internet on the road

One of the most common questions I've heard from friends, colleagues and clients is some version of "how in the hell do you stay connected?"

We knew we couldn't embark on this journey if we didn't have reliable, fast internet connectivity. And not only for our ability to get work done - I'm accountable to partners and clients who expect me to be available to video conference, collaborate, and share large files on a regular basis - but also because we're both huge fucking nerds who spend an embarrassing percent of our time online, from playing games (PUBG > Fortnite, don't @ me) to mainlining copious amounts of Top Tier Content straight from the social media tubes.

Thankfully, this is a problem other digital nomads have long ago solved. There's a wealth of information out there about how to stay connected while mobile, and we gleaned most of our know-how from Cherie and Chris of the Mobile Internet Resource Center (and Technomadia). Their in-depth, up-to-date guides and support gave us everything we needed to seamlessly transition our meme addiction from a hard-wired cable connection to our current mobile setup.

The short answer to "how do we stay connected" is cellular service from Verizon (with AT&T as a backup). 4G/LTE cell service in the US is actually pretty decent, even in the boonies:

We have a "grandfathered" Verizon unlimited data plan that we acquired from the previous owner and had transferred into our name. The benefit of these old-school unlimited data plans over the modern plans offered by wireless carriers today is that they're...actually unlimited. Today's plans are often severely limited in the amount of data that can be used off of your cell phone's screen (and many plans even throttle or de-prioritze your phone's data usage after you've passed a certain threshold). So if you're expecting to stream Netflix to your TV, download a game patch on Steam, or sit in a few hours of Google Hangouts meetings, you're going to find yourself shit out of luck. But if you can get your name on the contract for an account that's been "grandfathered in," you're free to be as much of a data hog as you'd like.

Acquiring our grandfathered Verizon plan was...an ordeal. It felt like we were doing something illegal, probably because Verizon wishes it were illegal. But through an "assumption of liability" process, some help from a 'data broker' (because we live in a third-rate dystopian universe written by an incel Neal Stephenson wannabe) who sourced the plan we acquired, and a couple attempts to find the right Verizon customer service agent who knew how to do what we needed without fucking it all up, we're now in business.

Our grandfathered Verizon plan works via a hotsopt device: a Jetpack MiFi 7730L. It looks like this:

We hook that little hockey puck up to a router (we use one purpose-built for RV users, which lets us use the hotspot as a modem via USB, has some nifty features for tracking/managing usage, etc. - but we could just as easily have used any home router to do essentially the same job, just a little hackier), and that router serves all of our wired and wireless devices throughout Free Real Estate. We also use a little $30 directional Netgear antenna that attaches to the Jetpack and helps bump the signal substantially when we're in low-signal areas (we may eventually shell out 500 or so bucks for an actual cellular booster, but our understanding is these are only really helpful when you're really on the edge of usable cell signal, and so far we haven't found it necessary).

On average, our upload and download speeds are around 15-20 megabits per second - more than enough to do video conferencing, streaming media, and moving around large files. In major metropolitan areas, we often see speeds in excess of 100mbps, which genuinely rivals hardwired cable and fiber connections. Latency usually isn't bad, either - right now (in Flagstaff, AZ, on a relatively congested tower), our ping time to google is around 40ms, with no detected packet loss. That means games, VOIP, and video conferencing all work without noticeable lag.

When we're far from the Verizon tower or we're competing with lots of other Verizon users, we've seen our download speeds slump to around 2 mbps - but thankfully this has only happened a couple of times. When this happens, we have 30 gigs of high-speed data we can use tethered from our actual cell phones, which are on AT&T. So far, we've found that when the Verizon signal stinks, the AT&T signal is usually pretty strong.

We typically use 250-350 gigs per month on our Verizon plan - a tall figure that would NEVER be feasible using an off-the-shelf wireless plan.

Every time we're planning to move, we do a little research in advance to make sure our campsite will have a decent cell signal. We often use Campendium to research user reviews of campgrounds and boondocking sites before we make plans for our next stop, and Campendium users report on cell signal strength. We also look at coverage maps from Verizon/AT&T, and occasionally consult janky cell tower mapping resources if we want to be really sure.

What about Satellite internet? It sucks. It's slow as heck, requires an unobstructed view of the sky, and has absolutely unusable latency for gaming and video conferencing. The future looks potentially rosier for satellite internet, with SpaceX's low-Earth orbit satellite constellation in testing, but this is years out from consumer availability and depends largely on Elon Musk not self-immolating from raw hubris and his own unbridled passion for meritocracy.

What about campground wifi? It sucks. So far we haven't had one campground with a wifi connection that broke 5mbps, and we're usually seeing 5%+ packet loss and high latency/jitter. There are products that can help pick up remote wifi signals (from the same folks who make our router), but many problems are beyond just wifi signal strength and have more to due with local network congestion and connection quality at the source.

Thanks to cell towers, we get to continue our longstanding tradition of being Extremely Online and Never Stopping Posting.