Wifi charges
Recently rejoined the CC - horrified that although AA Caravan Club Wifi comes up on my tablet, I was expected to pay for it! I would have thought in this day and age, with the high cost of some sites, Wi-fi should be free!
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Why? I don’t want to be forced to pay for something which you say is inferior as part of my diet of membership fees. Let those who want to use it pay for it but what sort of logic dictates that we should all pay for a product you describe as rubbish?
How come you resurrected a 3 year old thread, Meisha?
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"....my diet of membership fees"
Oh, dear. I promise I haven’t touched a drop. Let’s try "my site or membership fees".
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It's amazing what seems to type itself TW. I understand predictive text, but what it predicts from time to time, does not seem logical.
As to WiFi, I agree and am happy to pay for it. At £25 I find it good value for my needs. I am on my 3rd or 4th annual fee. It's fairly simple if Meisha does not think it any good, don't pay for it and use alternative sources.
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The difference is that they all work, DD.
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There you go. Simples.
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I have paid for the WiFi service this year having said I would not pay again due to poor connection and speed last year. To date the service, on the sites I have been on, have improved. However, the limit of one device per subscription and the numerous times you need to sign in still make it irritating to say the least. Most private sites include it in the price but this tends to make it slow to use at prime times. Maybe the rollout of 4G will solve the problem without the Club having to get it right. To be honest the Club must have invested a lot of our money in providing a service that is second rate. Reminds me of the money that has been spent on numerous private washing cubicles that are hardly used!
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If you use a wifi router inside your caravan for example the iBoost, you can use more than one device.
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Using my booster I can improve the signal at the van and also use multiple devices. Really brought it for ‘over there’ where more often than not it’s as costly as the club and only available at reception
but it does improve accessibility on club sites.0 -
free wifi at St Martin de Ré municipal site working perfectly well...
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Wi-fi at no extra charge on Lewis and working brilliantly.👍🏻😃
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I use my own wifi rather than pay for the Club. Apart from the slowness (a bit like 60 people queuing to use one toilet) the big disadvantage of Club wifi is that one needs to be on - or very close to - a Club site. My own dongle works amywhere I get a cellular phone signal.
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Had free wifi at a few sites/aires so far. This one is pricey so using the phone as a hotspot.
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We have just stayed at the Bolton Abbey club site a location which has no TV signal, no mobile reception and no 3/4G. The club wifi had to be used and the service is slow and cannot cope with streaming. Having said that, this is how many business in rural areas have to cope and is in my view a wider national infratsructure issue. However the club needs to get ahead of the game and not be constantly seemingly playing catch up.
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They have at Clumber, which also has no mobile phone signal. For years the WiFi was more or less non existent. If more than one or two folk tried to use it 💥 melt down occurred. Now it is very good, classified as gold standard. I think it was some sort of joint enterprise with the National Trust, the complimentary WiFi in their cafe is now blisteringly fast. I assume the Club WiFi only gives limited access to the bandwidth, to allow fair access for more folk and make steaming untenable. So speeds even on gold standard are similar to what I used to get when we first had ADSL broadband, about 1MB download. I am not sure how they are going to improve much on that, with the number of folk wanting to connect. At the weekend Clumber is full with 180 vans.
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I returned from Bolton Abbey on Tuesday and I had good TV reception via the site's booster system. I found the wifi ok (although I didn't use it for steaming) and was surprised that they even had coverage at a site surrounded by so many trees. I have found that the wifi on sites has improved since I first joined the Club 5 years ago.
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We have stayed on 6 different club sites whilst touring Scotland recently. The sites were all very good, but the wifi service on all but one (Strathclyde) was so poor that we ended up switching to 4G and on one occasion we were next to the mast so it must be a bandwidth issue. We also stayed at a couple of independant sites, in both cases around a similar price and a similar standard, but each provided free and very good wifi.
It seems to us that if the club wishes to pitch (sic) itself in the upper end of the market, wifi will have to be a part of the package eventually. Whilst some may not want it, for the club to progress and get new members especially younger ones I think it is inevitable that a good free wifi service will need to be provided. Particularly as research on where to go next is increasingly done on online.
I don't think the 'why should I pay for it when I don't use it' argument works, few use all the facilities on a site such as play equipment, dog walking, showers etc..
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If the CMC wifi was free, usage and thus costs would increase significantly. Wifi is never free, it is just built into the cost of the service or product. Some people will prefer an all inclusive cost for a product or service, others will want a separate charge for each item that comprises the service or product.
We've just finished two three week tours. The wifi on the seven full sites was good enough and at Broadway, was better than EE cellular. Of the two CLs we stayed at, one had no wifi or phone signal and the other's free wifi was pitiful.
The CMC offering seems cheaper than the PAYG for those, like me, who do not use a mobile phone.
An EE PAYG sim for our ipad would cost us a minimum of £13.80 for 18 days and up to £17.50 for our heaviest use. Based on our motorhoming plans, EE would want £55.20+pa, the CMC £25pa. Of course EE should give better coverage and it brings cellular benefits for those who want them - we don't at present.
The investment in wifi by the CMC is probably around 75p a member per annum. Or in our case, just over a penny a night. The cost of using the CMC wifi is, for us, 35p per night. Costings for others would be different. If I was a motorhome dealer, writing this post would probably cost £45!
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Yes sadly it the same on a number of sites, which is why it shouldn't be included in the pitch fee?
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It was the same at Malvern Hills yesterday. It simply would not connect.
Once it is efficient and working on every site I’ll reconsider my view that it should not be included in pitch fees.
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I use CAMC annual wifi subscription and have done for several years, I think it is good value. You can only use one device and musty log in and out. Generally the service is good, although streaming is more of an issue. For email and checking, local research etc etc it is fine. I recently paid an on line toll via club wifi at Southport CC Site. I am disappointed with sites that do not offer the service, this should be a priority to make this universal. I do not think it should be included with fees as that does not allow choice and some units come with their own hotspots and so many people have phone access.
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You’re asked not to use site Wi-fi for streaming because it can’t handle the demand of people doing that.
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The reason behind "why should I pay for it when I don't use" is valid regarding wi-fi is more to do with availability. If we all had to pay for facility blocks even though they weren't there this argument falls down. The club would be expecting members to pay for something that doesn't exist on some sites or is generally unreliable. If the club gets round this with suggesting they have hot spots I think many would reject the idea, especially if this means only an outdoor facility. Which is why many of us choose to use our own methods for receiving wi-fi (not that this always works either due to various factors.)
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