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Our preference is to use a Mi-fi hotspot. When in the U.S. we used Millenicom, which a few years ago were bought out by Verizon.

They have recently started up again, as a few weeks ago we received an email from them. When we return to the U.S. we will check out their plans, which used to be some of the best available.

I'm not familiar with Dish and what technology they use but I have Hughes satellite internet service (using a tripod) and I have used it for over 10 years.

I would first check to see if Dish is mobile capable (the newer KA systems require more complicated aiming procedures compared to the older Hughes KU systems). There are a couple of re-sellers of the Hughes KA systems that facilitate tripod aiming, I'm not aware of any auto dishes on the market as of yet.

Hughes is slowly getting out of the older KU systems and concentrating on KA service at fixed (home) setups.

The difference between KA and KU is that KA is spot beamed so moving a couple of hundred miles requires a complicated re-aim process, with my Hughes KU system I am on the same sat across the comtinent and aiming is relatively simple, equipment erection and aiming takes less than 30 minutes, if I invested in an auto dish I would be on-line in about 5 minutes.

Having said all of the above, I'm considering dumping the sat internet system, I have an AT&T mobile hotspot that we currently use when I'm too lazy to erect the dish for one night stays or when we are in the trees.

I'd be glad to amplify on the above if required.

A last point, the sat systems have a delay of about a second, caused by the distance to and from the sat (23,000 miles times 2) the latency and lag make VOIP phones and other time sensitive apps troublesome or impossible, at least on Hughes.

We use our Verizon phone. I have our home email accounts linked our two VZ phones. Works great and stays sync'd with our home base email system. We don't use Verizon email addresses however if we were full timing we would. Their coverage is very good and both of our phones have built in hot spots (up to 10 links per phone) so we can wirelessly link to our RW printer, tablets and laptops. Handy to have these hot spot links for visitors especially grand children that arrive with a bunch of digital devices.

Almcc, excellent information. Thank you for the report, as this is the first "first-hand" report I've read from an actual user of satellite internet.

We also use our Verizon hotspot and have only encountered issues in a few locations with poor cell service. Seems like satellite internet has a little ways to go before it's really useable/reliable.

Prior to leaving for Alaska I looked into a number of different sat internet options. Was told by dish that they are not mobile compatible because they do use spot beams and can not guarantee they will have available bandwidth when I move to a new beam.

I do have some experience with Hughesnet and it is deadly slow. Also the amount of bandwidth you get is very limited and expensive.

Bottom line I now use a AT&T iPhone tethered to a Buffalo DD-WRT based WiFi router to give access to all internet enabled devices (wired and wireless) in the coach.

When AT&T added rollover data and gave me 5GB bonus data / month it makes it practical.to used when I have coverage. I've found in the lower 48 coverage has really improved but in Alaska it was very spotty.

Interesting I had Millenicom for a while before Verizon bought their customer base and shut them down but didn't get notification they had restarted.

Are they still reselling the Verizon service?

Just a couple of clarifications in case I led some folks astray about the service being unreliable etc. Actually it significantly more reliable than park wifi, it always works except if I'm parked in the trees and I can't get a clear path to the satellite from the dish, or, like sat TV it degrades when heavy rain showers/thunder approaches (it's more accurate than local weather radar in forecasting the weather!). As a testament to reliability many retail outlets and gas stations etc use these services instead of DSL etc. to connect to their warehouses etc., have a look for those large dishes on their roofs. It's truly available everywhere, we've used it up in Alaska and in the Yukon where no other services exist (including TV and radio!) and in Mexico as well

At the lowest subscription level it is a bit slow (1+ meg downloads and slower uploads) by today's fiber speeds but the reliability makes up for the higher speed that you sometimes see in parks etc. but get thrown off halfway through a file transfer.

As for bandwidth, the basic plans (about $69/month) give you about 425 MB/day download with an 8 hour period overnight allowing unlimited download capability for those Microsoft updates. This unusual set up is to ensure that everyone has access to the limited number of transponders and prevent bandwidth gouging. The way bandwidth is refilled means you actually get more than that 425 mb per day.

The latency issue will not be overcome until "warp speed" overcomes the speed of light limitation and can be seen when watching those live feeds on TV where there is a pause between the anchor's question and the reporter's answer.

And, as a final comment, like other services you can pay for and get any bandwidth and speed you want up to and including what the TV folks pay for HD video capability etc.

Interesting I had Millenicom for a while before Verizon bought their customer base and shut them down but didn't get notification they had restarted.

Are they still reselling the Verizon service?

Ken,

Didn't pay too much attention to their email, as we won't be back in the U.S. for an extended period until 2018. I have already deleted the emails received, but will forward you any future ones I get.

I found a website which said they are going to be a reseller of T Mobile internet service. You have to buy a hotspot from T Mobile for about $50. Don't know about the present coverage of T Mobile but it was sparse when I tried it several years ago. So I changed to a no contract Verizon hot spot. 10 gigs for $100. Expensive but it works at high speed most everywhere.

Interesting I had Millenicom for a while before Verizon bought their customer base and shut them down but didn't get notification they had restarted.

Are they still reselling the Verizon service?

Both my kids HAD T Mobile for a very very short while & they couldn't use them in their houses, had to stand outside, one in the Seattle area, one near Amarillo, it was cheap though.
We have Verizon phones & mifi & in my opinion it's too expensive, but it has worked in 99.9% of the places we've been.

I concur with the comments about T-mobile, I tried it a couple of years ago when I bought a pay as you go package with data from a Canadian re-seller. The phone had no signal in a lot of places across the US traveling from Canada to southern California. Our cheapie "candy bar" TracFone had much better performance.

Do not get EXEDE! Nightmare that never goes away!Every time you move the clock starts over. Technically you can't even get an account with them if you are in an RV. But there are unscrupulous dealers out there that will tell you otherwise.

We recently upgraded to the Verizon XL plan and get 24Gigs of data for$100.00 and now includes Canada and Mexico. Had pretty good luck with it the past couple of weeks while in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

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