WiFi waste of money?
OK tin hat firmly in place. Here goes. I know that members have asked repeatedly about upgrading or installing WiFi on club sites and I read that large sums of our money are used to try to give decent coverage across as many sites as possible. However, are we not just throwing good money away with the pace of technology outstripping our efforts to catch up. When I go on a club site I no longer rely on the club WiFi but use my iPhone (other phones are available) to access the Internet and even piggy back a laptop or tablet, increasingly via 4g and soon to be 5g. This method is usually superior to the WiFi available on site. Now I know that at the moment not everyone has that facility but increasingly more and more people are. In which case why keep trying to provide WiFi on a catch up basis costing a great deal of money. For what it's worth I would want to provide a decent WiFi signal close to reception that we could access maybe from a suitable 'shed' so that people could check emails and surf the 'net. This could be provided much more cheaply than a system which tries to cover the complete site: after all there has to be a decent connection for the site office to be able to run smoothly.
OK we may 'want' to sit in our caravan or motorhome and access the Internet but is it really cost effective for the club to spend huge sums providing this when better systems can be employed by individuals?
Just a thought, I'll now crawl into the bunker!
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The WiFi is supplied by an external contractor and is charged for by a fee paid directly to them. I don't know what the tie in is with the club as far as financials are concerned, but unless it is costing the club lots of money, over and above the WiFi access fees, is there really a problem. Those who don't want the service don't pay. I doubt the club is likely to provide any cost information, so we will almost certainly never know if they are spending huge sums of money as you suggest.
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I wonder if we tend to forget that when the Club embarked on the supply of WiFi to sites that data plans via a phone or Mifi hardly existed. If we still only used our phones for voice calls that situation would still exist. However things have moved on and data use via our phones probably accounts for the majority of phone use these days. Perhaps, if the Club had waited a few years, they may not have installed Wifi in the first place? I am often critical of Club Wifi as I find that it can be slow with dropped connections regardless of whether the site is Gold, Silver or Bronze. I rarely get a speed of more than 1 MB usually half that. However it does work after a fashion. I suppose in many ways we are spoiled by our home connections which are often high speed. What I have found is that I increasing use my phone to check e-mails, look at online banking and get the latest News whereas in the past I would have done all that on my laptop. The problem I have found in using my Windows laptop tethered to my phone using 4G is that it is very data intensive. However I did recently experiment with a small tablet and that used a lot less data which might be the way forward.
David
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I think it depends on how important it is to be able to use the internet.
I tried the club Wi-Fi for a year but found coverage patchy. I've not bothered with it since.
I now just use my mobile, and have two phones on different networks to improve cover, however on some sites you still cannot get a signal. For example last year I spent 6 weeks in Scotland where in a lot of locations you struggle to get a phone signal, never mind 4g.
Not really a problem as when out and about you can generally catch up on emails and banking etc. On some sites just going up the road a bit makes a big difference. But if not then I don't worry. I'm not so addicted to social media that I have to keep looking at it.
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Agree with this, technology has advanced except in areas of the country where it lags behind and we find we are definitely better off using our own supplier and can use more devices, the club only allows one connection. I've just said in another thread when travelling we tend to use our phones more now, earlier on we used the laptop. Even further back I used to leave my phone at home as I wanted to escape from 24 hour communications but like everyone else now I seem to have become willingly tethered!
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Interesting post. I'm retired and don't need to access emails etc particularly while we are away and have never used the Club wifi but I am using my phone (android) more and more to access the internet and find 4G (and less) adequate for my needs.
I suppose in this day and age some people will want/expect high speed connection and if they are willing to pay for it so be it - so long as it doesn't become part of the overall charge for the pitch.
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It depends on how much time I get a usable system from CC. In the past OH rarely wished to use wifi and we carried a single 12'" laptop. Probably had usable wifi on at least 80 nights and so £25 was good value. Probably 20 nights when no wifi on CC.
With both of us having tablets we may rethink next year.
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I'm surprised but pleased that so many of the posts have generally agreed with me in that in today's age using your own personal phone or other device to access internet etc is the way forward, rather rely on the club providing access at quite a considerable cost. To quote the club:
Here at the Club we know how important having a decent Wi-Fi signal is, so we’ve invested £500,000 into our network - with a further £500,000 assigned in 2018.
