Gearing Up: Staying Connected - Where the Rubber Meets the Web By Kim St. Ours - Fleetwood RV
As if it wasn't hard enough to master folding a map or crossing a four-lane interchange to reach your exit, today there's a whole new set of skills required of the RVer. In this age of connectivity, many of us are as addicted to the Internet as we are to double lattes from Starbucks, and going without makes us feel, well, naked.
The reasons are many. Maybe you use your computer for business, to stay in touch with friends and relatives, or to manage your finances while you're away from home. Whatever the reasons, finding yourself on the road "without a net," as it were, can be scary.
Fear not. You can still get your "fix," whether it's e-bay you crave or a quick way to send an e-postcard to someone back home. Here are a few of the options at your disposal.
(This list assumes that you already have an Internet Service Provider, and know how to hook up to the Internet using a phone line and the ISP's local, long-distance or toll-free number. Note that wireless and cell phone connections generally only work in populated areas near major cities. And it's a lot easier to hook up to many of these resources if you have a laptop with a built-in modem and not a desktop.)
Cellular Phone Modems
If you have a cellular service plan that gives you free long distance with no roaming and no air-time charges, this might be the answer for you. You'll need a connectivity kit, but once configured, you'll be able to connect via your existing ISP and surf the net--albeit at a sluggish 14,400 kbs.
RV Parks
Some RV parks claim to be "modem friendly," which can actually mean any number of things. It may mean they'll allow you to plug into their fax line for a few minutes to download your e-mail. Or they may have a designated phone jack restricted to local, credit card or toll-free calls that you can use. This jack may be located in a section of the office, laundry room, recreation room or game room. Some RV Parks have phone jacks along with the other hookups at each campsite--some may be "instant on" or ready to use. With others, you may have to contact the local phone company to activate.
A few progressive RV parks are now offering wireless high-speed Internet access to campers using a wireless Local Area Network (LAN). This lets you access the Internet anywhere the LAN reaches--inside your RV or down by the lake--without having to deal with any phone cords. But, your laptop computer must have a wireless modem card installed in order for this to work, and the transmission speed is still quite slow--19.2 kbs.
RVers Online has a list of modem-friendly RV parks: www.rversonline.org/RVMF.html.
A CD-ROM or online directory of 4,400 modem-friendly campgrounds is available from www.allcampgrounds.com/modembook.html.
Winfield Sterling compiled this text list of RV parks that offer overnight phone jacks at the sites: hometown.aol.com/winfield3/IFparks.html.
Fulltiming America offers a book or CD-ROM listing over 2,500 modem-ready parks and 350 "instant on" phone campsites: www.fulltiming-america.com/phone.html.
Using Cell Phones & PDAs Instead of Computers
Personal Digital Assistants have become almost as common as cell phones. They're designed to connect to your computer and share data, and some of them even have modems, which means you can carry them to a phone jack and hook up. PDAs and cell phones with Internet capability are generally better for quick e-mail scanning than Web surfing, and again, the wireless modems are limited by wireless service areas.
Pocketmail
As its name suggests, Pocketmail is designed for sending and receiving e-mail. It's actually a service rather than a device. You buy a Pocketmail-compatible PDA with a built-in acoustic coupler, then subscribe to Pocketmail, which is like its own little ISP service. The advantage is, it works with any telephone--pay phone, cell phone, what have you. And the access number is toll-free anywhere in the U.S. Pocketmail is one of the preferred partners of Club Fleetwood, and membership has its privileges. Check out Pocketmail on the Club Fleetwood Web site at www.clubfleetwood.com or go to the Pocketmail site at www.pocketmail.com.
Pay Telephones
Okay, maybe the best way to use a pay phone to get on the Internet is to call your friend in Dubuque and have them read the screens over the phone to you. The other alternative is something called an acoustic coupler that works kind of like the old fax machines, where you put the phone handset up against the device, which is connected to your computer, and then the computer and the handset can talk to each other (remember the ol' electronic handshake?). It's not ideal and gets very mixed reviews, but it is an option.
Satellites
Some day, RVers will be able to quickly and affordably communicate over the Internet solely via an RV-mounted satellite dish, but alas, that day is not yet here. Why? Because like a TV dish, a PC satellite dish can only receive signals but can't send them, so you'll still need a phone line to tell the satellite what you want to see. (You'll basically need a PC satellite, your regular ISP, and have to pay a monthly fee to the satellite provider.) The advantage is that once your modem tells the satellite what to send, your Web pages will download via the satellite about 15 times faster than a normal phone connection. There are some two-way satellite systems, but until recently, the FCC would only allow them to be installed on permanent structures by trained professionals, since they didn't want us rookies wreaking havoc by pointing our mobile dishes at the wrong satellite. In mid-2002, the FCC did license Hughes Network Systems (HNS) to provide two-way mobile Internet connectivity, but the cost is prohibitive--about $6,000 for the dish and at least $100/month for the service.
See www.roadtripamerica.com/dashboarding/future.htm for details.
Internet/Cyber Cafes
These modern venues let you surf public access computers for the price of a sandwich or an hourly charge. Search by location at www.cybercaptive.com.
Phone Jacks To Go
There are many other places where you might be able to find a phone jack for your laptop. Flying J Travel Plazas often have jacks at the tables (www.flyingj.com). You'll find jacks at business service centers like Kinkos, Mail Boxes Etc., Office Depot, Office Max and Staples. Some even rent computers by the hour. Public libraries also have computers connected to the Web, although there's often a wait to get on them and they don't always have removable media. Hotel Business Centers usually have phone jacks, as do some airports.
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