WI-FI While Traveling

[Henro]

Golfgar4,

I am interested in the exact same question because we are planning a trip to Alaska in our van this June/July.

While I am not sure how it will be outside this area, I have been doing a little checking how it is around the Pittsburgh area, as far as finding wireless access points where I can send email from or visit TBN.

Surprisingly, there seem to be a lot of them. Some are there to be used, like at motels and coffee shops. Others may just be unprotected home networks like OkeeDon and I have ( /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif ). But there are a LOT of them around here. I have a Pocket PC, which is instant on, and so that makes checking easy.

The other day I was in an up and comming area between where I and BCzoom live (Cranberry township). On the way home I decided to check for access by pulling into several motel parking lots. I found three public access points and a few I could not jump onto. But since only one is needed I thought this was a pretty good success rate.

One coffee shop chain (Panera) offers access at most of its shops from what I understand. Two of them I have been to here do. You don't even have to go inside and buy coffee if you don't want to. The parking lot or a restaurant next door works too. As time goes by, chances are pretty good more and more free access points will be available.

I have found free access points at several places in the city as well as in shopping areas outside the city. I sure hope other towns along the path we travel are similar!

I've also read that more and more campgrounds have wireless access available. Not sure if they charge for it or not...

 

[Henro]

Ron,

Thanks for posting that thread. I was going to but I'm at the computer in my work(less)shop /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif and had it bookmarked upstairs...being in the (less) mode I was too lazy to dig it up... /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

Golfgar4...see what you have to look forward too! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Bob_Skurka]

Henro & Garry, don't forget TRUCK STOPS. Truckers are very computerized now. Most of the truck stops I know (at least in my area) of have WiFi.

 

[Henro]

Bob,

We certainly will be checking out truck stops as well. Appreciate the reminder!

I forgot to mention, the other day while driving down two different areas (suburban business districts, one to the east of PGH, and one to the North) I had my pocket PC on and the WI-FI enabled, and it seemed like every half mile a new network name was showing up. Might even have been every quarter mile...

Now these might have been mostly private networks, but a couple had names that sounded like coffee shops and/or such, so it sure looks promising. Only takes a minute or two to see if connection is possible... but when moving one is soon out of range.

 

[Golfgar4]

Hi Bill!

Yeah, I know there are a lot of places that offer Wi-Fi now, and more every day. Yes, campgrounds are offering this service more and more. I just picked up the Woodall's 2005 campground directory. The BIG directory lists every campground in the nation. Well, at least those that Woodall's contacted and/or inspected. But they also have directories for specific areas of the country. The listings show which campgrounds offer Wi-Fi. Don't recall if it shows what, if any, is charged for the service. Many, many camprgrounds offer the service for free. Of course, most of them jacked up their rates a bit to be able to do that! /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

And yes, Bob, I realize that truck stops also offer these services. The FlyingJ truckstops are really pushing this service, but they do charge for it. I think they get $5.00 for a day, $15.00 for a week, and $30.00 for a month. BUt I could be wrong there.

It seems that many RV'ers that are using Wi-Fi are comfrotable with a daily fee of up to $3.00, but anything higher they start passing by.

Earlier today, I tried out Ron's suggestion for locating hot spots with the Yahoo maps. After going through the process of registering, I finally got a map up. I put in my son's address out in Fallon, Nevada. There wasn't any Wi-Fi hot spot that registered in Fallon, but there were a whole bunch of them in Reno, Carson City and Lake Tahoe. The only problem is that Fallon is over an hour away from either city, so I don't believe I'd get a very strong signal. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif So I wouldn't have much luck with just trying to use only Wi-Fi when I'm visiting my son and grandaughter. Of course, I can always use his computer! But I wouldn't be able to get connected anytime I wanted to.

Bill, when are you heading out on your trip?

 

[beenthere]

Interesting topic.
I just returned from a 10,206 mile trip 'out West' with my wife, and for the most part, we stayed in a different motel every night (save for a few). 7 weeks on the road, and it was a fantastic time.

We bought a notebook (laptop to me) with Wi-Fi before we left and wondered the same thing - where can we connect.

Well, we soon learned that nearly every motel across the northern states going west had wireless connections in the rooms (some rooms better than others). When we were not in a motel room and wanted to 'hook up', I'd park in front of a motel office, realty office, or travel office in a location downtown or 'wherever' and obtained good 'hot' wireless connections. It was great. I didn't pay for any service along the way, and only occasionally thought I would pay the 'Starbucks' rental fee (until I heard they wouldn't send Starbucks coffee to Iraq because they don't believe in this war).