So £1m investment in supplying something that almost becomes obsolete as soon as it is installed. Maybe we could think of other uses for our £1m?
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I have no interest in a smart phone. I want a phone that slips easily into the bottom corner of my front trouser pocket. For internet I want a decent size screen. Because my usage of mobile phone is small I use PAYG. For me this often makes the annual CC charge reasonable as l use it frequently.
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Err, he’s paying for it so contributing towards costs.
Those of us who consider it to be rubbish and refuse to pay are neither contributing nor sudsidising.
As for Wi-fi only in a central point, no thanks.
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Hmm, well the club is investing funds to produce/improve Wi-Fi and it looks as though hot spots are being included and the investment costs are standing at around 300,000k. So I presume we have all chipped in and some of the cost might get recouped from those who use it, but I wonder how many do?
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Good points in both posts, Brue.
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I also think EasyT could join the technological race and up date to a smart phone that fitted in his trouser pocket! The reason being that with 31 hotspots it could be a bit chilly out there operating a laptop.....just a thought for anyone who is still using old style technology....
Unfortunately the OP starts off well but seems to like the idea of hanging round a hotspot too or although he is suggesting some shelter in the form of a shed. No, update your technology one and all, things have moved on, save the club some money to spend on other things.
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I remember a few years ago that Wi-fi hotspots, even the club's, generally gave better performance than the mobi network. These days the situation seems to have reversed with much better 3G/4G coverage throughout the country. Many's the time I’ve been on a site - club, commercial, CL - and given up on their Wi-fi and reverted to the mobi network.
Pay monthly contracts are much more reasonably priced now with good data allowances and tethering to a pad/tablet is simple. Before opting for this route, I managed for several years to get data and run an iPhone on a pay & go tariff and it was eminently doable.
Wifi? Forget it as far as I’m concerned.
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Why should we subsidise your use of the Internet ET?
who says that you do? You are unlikely to find me hanging around a hotspot.
I subsidise kiddies swings, dog walks, motorhome service points, folk heating awnings, dish washing areas but can't think that I complain overmuch
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How much per month do all these "smart" phone contracts work out? OH pays £4.99 per month on ee for her phone and i pay £60 per annum for my phone on anytime.com,and wifi on club sites for what we need is £25 per annum for useing my 10inch screen tablet,is there a cheaper alternative?when we do 150+nights away on (our choice) to use club sites.
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You get what you pay for, JV. Your figures mean nothing without knowing what you get in return.
Anyway, it’s not all about cost. It’s about convenience, not having to worry about topping up, running out of allowance and so on.
What you have suits you and what I have suits me. There’s no more to be said really.
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1gb of data which you don’t use but you buy club Wi-fi? 🤔
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How far does 1gb go? Possibly not far enough. I have a couple of EE 5gb sims if needed. £10 each. This site free wifi. Other commercial site at Garstang wifi for two tablets was £10 for a week although we stayed 5 nights only. We have a 2gb sim unused which will probably do us for the couple of C&CC sites later in the trip
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I doubt that it would cost £1m to network wi-fi around club sites. It is remarkably inexpensive to do this. Cost would probably be to buy more bandwidth at each site. But the OP makes a good point; site fees could be reduced!!
More seriously, an education programme for users might help. It should be made clear that site wi-fi is only intended for checking/sending emails and occasional browsing, not for streaming movies etc. If those guilty of streaming think about it, to provide this service The Club would need to spend many million of £s. On a 70 pitch site the bandwidth would need to be 70 times what we have at home. That does not exist in the current form and if it was it would be unaffordable.
Streamers dont realise that once they start streaming on anything but a huge fibre connection they use all available bandwidth and lock everyone else out! Selfish!
I do as others have said and use 4G when it is available and link my pad to it sometimes. But can do without, and the TV. I like to get away to be away from the technolgy.
5G is about two years away!
BillC
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I find the Club WiFi very poor. I’ve only ever paid for it once and thought what waste of money it was as it was so slow, and that was when it finally connected. I’m an Apple fan and there’s not many places we go that you can’t get 4G so use my iPhone and tether it to my iPad or MacBook.
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