The past couple of years has been hit and miss using Wi Fi on our travels. On this forum I read, read, read and did the math before purchasing our Verizon 595 air card. So I thought
We have been using the card for a month and never got close to going over our usage, which is a good thing. But talk about slow! Although we are in an upscale resort in PA less then an hour from Philly , cell phone coverage is minimal. We are also situated at the bottom of a gully surrounded by hundreds of large trees. But I guess that doesn't matter since we took the laptop to the top of the park yesterday and that made it worse!
Reading more on line, I ordered and received our booster antenna from the 3G store. ( THE SMALL ROUND BLACK ONE THAT COMES WITH TWO SUCTION CUPS)It has helped and our new lightening speed fluctuates between, 0.0kps - 12 kps- 60 kps then 124kps. The latter being very rare. It usually fluctuates between 12 & 24KPS. I purchased the unit hoping My wife could enjoy Skype as we have in the past when connection speeds at other parks were better. Skype is the major communication source to my wifes homeland over seas. Needless to say, the connection speed is useless. Even an occasionally advertising video comes across choppy. We also live in an HR Alumilite fiver. I have discovered over the years that our Wi Fi Antenna doesn't work well inside surrounded by aluminum. As I said; I have taken the air card outside and that didn't help either.
What have I done wrong?

If you are in a bad reception area you might only be connecting at 1xrtt and not to EVDO Service. What is the signal level you are at ? Just run your mouse over the bar display in the provider connection sotware to get an actual RSSI number. Your connection manager should also say whether you are National broadband or not.

quote:

Originally posted by JUGGERNAUT:
The past couple of years has been hit and miss using Wi Fi on our travels. On this forum I read, read, read and did the math before purchasing our Verizon 595 air card. So I thought
We have been using the card for a month and never got close to going over our usage, which is a good thing. But talk about slow! Although we are in an upscale resort in PA less then an hour from Philly , cell phone coverage is minimal. We are also situated at the bottom of a gully surrounded by hundreds of large trees. But I guess that doesn't matter since we took the laptop to the top of the park yesterday and that made it worse!
Reading more on line, I ordered and received our booster antenna from the 3G store. ( THE SMALL ROUND BLACK ONE THAT COMES WITH TWO SUCTION CUPS)It has helped and our new lightening speed fluctuates between, 0.0kps - 12 kps- 60 kps then 124kps. The latter being very rare. It usually fluctuates between 12 & 24KPS. I purchased the unit hoping My wife could enjoy Skype as we have in the past when connection speeds at other parks were better. Skype is the major communication source to my wifes homeland over seas. Needless to say, the connection speed is useless. Even an occasionally advertising video comes across choppy. We also live in an HR Alumilite fiver. I have discovered over the years that our Wi Fi Antenna doesn't work well inside surrounded by aluminum. As I said; I have taken the air card outside and that didn't help either.
What have I done wrong?

Verizon's EVDO coverage areas
Map shows a lot of no coverage areas in PA

PA campgrounds with Free Hi-Fi

Coatesville
Philadelphia / West Chester KOA - office area - 1659 Embreeville Road - (610) 486-0447

Elizabethtown
Elizabethtown/Hershey KOA - 1980 Turnpike Rd - 800 562-5774

Renfrew
Buttercup Woodlands Campground - 854 Evans City Road - 724-789-9340

Slippery Rock
Lake Arthur Family Campground - 243 W. Liberty Road - 724-794-9901

Washington
Washington/Pittsburgh SW KOA - 7 KOA Rd - 724-225-7590

if you've _never_ seen real broadband speeds, your account may be set up wrong. if you got your card/service from 3gstore, call their tech dept to see if they can help with that.

We just received our Verizon UM150 data modem yesterday. After 2 hours of it I gave up. With a known good outside antenna the signal bounced from zero to 4 lights, without the outside antenna they bounced zero to 1 light sometimes 2 lights. At 4 lights download speed was 950 and up load was 128. Anything below 4 lights the speeds were worst than dial up. When it hit zero it disconnected. The Verizon coverage map show us in a large best coverage area of all dark blue. Anyway I called this morning and canceled the service. Now waiting for the Fedex truck to come take it away. Talk about frustration I reached my peak with it yesterday.

HI
I set up the air card out of the box with supplied CD. I am using VZ Access manager and when I go on line it shows NATIONAL ACCESS I know I am not getting broadband speeds, and presume it's because of the weak signal even with the amplified antenna.
Our current park where we are working, has WiFi... When and If it works! It's down most times.

An external antenna and amplifier might be the answer.In poor coverage areas a small indoor antenna is just not enough.

quote:

Originally posted by JUGGERNAUT:
HI
I set up the air card out of the box with supplied CD. I am using VZ Access manager and when I go on line it shows NATIONAL ACCESS I know I am not getting broadband speeds, and presume it's because of the weak signal even with the amplified antenna.
Our current park where we are working, has WiFi... When and If it works! It's down most times.

