Motorhome WiFi
Help if you can please..
I’m looking to work from Motorhome and not sure which way to jump for good reliable WiFi connection / data plan? And… potential to boost campsite signal as find most club WiFi incredibly slow / unreliable.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thinking MiFi? But would welcome an experience you can offer.
Mainly for UK but potentially for Spain
@Not that savvy, need help LOL
Comments
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I have been surprised how well I have managed tethering my phone to my laptop. If I have a poor signal I use my wife's phone as she is on a different network so generally we can get a reasonable signal. It will obviously depend what "work from Motorhome " means in terms of data transfer. Emails and documents are going to need a lot less bandwidth compared to graphics. I tend to agree about the reliability of Club WiFi as it varies so much but the Club are putting in fibre connections to quite a few sites but that work is ongoing. I have tried WiFi boosters but generally found them not quite as simple as I thought it would be. MiFi uses the same signal as your phone but you do have the option of placing the receiver outside should you wish to.
David
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We had a mifi system installed by our dealer when we bought the van. External aerial, internal router (Huawei) It is a Motorhome WiFi product.
We then use a smarty sim card in the router. We pay £6 a month because we dont do any streaming - only e mail and web sites.
We can of course log into a site's wifi if we want and save our data - to be honest we dont bother. We are often on sites with no wifi. Also if you are stopped off somewhere then you can access internet.
So far it has worked for us.
An additional bonus for us has been the ability to log on from our house at home! The van sits on the drive, our home computers are in the front of the house, downstairs (so same level) and when we had some problems with our home internet (which isnt the best or fastest signal in the world) we were able to log on to the van system, and do what ever we wanted - including Teams meeting!
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I would definitely use the mobile network rather than the slow and unreliable site wifi.
Whether you tether to a phone or use a Mifi unit will be personal choice and depend on your data plan and the amount you want to use it.
The Huawei Mifi units are used by many folk and can be bought quite reasonably from Amazon. I would make sure it’s an unlocked model so you can use a SIM card of your choice and maybe carry sims for different networks you help avoid black spots. The 3 Network do some good buys on their Internet on Legs sims, again, Amazon can be a good place to buy. Giff Gaff and Smarty are worth checking out.
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If you already own phones with WiFi capability that’s probably the easiest route, tethering your pad or lap top. Perhaps a plan upgrade might be required, if you currently have insufficient data allowance. We each have a iphone, one on O2 the other EE and over the last 3 years have only very rarely not been able to get a reasonable 4G signal on one of them. Clumber park, for instance, is a total dead spot. I also have an old MiFi with a 3 sim which provided a third network, in past years when coverage wasn’t as extensive. Although I still carry it about and the account is still active, allowing data to it bought if required, the two phones now seem sufficient.
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For the last two years I've been using an EE Mini Wifi device in the van and it has worked well. EE definitely have the best coverage in the UK and I can't think of anywhere we have been where we haven't had a good 4g signal. They also have the best customer service in my experience), should anything go wrong.
I have also found that the dedicated Wifi device usually pulls in a stronger signal than our phones even though there isn't an external aerial.
The one downside that I have identified recently is that being on contract and with no 'roll-over' of data, month to month - it can be a bit of a waste of money (especially as I have been out of action for the last two months and we haven't been away). But the payg alternative is expensive by comparison.
Since I am now out of contract, I have cancelled it and bought from Amazon, an EE 120Gb data sim for £50 which lasts for 12 months and can be topped up if required. Wish I'd known about this 2 years ago.
Taking up David's point - we regularly use the Mini Wifi for streaming TV and it works really well and when on the site at Wharfedale (of all places!), I was getting a download speed of 50Mbps - more than twice as fast as the broadband at home!
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Mifi might be the best choice as you could buy a Spanish sim when in Spain. You wouldn't then have to swap sims in your phone. Also consider the re- introduction of roaming charges for UK phones in EU which could make phone tethering too expensive.
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This overlaps with a problem I am looking into at present.
We move house this summer. The nearest telephone pole down our country lane is probably 200m away, so wired wi-fi is not really possible, at least in the present.
It would appear 4G Mi-fi is what I need to look into. I can use this to link with tablet, laptop, TV and my wife's smart phone It would also give the flexibility for me to take it with us on our travels in the caravan in the UK.
