within the confines of a campground/RV Park...interest therein and experiences with that specific form of access. I want to know who's interested in/actually has used wireless internet from within their Trailmanor trailer while it's parked in a campground!

This thread is not about discussing wireless access in an internet cafe, around a starbucks, some corporate building, or near some school. I frequently log in to the internet at 4:30 am to make sure my servers properly did their overnight processing and I'm not going out seeking an access point at that hour of the morning.

It is also not about the usual, typically crappy "internet access" provided by most campgrounds that consists of a single "data port" in some office or laundry room that you have to take turns using with every other camper in the whole campground. That's why I asked about wireless, not wired internet access.

It is not about mobile satellite internet. Yes, I've thoroughly looked into mobile satellite internet but the current best solution for RVs... the MotoSat DataStorm F1 is really just too heavy and large to mount on the roof of on my TM's rear shell...and there's no spare room on the roof of the front shell...or over the bed of my truck. In addition to its 110 lbs (plus weight of mounting frame) being a bit much for the torsion bars, there's the stability issues of adding that much weight behind the trailer's rear axle. And a lot of boondock campsites I use don't have good southern views because of either trees or canyon walls. The DataStorm is also a tad pricey...usually around $5500 or thereabouts including installation...but having assured satellite viewing and the ability to handle the weight/size are my problems with this unit. I've haven't completely ruled out satellite internet but that's really the subject of another thread...which I actually started a year or so ago but which got almost no member interest.

As the system administrator of our company, yes, I'm well aware of security issues of public WiFi, do run a high end firewall, use fully patched Windows XP Pro, and have full password protection of the entire harddrive. And yes, most of my access is via a fully secured, encrypted VPN that I setup and administer myself.

So, PLEASE let's just focus on wireless internet within a campground where the wireless is provided by the campground management either for free or for some daily charge.

I'm definitely interested in using wi-fi at campgrounds. I'm in the same boat as you Ray - being in IT services biz, I need to be tethered to the Internet 24x7.

I've noticed that some of the campground reservation websites now list this kind of feature but it can be very spotty/misleading. What may be billed as Internet access, ends up (as has been pointed out) as a single crappy phone line next to the soda machine. It'll be a few years at least before broadband wireless access is prevelant across a wide swath of parks. The most promising technology to provide coverage is not actually wi-fi but its close cousin known as wi-max or 802.16 in networking parlance. See here for a quick primer on wi-max:

http://www.intel.com/netcomms/techno...OVMTC=standard

The only thing you really need to remember about the key differences between the two is that wi-fi has a range of maybe 100 yards but wi-max has been tested to 30 miles or more. Obviously this should solve the problems of "wiring the last mile".

In this case it is all about of getting broadband access to remote areas such as campgrounds where it would be prohibitively expensive or completely impractical to run traditional cable based broadband, DSL and the like. Wi-max is the long term answer but what to do in the meantime when so precious few sites offer broadband access wirelessly around the campgrounds?

Here's what I've done (and I think someone mentioned this already): I have an "all you can eat" data plan with my cellphone provider (T-mobile). I simply use a GPRS/GSM card for my laptop and hop on the good ole information superhighway. Granted, it only gets you the equivalent of dial-up speeds but hey, it's way better than nothing at all. For my purposes, it works well enough to keep on top of my tasks and manage my workload while still being remote and sneaking in some camping.

The cellphone based data speeds are not standing still however. The cellphone companies are always moving towards faster and faster data access speeds so in the coming years you can expect something more akin to a moderate DSL or ISDN connection over your cellphone (acting as a wireless modem) or a GPRS/GSM style data card (PCMCIA). For example, if you were on Verizon in San Diego or DC in the past 18 months, you would have been enjoying 300 kbps data access (not bad!). I think Verizon has plans to roll it out further but since I'm no longer a subscriber, I have not kept up with their news.

Anyhow, I hope this has been helpful input.

Thanks all!