I've been using Mobile Office with tethered handset since it was available - many years. Now I'm using an aircard and router for connection.

No matter what you do an aircard will not provide you service in all areas. If you absolutely/positively need service at all times then a sat system is the ONLY option. Assuming you are mobile.

That said, an aircard PROPERLY set up, does provide for some pretty good connectivity most of the time.

The following is my opinion - take it for what it is worth...but it is based on years of wireless experience, and what I have learned designing and installing wifi systems.

Part of ANY aircard purchase should include a cellular amplifier and external (quality) antenna. The Wilson trucker is one such antenna. I actually prefer Gord's "Trucker" antenna, with his Cyfre amp package....but that is just me. If you do not have an amp and external high-gain antenna then the service you receive will be hit-or-miss. Even in a good service area, my experience is that the antenna/amp almost always gives you faster data speeds. I have measure3d this in many locations, and it is almost always the case.

Personally, I consider a router also a required part of the setup - but that is another story.

You should consider the amp and external antenna just part of the startup expense. JMO.

Good info Jack. Like you said, satellite gets you connected most anywhere, but in my experience, that isn't perfect either. Seems there are no PERFECT options for fulltimers. I don't like the setup problems with the tripod satellite system, or the spotty customer service from HughesNet and reseller, and the virtually indeciperable trouble shooting methods, and the cable corrosion problems(in the east).

A couple of questions. What are you getting for most common data rate in the "blue" areas? And, what is the most common failure modes?

For us an Aircard alone just didn't get it. Since getting the Cyre Amp/Antenna/Cyfre Router we have not been without service. Of course it has often been 1XRTT but I expect that. Slow Internet is so much more fun than NO Internet.

Lew

quote:

What are you getting for most common data rate in the "blue" areas? And, what is the most common failure modes?

In the EVDO areas the lowest rate I have personally experienced is in the 500kbps range, and the fastest 1.2mbps. 1x is much slower, but I am rarely in a 1x area.

From a failure perspective - I jsut have not had one yet, with the Cradlepoint router. If yourun access amanger then that is going to be your most common failure issue, IMO.

Jack,
Can you clarify issues with Access Manager. Since I am new to this are you saying that if I purchase Cradelpoint, I delete Access Manager and utilize Cradelpoint. Does it have it's own program and CD to download?

The Cradlepoint router is your own wi-fi hotspot so your access is through wi-fi, which you need to configure a bit. If you insist you can use an Ethernet cable and not have wi-fi.
Don't remove access manager once you go to a router for two reasons - 1) every once in a while, like every 3 months you should plug in the aircard in your computer, run access manager and "activate" to update your tower information, and 2) if you have to deal with Verizon support you need to use Verizon Access Manager. If you don't activate every once in a while you will be stuck in slow speed (1XRTT) somewhere where others have fast speed (EVDO) or you might have trouble getting online for no reason you can figure out. Having access manager installed has about no effect on your usage of wi-fi or anything else, just do not run it at startup.

Now problems I (we) have had. Maybe we are atypical and Jack has special powers, but we have had problems. Some places on EVDO Verizon obviously does not have the best infrastructure since the experience varies a lot. Websites hang, requiring refreshes to view, sometimes multiple times. Downloading email resets in the middle so it has to be restarted. We and many others find that youtube videos are not smooth. We have had to power cycle our Cradlepoint router a couple times since the aircard went offline for some reason and a power cycle gets it back. When the internet experience has been flakey I have moved the aircard to my computer and had similar issues, so I can't blame the router. Often we move to the next campground and everything is solid and great day and night. Unfortunately we are at a place right now where our EVDO service is flakey, Blaine, WA right by the Canadian border. We are on Verizon towers, I made sure of that from a tracert, but I suspect being by the border limits Verizons infrastructure.

We were having a persistent authentication issue a while back but after 42 minutes of cell phone time with Verizon tech support they escalated the issue up and it got fixed on their end.
We have a UM150 and Cradlepoint 1000 router with external amplifier and antenna, which we seem to need about half the campgrounds we are in. Much of the time there are two of us online. We seem to use between 2.5GB and 4.0GB per month.

Bill,

I did not mean to imply I had never had a problem. Just no equipment problems. I have had what I believe are software issues from time-to-time. I have had towers that ran fine for awhile and another time simply were inoperable. Usually patience resolves that. Also, variable speed on towers....REALLY variable. It is a loading factor, most likely.

Personally, the ONLY time I would attempt to talk to Verizon is if things simply did not work for days at a time. Otherwise, my position is that discussions with ANY Verizon personnel is a waste of my time. (OK, maybe that is a little too strong...I'm sure there is SOMEONE at Verizon that knows what they are doing, but they are hidden behind 5 levels of others).

quote:

Originally posted by Jack Mayer:
...I'm sure there is SOMEONE at Verizon that knows what they are doing, but they are hidden behind 5 levels of others.

As a Verizon customer, I think that only HAL - the Verizon computer - really knows what is going on or how the system works ;-) Only a priviledged few can talk directly to HAL.