WIFI that wont break the bank
Have been toying with sourcing a WIFI system that will give me a far better internet access while on tour as I primarily work remotely. We have found out now, that many sites have say they have WIFI but often its not very strong, consistent and not very reliable.
So my question would be, whats available out there that is not going to cost an arm & leg and would provide a decent WIFI access.
Comments
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If you have a couple of smart phones on different networks, as we do, that would probably be the easiest way to go, by tethering your device to a phone. Mine is on EE and OH’s on O2 and it is only vary rarely we can’t get a good 4 / 5 G signal on one of them. On last years tour of the north of Scotland we had good internet at all our sites, even Altnaharra and 5G at North Ledaig. The only pace we couldn’t get one was Clumber Park in Nottinghamshire.
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We have a mifi system, router in the van and an “aerial” on the roof. Use a smarty sim in the router. Works well. Cost - not sure because we had it installed when we bought the van, a few hundred pounds I think. Don’t know much about these things, but if you work remotely can you not claim the cost against tax?
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We do as Steve does and tether using one of 2 different PAYG suppliers.
If you are looking at deals then check out Martin Lewis' website.
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We use Giffgaff pyg which uses the O2 network, the coverage is around 99% but you need to check on Ofcom for area coverage if good coverage is essential. The club are now on an 8 month project to upgrade their WiFi and are using hotspots at present so you need to find something that you can rely on.
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Check out the deals on U-Switch too as they’re often cheaper than the network providers.
https://www.uswitch.com/mobiles/compare/sim_only_deals/
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Depends what you mean by 'arm and a leg'. I have a TP link router (about £75) plus a Poynting aerial (again was about £75) on a 10' aluminium mast (about £30). I already had a jockey wheel bracket to attach it to.
I've used it all over the country now, and it works extremely well. We're currently on a CS near Malton (which is notorious for it's poor 4g signal) but I'm getting 55 Mbps download - consistently. The aerial pulls in a far stronger signal than a mobile phone.
I'm on EE and I use a 120Gb sim which costs £50 and lasts us about 9 months including some TV streaming - and away in the van for a week or two every month - so it's relatively cheap internet.
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We recently had an Avtex wifi antenna fixed on our caravan roof with the router in the top of the cupboard above the fridge on our Bailey Barcelona. It has been absolutely useless. Sadly Avtex have been little use in helping us to get it to work. It worked for 48 hours after installatiion and then I had a message saying change the security settings which we did as per the manual. After that we still could not get it to work so it was recommended we update the firmware, which we did. Still no joy.
what is annoying is that I have a small EE Mifi unit which actually works inside the van while the large Avtex unit outside does not....
Has anyone else had any experience of problems like this. I am feeling very frustrated and very annoyed at the £349 cost for the unit plus £160 for installation. It has so far been a complete waste of time. We are on a seasonal pitch so cannot just take it back to the installer.0 -
I've just switched my home Internet to 4G with 3 as the land-line Internet offerings are either "OK" or expensive with no superfast available as we are in rural Devon. For unlimited data broadband only it costs £11 a month for first 6 months then £22 a month. I've plugged in my TP Link mesh range extender and get 15-50 mg throughout a fairly long bungalow.
I've tried the router out in the caravan and it's getting 45 mg. My plan is to use it when away in the UK.
For Europe I'm doing similar to richardandros, but with a monthly Smarty card.
Colin
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