What We Need To Take Our Internet Business On The Road
I thought I’d give you a rundown of the stuff we use to keep the Internet connectivity flowing while on the road.
I’ve broke our access down into three types:
- High-Speed Wi-Fi Access
- Cellular Data Service
- Plain Old Dial-up Access
I try to have at least one type available at all times.
UPDATE (08-13-2005): Since writing this, we’ve created our own WiFi directory:
http://hotspots.wirelesstrips.com/
To find places that offers high-speed wi-fi access, I use these resources. I ranked them in this order of preference: campgrounds, truckstops, coffee shops/bookstores/restaurants. Here are the resources I use to find these places:
- campgrounds -
JiWire’s Wi-Fi Directory
Use the power search and select “campground”.
HotSpotzz-Enabled KOA Parks
This is a running list of all KOAs with Wi-Fi.
Linkspot Directory
This is a list of Linkspot-enabled parks. Linkspot is a provider of Wi-Fi services to RV parks.
Coach Connect
This is a list of parks wired by Coach Connect, another provider of Wi-Fi services to RV parks.
- truck stops -
Flying J Truck Stops Wi-Fi Directory
This is a list of Flying J Truck Stops that have Wi-Fi.
Travel Centers of America Wi-Fi Directory
This is a list of Travel Centers of America that have Wi-Fi.
- coffee shops/bookstores/restaurants -
JiWire’s Wi-Fi Directory
Use the regular search.
T-Mobile’s Hotspot Service
Powers the Wi-Fi offerings of Starbucks, Borders and Kinkos.
Our laptops have internal Wi-Fi cards, but I’ve been told by a tech person from Coach Connect (a provider of Wi-Fi services to RV parks) that external adapters sometimes work better in an RV park environment. I did a test of this and didn’t find that to be the case, but that was only one test.
Cellular Data Service
This method works by using the cell phone network to make the connection out to the Internet. We went with T-Mobile after reading an article on JiWire, which reviewed all the cellular data services out there.
T-Mobile is not the fastest, nor even the best coverage, but it is unlimited access for a flat monthly rate. Most of the other services charge you if you go over a certain quota. We’re on so much that I was afraid we would hit the quotas and get stuck with extra charges (hefty ones, in some cases).
Overall, it works well. I wouldn’t do any heavy surfing on it, but the connection is good enough to do email and to access the administration pages on our sites (which are fairly small in size). Though there was some signal drop in certain areas, generally it holds steady as we tool down the road. T-Mobile’s coverage is pretty decent, especially along the major US highways.
The big plus is it allows us to work while in transit. Usually when we go on these road trips, everything piles up until we stop for the night. Cellular data service lets us keep on top of stuff during that normally “dead time” while on the road. It is currently the only reliable option for Internet access while in transit on the highway.
You have to buy a special card that fits into your laptop. (It is basically a cell phone without the “phone” part.) The connection is instant when you hit a button in the software that manages the card.
Plain Old Dial-up Access
We maintain an standard dial-up account with UUNet because when I’d travel for business several years ago, they were the only ones at that time with national access numbers as well as an 800 number, so you were never stuck without a POP to call. We just stayed with them through today, even though there are other ISPs with national POPs now.
Many campgrounds have a standard modem jack you can use. However, you need to ask where it is. KOAs generally have a dedicated room into which you can go. But we were at one campground that says in its literature “modem on premises,” which really means there is a modem jack on the pay phone by the front gate. I had to pull a picnic table up and move a garbage can over to have a place to set down my laptop.
I also recently purchased a Nokia 3650 cellphone, which has a build-in modem you connect to via Bluetooth (a special protocol for connecting peripherials to computers wirelessly). So I can actually place a call to our local UUNet POP number via my cellphone. I’ve gotten connection speeds as low as 2.4K (yes, that is right: two-point-four) to as high as 19.2K - well below the average dial-up speed of 28.8K. But in a pinch it works. When we were in Boothbay Harbor enjoying the ocean views, that is as fast a connection as we could get.
We also run a VPN all the way back to our Web and mail servers so that all our business stuff is encrypted as it travels back and forth. You never know who is listening.
That’s it - a connection option for all road conditions.