We travel full time and we run our creative agency from the road so having fast reliable internet wherever we go is important for us to be able to stay connected with our clients and keep our business running. We also love to camp way off the grid and far far away from any towns and a certain someone in the van loves his Netflix and chill. Here’s the products we’ve added to our rig to stay connected.
SIGNAL BOOSTER
We use the We Boost RV set up, but we found the antenna that comes with the kit is not strong enough for the areas we like to camp in. So we added the 19 inch truck antenna and instantly had better results. This set up along with thoughtful positioning has so far kept us at 3-4 bars and on LTE.
POSITION MATTERS
Even with the booster think about your position. If we are tucked into trees or rocks we park with our antenna facing out and this can make a huge difference in service. Our internal antenna is positioned right next to Kate’s workspace and we are adding a splitter to put the slim line antenna up the front by our seats.
DATA PLANS
We keep our phones on different providers, one with ATT unlimited with 22gb shared monthly data. The other on Verizon unlimited. This helps us maximise coverage, often one provider will have better signal than the other.
It’s important to look at your shared data allocation on these plans as that is what counts for using your phone as a hotspot for your laptop. We also try to do as much work as possible directly on the phones, this way the shared data is only used for sending work to or from our clients.
HOW WE NETFLIX WITH SKYROAM
We have the Skyroam Solis which is on a $99 month plan of unlimited data and works globally. Okay some things about unlimited here… these types of products run off other service towers in the area, as such the service they can generate will be provided to them as a secondary to the customers connected to plans directly liked to those towers. eg if its using an AT&T tower priority would be given to all the AT&T customers before your little Skyroam can get any love. This means that theres a noticeable difference when other people are around - our Netflix will run great at empty camps but if there’s other people arond it will go slower. But all in all, the Skyroam with the We Boost is good for Netflix (NOTE: it was not good enough without the We Boost)
THE SET UP
We have our We Boost connected directly to DC power all the time and we have the Skyroam Solis permanently plugged into a USB right next to the We Boost internal antenna.
CONTROL YOUR NETFLIX DATA USE
Netflix also allows you to change the quality settings of playback, if you pick the mid level you will get better results. Here’s how to do that:
Sign in to Netflix
Select the profile you’d like to change your data usage settings for.
Select Account .
Under My Profile , select Playback Settings .
Select your desired data usage setting.
Select Save . Your changes will take effect within 8 hours.
We travel full time and use TMobile for our cell package - looking to make the move into a campervan, but like you, need wifi for work and want it for Netflix/Spotify.
How does SkyRoam fit into your monthly cellular plan? Right now we pay probably way too much for unlimited TMobile global plan where we get unlimited data/text…
We solely use tmobile with two phones and an unlimited data plan. We have not had any issue being connected. We do tend to stay closer to civilization during the work week and make sure we download as much tv as we think we’ll watch (we don’t watch a lot, after working on a computer all day that last thing we want to do is stare at another screen). I’ve looked into skyroam but, the reviews did not seem stellar at the time. $99 for it would basically double our phone bill.
We will likely get more remote if we move to a van - I’ve not found much luck tethering laptops to our phones. And certainly don’t want to double our phone bill!
If we can replace TMobile with something else that is a little less expensive, I would be all for it.
Is it crazy to think there is ONE item out there that would give me wifi and cell coverage for less?
Hi! Thanks for the post, I found it very helpful. Just curious as to what antenna you purchased and if this made a considerable difference or not ? Ie worthwhile purchase?
I’ve had my hands on these devices before, they have been used to setup temporary WIFI on several construction sites and elsewhere a remote warehouse had it’s security cameras and alarms routed thru one. I was impressed by the features and when I checked, they aren’t actually that expensive compared to consumer models.
I’d use something pro-grade like this:
If it has too much features, then lite version is this:
The better model has some special features, the other one is much more basic. Both are inteded to be used in mobile conditions with heavy use (think touring bus or tram, where wifi is provided to passengers). They are small, like two adult fists - there is always room to fit one in the van. Both take 12V directly in, no external power supply.
955 has GPS, it can be used to draw your route on map or let your family to follow your journey. Also useful if someone manages to steal the van itself. It also has some IO capabilities, mainly to control other devices, first that comes to mind is to trip engine kill switch if someone steals the van.
They can be used to create secure VPN connection to your company network, so there is no need to use any separate client on laptop - VPN is always on.
They accept normal sim cards, same as your phones.
@GoZacGo - I’m surprised that it costs you on your tmobile plan. We have unlimited data and we only pay $30 a month for it. Granted it throttles after 50GB, but that is a lot of data and there is no additional cost afterwards. That data is also completely separate from our standard data, so social media and whatever else we are doing doesn’t chew into it. Honestly, in the year we’ve been doing this we have not had the need for a different solution. I don’t think the skyroam is worth it, if it can connect to wifi then you phone should be able to as well.
If you want to get Spotify music on the road, you might as well use the Spotify Playlists Converter to MP3 from AudFree. The tool helps you get lossless songs for offline listening. Also, you can import the songs to othe rplayers and you can also share to the youtube.
You can check out Vanly.app web site, the sharing economy is the future. Vanly lets you park in homeowner’s driveway space for a fee. The hosts set the price. It is a good way to get wifi and hookups.