Wi-fi on Club Sites
Does anyone else feel as I do, that Wi-Fi should be free on Club sites which provide it? Site fees are quite high and the administration of the charges must cost the Club quite a lot. Surely, for each site to have a pass word to wi-fi would be greatly appreciated by many members.
Comments
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I personally do not think it should be free. I use it and I cannot see that there would be great admin costs in the collection of fees by the web service agent. We submit via webpage buttons along with card details and job done.
Some feel that it does not meet their requirements and so choose other means to access internet. I am personally very happy with it.
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No, in my opinion, it should not be free. Nothing is truly free and it would inevitably mean charges for pitches and/or membership fees would rise. As it is, only those who want the wifi pay, not everyone regardless of whether they use it or not.
Fees are collected by Air Angel rather than the club and, as far as I am aware, AA administer the whole system. That is why, in the event of problems, you contact AA and not the club.
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I see you raise this subject once a year, HB, and the situation is still the same as the first time you raised it. Why do you still think others should subsidise your use of wifi?
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I subscribe to it each year for £25 and have generally been happy with the service. We use club sites a lot so the nightly charge is minimal. Personally I thinking making it complimentary would be a bad move, as the cost acts as a filter on the numbers using it. At sites with lower speeds more users would make the system unusable.
Also unless you were going to allow unlimited users from a family, it could not be as simple as just giving out a password. A login would still be required, perhaps linked to your membership number, which would only allow one device to connect at a time.
HB are you aware you are already able to use it to access the club site, including CT, without subscribing?
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We have the yearly 'subs' as well. It's a small one off payment and worth it.
No it should not be free for the reasons given above
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I use hotels a lot with work and wifi is generally free these days if you're a paying guest. I've never paid for it because I don't think it's worth it because I feel the service is rubbish. When I'm in the caravan I want to get away from the rat race but when I do need to use it, I generally tether to my phone usually without a problem.
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Isn't it funny how those that already pay for the WiFi do not think it should be free ......
But Joe Public can get free wifi in a variety of places e.g. ASDA I'd hope that the paying customer gets better Interweb than the free connection to the CCs mediocre website. 1 -
Correct Mollys Mummy we have stopped paying for the WI FI due to always having trouble accessing . Some sites ok others not, even been beside the mast and trouble with the connection £25 is good value if the connection is good, not a good price if you have week somewhere and can't get connected
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I agree it should be free. Especially when you've paid for it and then there is no signal
i also think you should be able to access more than one device at a time
for the small number of times I use it, then it is not cheap
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I don't particularly mind paying for WiFi on Club sites. The real issue for me is the quality of service which on too many sites is pretty poor. I have a fairly new laptop so the wireless system should be pretty much up to date but I find myself increasing having to use a WiFi extender aerial in order to get a consistent signal.
As to whether it should be free, it might depend. The Club has always said that it has had to invest a great deal of money to provide the service and they need to recoup some of that cost. It would be interesting to know what percentage use WiFi gets on sites generally. If it is around the 80/90% figure you could argue perhaps it should be included in the site fee even if that meant a small increase in the cost of that site. However if the usage figure is much lower, say around 50%, it becomes a bit more debatable? I appreciate this might be a contradiction but the people we rarely hear from in these debates are those that don't use site WiFi as it would be interesting if they would be willing to pay,say, an extra 50p a night so there was no separate charge for WiFi?
We should not fool ourselves that there is any such thing as free WiFi. Somewhere along the line the cost is factored into what ever price we pay for whatever service we use.
David
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I use many different CC sites on my travels and when the site has wifi I usually use it for an hour or so for various purposes. Only had problems with it on one site. That was one with a swim pool (could that be Hillhead?) On that occasion I had problems on two occasions on two separate days of a 5 day stay. It was a problem due to site server I understood. I have been well pleased with Wifi on CC sites. Never had the sort of problems that others report.
Somebody complained about wifi at Southport. I have always found the wifi there to be excellent.
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I said I don't believe it should be free because nothing is truly free. Costs have to be recouped in other ways - eg Asda's prices, hotel fees, pitch fees.
And you're wrong, MM, as I don't pay for site wifi at all. It's so poor, or non-existent, on the sites I mostly use that I'd rather rely on the mobi network. Your point could be turned around as those who pay now would be the biggest winners if they didn't need to fork out £25 p/a.
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I am another who thinks that there should be a charge for Wifi access on CMC sites. But the charges should be commiserate with the amount of data downloaded.
CMC sites are generally not recipients of high speed internet, so those greedy users who hog all the bandwidth and disadvantages other users should pay much more.
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It is strange to me that you have to resort to a range extender David. If I am in a caravan and especially if I have the reflective blinds closed I may have a problem with phone signal on some sites. No problem with wifi signal that I can remember over several years.
I don't generally stream stuff but on occasions may play a couple of you tube videos - usually because I am trying to remember who sung a song etc. Not had problems with doing that.
