USA Internet

We have usually depended on free RV Park WIFI while we have been in the States but last year on the way home it did not work out all that well. Many RV parks charge for the service, some as much as $6 per day. In the parks that offer it for free it is not always available at the site. My Hawking dish bailed me out in a few places but I was still left without any connection in a few places. I must admit I have become spoiled by readily available WIFI in the house all summer and am not willing to go back to undependable service.

After checking out prepaid internet plans on the Internet, I have sort of settled on Virgin's Broadband To Go plan. I will have to buy either a USB stick ($80) that plugs into the laptop or one of the new MIFI boxes ($150) that plugs into the inverter, mounts in the middle of the motorhome and provides WIFI in a thirty foot range. It allows five simultaneous connections so I could share it with a neighbor if the need arose. Service is $40 per month and has no bandwidth limit. The problem is that this is a newly released plan and the MIFI boxes are sold out everywhere I checked on the Internet. If I can't find one of the MIFI's I will have to settle for the Internet stick. The system is sold at Best Buy and WalMart.

Throttled Back!

I have "Unlimited" broadband service from Virgin but they do have a "soft" limit of 5GB, after which they limit your speeds. Last night I got the following email from Virgin Broadband:

"Your account has exceeded its data usage cap of 5120.000MB. We have reduced your data speeds through 02/13/2014."

I still have a week to go in my current month and had great WIFI to use at Cedar Key so I am not sure where all the usage came from. Maybe some operating systems got updated on the two computers, one smartphone and one iPad. I know I did not download any movies or music. Also, my Cradlepoint MIFI is not password protected so I guess it is possible someone tapped in on it but I can't imagine who or where.

Anyway, I decided to try to live with the slower speed for a few days and so far, I have not really noticed it. I cannot Skype but that is the only thing I have noticed.

I added money to my account at Virgin and can renew the plan any time I want but I will probably let it sit there until my month expires on the 13th. I am grandfathered on their original $40 per month pay as you go unlimited plan and have been happy with it. This is the first time in several years I have gone over my 5GB monthly limit.

I'm A Virgin!

Virgin Broadband To Go that is. After checking every Walmart, Radioshack and Best Buy from Olympia to Eugene, OR for a Virgin MIFI device, I had to settle for the Virgin Internet stick. We are in a Walmart parking lot just south of Eugene and I am getting a 2to bars out of five signal with it. The big thing is, I AM connected!

I bought the device but when I was setting it up and got to the payment page, their system would not accept a non-USA credit card! I ran back to the Radioshack and bought a prepaid card which it refused to accept. I called tech support and after only about two minutes I talked to a real live person who fixed the problem. It seems the system was locked in credit card mode for me and would not let me change to prepaid card.

I think I am in a bit of a fringe area as it is a little slow but I can live with it. A commenter warned me that the stick is easily damaged if it is inserted into a USB port but I got around that by using a short cable that came with my Mexican Telcel device. It gives me just enough length that I can hang the device in the window where the signal is a little better. So far, so good. $79 for the device and $40 per month with unlimited bandwidth!

Virgin Broadband To Go User Report

Well, it has been three days now and I feel somewhat qualified to write a preliminary report. Virgin is certainly the cheapest of the current pack at $79 for the stick and $40 per month for unlimited bandwidth but came with mixed reviews. People complain about the coverage (it uses Sprint) and the coverage map is not all that impressive. They follow most or all of the major Interstate highways but it looks pretty dead once you get off the beaten path. That is fine with me because we will be sticking pretty close to populated areas and I can live with the odd period of no connection if that ever happens.

I have gotten connected every time I have turned it on but have yet to see 4 out of 4 bars. It is usually 2 or 3. Data speeds are quite slow:

Download - 0.24 Mbps
Upload - 0.03 Mbps
Ping - 1216 ms

Better than dialup but a lot slower than the ADSL I have at home. Emails with photos take a few seconds to load but nothing I cannot live with.

The big thing for me is that Skype works over it! This was my major complaint with the Mexican Telcel 3G system. Skype did not work at all on it even with a 4/4 bar signal so this is a huge advantage.

I am sorry I could not find a MIFI device. It would have mounted in the middle of the motorhome and would have provided WIFI in a 30 foot radius. It allows five simultaneous connections so I could have used both computers and still been able to share with a neighbor. There were simply none of these units available in Washington or Oregon.

The Trip So Far

We arrived in Victoria on Saturday at about 3:00PM and waited on the street until the 4:00 ferry sailed. At that time we are allowed to drive into the lot and park for the night. The gate is closed at around 4:30 or 5:00 so you have to be there on time.

Brooks and Linda showed up a few minuted later and we walked across the street to the SwiftShore Pub to wait for Linda's mom and dad. They arrived, we had a couple of drinks (except for Linda, the DD) and then went to Santiago's for dinner. It was good food, great conversation and then we walked over to the motorhome for a nightcap before everyone left. We were in bed early and actually slept in too late to go across the street for breakfast.

We were pre-cleared for customs, registered our passports with USA Immigration and boarded the ferry. After a one and a half hour crossing we unloaded, drove through the inspection area and were on our way. I like the drive down the Olympic Peninsula and Hood Canal. The road had been improved since April and soon we were in Olympia and on our way!

We spent the first night in a Walmart in Chehlis, WA where it was very cold! The down comforter came in very handy. In the morning we drove to Camping World in Wilsonville, OR to see if they could fix a couple of windows that had developed broken cranks. They could not so we carried on to Eugene, OR where we parked in another Walmart. We did not cover much ground today as we stopped in every Walmart along the way looking in vain for a Virgin Broadband device. The monthly cost of these was just reduced so they are in demand and being sold out quickly. After buying the device ($79 for an Internet stick or $149 for a MIFI card) it is only $40 per month for unlimited bandwidth use. This is a good deal and we finally found one.

The Walmart we are in is posted "No Overnight RV Parking" but, through experience we have learned to ask anyway and there was no problem. She said the signs were just to keep people from parking for days on end, I can't understand why anyone would do that...