3 offer good coverage in general and very good where we are moving to, with unlimited data for £14 a month on a 24 month contract. If I took the box abroad though I would have to pay £2 a day roaming charges.
I believe O2 and Virgin do not charge for roaming after April this year. Although O2 have no roaming charges they would want £32 a month for a similar package.
EE at discounted C&MC rates would be £44 a month.
I'm thinking that 3 is the route I'll take as my wife has a limited data O2 phone contract at £10 a month, which will cover any "emergency" internet needed abroad when we are not getting this free via a site wi-fi.
I'm not good technically and run a "dumb phone" for emergencies. Am I missing anything or is my logic sound.
Colin
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It sounds reasonable to me.
You can often find deals on U-Switch which don't appear on network providers' websites.
https://www.uswitch.com/mobiles/compare/sim_only_deals/
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As mentioned, whilst some older accounts don't attract reintroduced 'roaming charges' per se, they will (almost certainly) have a fair usage cap when used in Europe, whatever amount of data you think you've paid for.
I have a 60gb sim in my phone and another 100gb in my mifi, but Vodafone only allow 25gb each month from each when 'away'....but ok to use all in the uk.
whilst O2/BT/Tesco and Virgin currently have no roaming charges, ensure you understand any capping limits if use abroad.
also, even if switching to a continental site's wifi, you will need a VPN (like Surfshark) on a phone or iPad or Firestick to make use of uk TV apps (iplayer etc) when away.
If using satellite, an 85cm dish will pull all home channels throughout France but not beyond there but Sky subscribers can watch movies and sports and other Sky channels all over Europe.
An Icecrypt box and dish pointing to Intelsat 907 will pull home channels but if you're a Sky subscriber you'll need the dish moved back to Astra 2 for movies and Sports....
all good fun.
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Just back from the 3 shop and some good news, for me anyway. The deal which looks excellent for UK use and promising for Europe is:-
4 G Hub for home with card, plug and play, no line needed, link to tablet, laptop, TV for streaming, phone for wi-fi etc, £14 per month for 24 months
https://www.three.co.uk/Huawei/4G-Hub/hbbPlans?bundle=HBBDevice
4G Mifi router with card that you can use anywhere in UK where a signal is available and abroad for £2 a day, £11 per month for 24 months available if you buy at the same time. BUT you cancel the contract after 1 month, keep the unit, take the card out and whenever you go away in the van/motorhome etc take the card out of your home router.
I was in the shop told the Europe roaming was free, but I've checked the website and as I thought earlier you have to pay a daily charge.
Also being offered if you buy at the same time is a £10 per month contract with unlimited internet, calls and texts.
Colin
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£2 a day adds £60 a month to the contract price!
Some folk say they won't use it every day, but then what's the point of getting a contract rather than a cheaper local card or a PAYG
back in the sim and distant, we used to do all our 'home calls' on the same day to reduce the daily charges, but this was well before we relied on our sim/phone for collecting emails etc the minute they come in...not to mention Tv etc.
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As with everything with our hobby it comes down to personal choice on what your usage will be and how much you want to spend. Here's the setup we have, a Netgear Nighthawk M2 router with an EE sim card. The EE package we have is for 30GB per month and it does have data rollover. Our reasons for the M2 is that you can connect up to 20 devices, we have 2 phones, 2 tablets and a Firestick and in 3 years we have never had any problems with signals.. With regards to working from your MH, our home broadband went down for 3 days last year and my wife was able to use the M2 to connect to her office for zoom calls etc. with no issues.
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I'm on site, just outside Lincoln and I've just checked the speed of my internet connection (using Ookla) using EE Mini Wifi with a 4g connection. Download speed is 37Mbps and Upload is 26 Mbps!
That compares with my fibre connection at home of about 22 and 6.
I am seriously going to question whether or not to dump the fibre at home.
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An additional possibility is to arrange for a second phone SIM on an alternative network, and tether. Both of our iPhones have a dual sim capability, with the primary one being ‘virtual’. If our (EE) coverage is poor, then we can buy a Nano with data and use that for access for the holiday’s duration.
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Don't know if that question was directed at me (never been referred to as a robot before - well not to my face, anyway
)Don't know Blanks - suppose you could always try ringing EE but when I mentioned it to one of their sales people - when I was debating what to do - they didn't seem to know much about it.
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