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I've given up on the Club WiFi and simply use my 4G tablet instead. If I cannot get 4G, I do without.
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Maybe the income from the WiFi service could be spent sorting out this software.
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I think it should be free. We don't pay extra for electricity, or to empty a chemical toilet, or take a shower. Why should we have to pay extra for the iffy wifi?
Perhaps those who want to pay would like to see a scale of charges for all the other facilities so that one might choose which to use and which not, a bit like the budget airlines. It could mean very low basic site fees though!
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We pay £100 a year for two devices on the site where we have our static. We pretty much only use WiFi for browsing and checking emails, occasionally we may catch up on a TV programme we've missed. So £25 a year for club WiFi doesn't seem unreasonable to me.
As others have said, free doesn't mean free - there are always hiddens costs wherever you choose to take access. If we're on a club site I can catch up on CT anyway and check emails on my phone. If I wanted more I'd expect to pay.
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And so full of humility as well.
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I (reluctantly) paid the £25 this year but I do think it should be included in the site fee because:
- I do not have to pay extra for the showers, or electricity or the chemical waste or any other facility, so why WiFi? Not everyone uses all of the other facilities.
- the cost of installing WiFi systems would certainly not be greater than installing shower blocks, so investment cost cannot be an issue.
- If it can be included in the price of a cup of coffee in a high street coffee shop, why not in a members organisation?
- It could easily become a benefit of membership with only non-members paying (even more?) for WiFi.
- if we want to attract the younger generation to the Club, free WiFi is fast becoming a hygiene factor rather than a motivator
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I use the wi-fi for free to look at the club website, but today I tried to register to pay and when I get to clicking on the Terms and conditions box, it is just blank, and I'm not signing up until I know what the T&C's are. Oh and I think it's a small enough cost for a year when added to what we pay for Road tax, fuel, insurance, gas, servicing,MOT,pitch fees, laundry, groceries,tolls, etc........
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Wex posted:-
If it can be included in the price of a cup of coffee in a high street coffee shop, why not in a members organisation?
It could easily become a benefit of membership with only non-members paying (even more?) for WiFi.Many coffee shops are in areas with high speed broadband, and even if full would not have as many users as you could get on a club site if you included it in the price. I am not sure of the advantage of charging for something that is very unlikely to work. OK on the sites with faster broadband you might get away with it, although even here the number of potential users on a club site could overwhelm it. Unless the club throw excessive amounts of money at providing a more robust system, charging extra provides the most effective way of maintaining usability.
I am not sure that many non members ever visit a club site given the £12 a night premium. I would assume those that do are possibly from abroad. It does not seem much of a welcome to the UK to not only charge £12 extra for the pitch fee, but an inflationary price for wifi.
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I don't mind paying but I do mind the number of sites that don't have it or those where coverage and network service is dreadful - spend a week in York recently with a great signal but a dreadfully slow service - if at all - constantly getting no login or thrown off - Air Angel support of no use whatsoever - Balbirnie is great if you are within 50 feet of the office!!
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Managed to get a signal at Balbirnie in the "40's" pitching area weekend before last, not great but usable. Much to Andy the wardens surprise I have to say.They had hoped for proper wifi but no go because of the trees/terrain.
Could also pick it up just and no more in the bottom corner next to the road in July, but not enough to get a meaningful connection ...might just be possible when the trees shed their foliage!!!
I think Yellowcraigs has the same set up and manged a useable signal in the second pitching area on the right a few weeks ago.
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wifi at Crealy a fortnight ago free everywhere on site, touring, glamping, wildlife park and adventure playground....a really good system with no login requirement and touring prices from less then £15 a night incl super pitches and wifi.
system here in the Vendee, superfast, free, as many devices as you wish (multiple logins given away at checkin) all part of €15 fee, incl super pitches and wifi (and two pools etc, etc).
the locations are different, the 'economics' might be different (so not 'allowed' to make 'cost comparisons') but the approach to customer service the same.
if you're going to install a wifi service, do it once, do it right
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the locations are different, the 'economics' might be different (so not 'allowed' to make 'cost comparisons') but the approach to customer service the same.
if you're going to install a wifi service, do it once, do it right
There are of course CC sites where it is right.😀
For the rest I feel the criticism should more rightly be directed at the supplier of the infra structure and the poor government control of that venture. We do seem to have made a right bog up of it in that respect.☹️👎
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all extremely interesting stuff BB and how it all is good over there, (and thanks for taking time out of your holiday to post and have a go at the club btw
) but apart from that not really useful on a thread about wi fi over here?As someone who by his own admission doesn't use club sites a lot, how do you personally know that it isn't right generally here?
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The trees are an excuse from CMC and/or their supplier - We were at Kendal recently and each pod of vans had its own repeater - service was excellent.
Even York with no/little trees and line of sight to the office had repeaters around the site
So my suspicion on some sites is that its just a lack of investment
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