[One Country Boy]

I've noticed traveling around Florida, there is a company that has installed equipment in many parks and charges the RV'er like $20 a week, $5 a day and there is also a monthly rate. Some places we've been, the service has been better than others, but still the same company and I cannot remember the name.

Most of the places we've been, where the wi-fi is free, the campgrounds will tell you, it's for checking e-mail, paying a bill or browsing the internet. They discourage users from using Skype, Echolink or other VOIP programs. I can understand that.




My wife jokes about me enjoying taking my toys with me. That includes computers and the internet. She know when she's searching for a new campground to ask if they have wi-fi, full hook-ups, etc... Hi Hi.. I enjoy RV'ing but if I can be more comfortable at home, I'll just stay home. I'm getting too old for this roughing it stuff.

"Doc", are you a Full Time RV'er ? I'm very interested in Verizon's Mi-Fi. I've considered going to it. My understanding is I can get on for about $50/month, but that would limit me to 5gb's of data. I'm an old Verizon customer and been with them since they were AT&T or whomever they bought out. I'm grandfathered in under the old unlimited data usage. My wife has a BlackBerry and I have a Droid-X. They get a lot of use. All our family and friends are on Verizon. We use them for e-mail, texting and I have EchoLink on my Droid. I don't use EchoLink much because of the battery drainage. I've also got FaceBook and Twitter accounts on the Droid.

Many places we camp and/or would like to camp have NO Wi-Fi, but cell phone service is available through Verizon. I can do things on my laptop that I can't do on the Droid, so I'm looking for a better way to get internet on my laptop. I pay about $100/month here at home for DSL and phone service. Our landline phone is hardly used. The cellular phones are used much much more for calling friends and relatives. I'm considering dropping the home DSL and phone service and just signing up for Mi-Fi. Would I be happy ?

I've used a program to make my Droid a "Hot Spot". Cannot recall the name of it. I think I paid about $15 for the app. It's not real dependable though. I used an app with my old Black Berry that worked very well. It would work for the internet service when you could not even make a cellular phone call due to the weak signal. I know Verizon has it's own app for making the Droid a "Hot Spot" but never tried it. I think it runs about $30 a month. I understand that you can turn it off and on and they will only bill you for the time in use. Maybe charge you by the week or semi-monthly. Like I say never tried it. You can ask the same question of 4 Verizon reps and get 12 different answers. Once you start changing things around on your account, one thing effects another. I've done my best to leave well enough alone. Since we are not full timers, using Verizon's Droid Hot Spot would probably be my best bet. I fear if I add that, they will change my unlimited data usage and I do not want to do that. I figure one day, they are going to drop their promise about some of us being grandfathered in under the unlimited use.

All this stuff gets expensive. Satellite TV, cell phones and internet gets to be some high priced stuff for us old retirees.