Some motels had a card to plug in the ethernet port that worked the few times I needed it.

The cell phone connection would have been handy, but only on a few occasions would I have used it.

The real handy and "couldn't-do-without" addition was the MS Streets and Trips software that came with the GPS unit that laid up on the dash. With this loaded in the notebook, we had a map of where we were, where we were going, where the car was located on the map, and a 'cookie' trail where we had been. If in a strange town, I would drop my wife off shopping (she likes those quilt shops and had to have some material from everywhere on our trip) and know exactly where she was using the cookie trail.

We found the GPS unit worth its weight in gold helping make the decisions in strange places where the 'other' streets were that we were supposed to be on, versus the ones we were forced (wrong lane, right turn only, one way, wrong way, etc) to take or had made a mistake. With an address input into the software, and the present location, a 'find direction' command placed a green trail on the map telling us precisely where to go, and where we were on the trail.

Good luck on your trip.

 

[bczoom]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I just returned from a 10,206 mile trip)</font>

Beenthere,

Weren't keeping track, were you??? That's a lot of miles.

It does sound like the motel parking lot is the easiest way to go.

I'm going to make note of the software you mentioned. How is it packaged? By a GPS and it comes with it?

Brian

 

[beenthere]

The MS Streets and Trips with GPS comes packaged in a box, and was $130.

There is a cable with USB plug that goes from the GPS unit (2" square about 1/2" thick) that lays on the dash to the notebook.

DeLorme also has a similar product, and there may be others.

 

[texastomtom]

I travel a lot

I have the sprint pcmcia card setup... I use the "merlin" card.
I pay $80.00 per month
There is no time limit / however there is a megabyte limit.
for $80 a month i get 300 megabytes of data... includes both up and down I believe.

Paid 179.99 I belive for the Merlin card.

I have never gone over the 300 megs in a month... Although I only use it when traveling and use either wi-fi or my other broadband when around the house/work....

Good luck !

The PCMCIA works in far more places than wi-fi hotspots.


If you are going to travel in a RV I believe they have a satellite system with auto-tracking system... I know they do for receiving satellite and think they might have internet also available..

I get up to about 100-120k download speed on the sprint system..

Not blazing fast but very usuable....

I think other cell providers have similar options....
Be carefull about ones limited by minutes.... IF you like to surf a lot on tractorbynet.com you could use lots of minutes in a hurry...

I like the bandwidth type of pricing - so I'm not paying if I walk away for a hour and leave it connected...


Good Luck

tom

 

[Henry]

We use wireless access for our employees where I work. We've deployed several thousand laptops with a combination of Wi-FI and Digital Cellular. Here's the run-down:

802.11 (Wi-Fi)

- At Hotels is mostly free access to the internet, some still charge around $10 for 24 hours.
- Generally, you get close to broad-band speeds
- Get a card that support 802.11G (it's faster than 802.11b)
- The cards are cheap (less than $150)
- A lot of hotels also offer direct Ethernet access, all you need is the cable....

Digital Cellular

- The best services are available from ATT (soon to be Cingular), Sprint, and Verizon
- Costs approx $80 / month for the "all-you-cat-eat" unlimited access plans (you won't like using a smaller plan)
- Coverage: Virtually the entire interstate highway system has digital cellular coverage. In total, east of the Mississippi has approx 70% coverage overall, west of the Mississippi has approx 30% coverage.
- We recommend using the PCMCIA card you insert into your laptop (available from all three carriers)
- There are two levels of download speed available:
60 -to- 100k download speed - All three carriers offer this
Broadband - Now being offered by Verizon (350k-500k)
- There are other services offered by T-Mobile and Nextel, but are generally not as reliable if you travel natiowide
- Personally, I like the Verizon Broadband card (it's also called EVDO), it really smokes! The broadband iservice s now available in about 30 cities and will be natiowide within a year.
- ATT and Sprint will begin to offer broadband wireless later this year.
- You can get internet connectivity while riding in your car!

Overall

Pick the type of service that fits your usage. The Wi-Fi is definitely cheaper all around, but limits you to access in certain locations (hotels, starbucks, etc.). The digital cellular is accessable virtually everwhere (meaning highways and cities), but has higher monthly costs.

For the real road-warrior, get both Wi-Fi and Digital Cellular!!