My wife and I have been living in an RV Trailer for more than 4 years now. Everywhere we go, we have new issues with WiFi. Finding the best WiFi is always a challenge. There are a lot of variables to getting WiFi.
The first variable is that you must actually have WiFi where you are. This could mean that the park will provide the WiFi that you want/need. If not, you will need to provide your own. Can you get Satellite WiFi? Do you have a Hot Spot on your phone? Does your phone have good cell service? All of these make a difference when you are going someplace new. Here at our park, we have excellent WiFi throughout the park. However, that does not take into account other variables to be discussed. Please continue to read.
The second variable is if you are using WiFi 4, WiFi 5, or WiFi 6. The important thing to know here is that WiFi 4 is generally just 2.4 Gigahertz in frequency. WiFi 5 allows for 2.4 Gigahertz and 5 Gigahertz frequencies. And – WiFi 6 goes a bit further adding in 6 Gigahertz. But remember that 5 and 6 are “backwards compatible”. That means that they work with the older frequencies. These are called 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax. Pretty much everything WiFi is /n/. The ‘a’ means WiFi 5. The ‘b/g/’ means WiFi 4, and ‘ac’=WiFi 5 plus while ‘ax’ means you got it all. But do you need “ALL”? At our park, all you really need is 802.11b/g/n. If you have 802.11a/b/g/n, the ‘a’ might be a lot faster.
The next variable is what your Trailer or RV is made of. A “Faraday Cage” is a box that has all metal sides and prevents (or restricts) electrical waves from entering into the cage. Basically, your RV is a “faraday cage”. If it is all fiberglass; No PROBLEM. But that is not the case for most RV’s these days. My wife and I have a typical Trailer that all metal. So, I purchased a Mini-Travel Router. I can set up this router to work with the WiFi in the area, or tether it straight to my phone, for WiFi. I use Velcro tape to mount this mini-router to a window where there is a direct ‘line-of-sight’ with the parks closest Access Point. This creates a WiFi bridge into the Trailer that gives excellent WiFi for everyone/everything in the Trailer. My daughter has a large RV Trailer that actually comes with a WiFi bridge already installed. My router (GL-AR300M-ext) is only 2.4gigahertz and has some limitations. Still, I get really good internet with it throughout my Trailer.
The next variable is with whoever runs the link from the Park to the Internet Service Provider. I have seen several instances where the Service Provider will set up a WiFi access for the park/area where the router will only allow a limited number of people to gain access. Sometimes, these Providers will set their access points so that when someone gets internet access, that IP (internet provider) address is locked down for 24 hours. This is a sleazy attempt to extort money from the park by limiting the number of devices that can get access during the day. Your TV, Phone, Computer, AppleWatch, and Xbox will all draw a separate IP address. If everyone in the park takes up two or more IP addresses, then you may have to wait for 12 to 24 hours before one is released for you to use. This is what you will see when you get to a park and they give you the access code to the WiFi, but after accessing the WiFi, you find that there is NO internet. This is because all the IP addresses are taken at the time. Having your own router will allow you to set up more than 100 Sub-IP addresses for your RV alone. This will also limit the number of IP addresses that you take up from the park to only one. Unfortunately, this will only help if you stay close to your RV.
Another variable is with the amount of bandwidth that you will need. The average amount of “Speed” that you need for internet changes with what you are trying to do. Checking Email is easy with only 2 to 5 Megabits per second. Five megabits is pretty slow, but more than adequate for even YouTube and Netfix. Our park offers up to 20mbs. Our Service Provider allows for 1Gbs but throttles each person so that no one person will take up all of the bandwidth. If you are downloading large files, pictures, or programs, this could take you several minutes or hours to do. If you are using 5gigaherts (WiFi 5 or 6), your speed should be much faster.
The next variable is with the weather. Power outages will affect more than just the WiFi at any park. In recent months, our WiFi system was up and running just fine while the Service Provider in the next town was experiencing power outages. Because of this, they were not transmitting internet to our location. Yes, we had good WiFi, but we had NO internet. There are also times when our system has gone down due to ice and high winds. While I was trained to get our system up and running quickly after failure, I do have somewhat of an attitude after midnight; worse if the temperature is low or the wind is high (or raining). While I have been known to wait until morning to fix the problem, this is still an improvement over waiting till the end of the weekend for a service person to come and put it back online.
One thing that I would recommend is for those of you that live in an RV (Trailer or Motor Home), you should invest in a Mini-Router and learn how to make it work to your advantage. Over the last few months, I have been able to bypass the problems involving loss of internet by simply moving my router over to being tethered to my phone. It is easy to do if you have a router that was designed to be used that way. As I said before, my router is a GL-AR300M-ext but only allows for WiFi 4 (802.11b/g/n) and only 2.4Ghz is available. I am looking into purchasing another of the GL.INET type routers (beryl or opal) that will provide WiFi 5/6. But, for now, my WiFi 4 is more than adequate for all that I need.
If you are having trouble with getting WiFi into your Trailer/RV, let me know and we can talk about alternatives to making it work better for you.
If you are at Red Fox RV Park, simply contact Management and tell them you need to talk with someone about your internet. Until then….. Don’t worry, Be happy.