Internet Access from my motorhome Forums

Julie

Just curious to find out how all you full timers get yourselves connected to the internet all the time to surf the net. Do you use bluetooth type thingys or what.
I presume by 'fulltimers' you live in the MH all the time and travel wherever you fancy.

I have connected on the rare occasion via my hubbys mobile phone, but assume this is expensive. Just being nosey really Liar

Ericbunny

There are many way to connect.The cheapest is the data card or Gprs/3G card.Vodaphone is probably the one most recognised,but there are others.It is not cheap,but if you are just after e-mails,the small to medium package witch cost from about £12 to £24 a month with a certain amount of data included.If you want to do more the highest is £87 inc of 1gig download.Now this sounds a lot,but in all fairness it is not that much.If you are full timing you will use a lot.You may want to download some songs,watch a clip ect.So you may need to go a step further.Satellite broadband.Now there are 2 ways.The one way or two way systems.The 2way systems like datastorm are £5000 by the time instalation ect.There are 2 way systems of £15000 plus out there.So what about £20 for oneway.Yes £20 for a 256k connections up to £60 for 2meg connection a month.You only need a sky dish(yes that is correct) a satellite modem and your off.You will need to use gprs data card as your uplink,so you do need 2 accounts,but you can down load almost unlimited data,but there are a few exceptions.One of the companies doing one way broadband via astra is AVC.They will tell you the pros and cons of one way broadband.They are a small company,but go through the setup with you step by step.I had a account in 5 min,and was surfing in 20 all setup and running as clockwork.It is very reliable even in foul weather.For me this has been a godsend,no more checking daily on how much i can use.

HymerCouple

Hi EricBunny...thanks for your informative post...do you have a link to AVC?..or contact details?
Regards
HymerCouple

DABurleigh

Hymercouple,

See my exchange with Eric here:
http://www.motorhomefacts.com/posts4114-0.html

Dave

HymerCouple

Thanks Dave
Regards
HymerCouple

PamNPete

The vodaphone connect card is avai;able as a pay & go
However Vphone are very cagey about selling you one. They are trying to push them on a contract basis

Going to a bigger shop next weekend to give it another try

Keith-n-Deb

Hi Pam & Pete

I gave up trying ot get a Mobile connect card on pay as you go from Vodaphone and in the end got one off ebay for around £28.. it was a bit of fiddling around to get it to work with my pre pay sim card but in the end i got there.... Vodaphone where not in the least interested in helping so i had to figure it out for myself.. if you find you cannot get one and decide to get one off ebay. i will gladly let you know how to set it up..

Keith n Debs

Ericbunny

Here is the link to AVC http://www.avcbroadband.com/index.html .

Eric

dms6191

I've tried many different system.

First of all I tried my mobile phone linked to my laptop, but that's slow with a maximum modem speed of 9.6k. Surfing the net wasn't realistic.

So I then tried one way satellite (Opensky from Eutelsat with Broadsat as the ISP) which is quick at up to 512k download. However I upload at 9.6k with my mobile phone. Cost is reasonable at £10/month + mobile call costs. However it is a compromise. If you are willing to battle with the technology - it uses lots of quite complicated software packages - then it might be the system for you..

I'm currently back to my mobile phone but in conjuction with ONSPEED (www.onspeed.com). This costs £1.99 per month and increases my 9.6k mobile phone speed to about 50k, in other words like a normal dial up. It works on an type of connection and gives good increases in speed.

I've looked at GPRS cards but they are VERY expensive, especially abroad. Vodaphone charge £15/Mb for Pay as You Go outside the UK. As a normal Internet session runs to several Mb then it would be £50 each day. Beware.

The best answer, if you can find it, is a Wireless Hot Spot. I'm currently using one on our site in Spain. It's about a Euro/day for unlimited access. It gets a bit slow when everyone is on at the same time but its unlimited access at a know cost. Good speeds are 150k.

In Spain you can get cheap'ish rate mobile internet connection on your mobile if with Movistar using 550 as the access number (or full 629000550) - at cheap rates it's about 6c/min (4p/min). I then use www.gonuts4free.com as my ISP in Spain - its free and you can use it in the UK by just changing the dial up number.

Lots of different routes, none cheap, none perfect, but it is possibel to do anywhere in Europe.