Let's say you wanted to run an online business from an RV...

[GanChan]

...or some other type of camper-equipped vehicle. What would your preferred technology setup be like?

I'm thinking about living (and working) mobile someday. I think I might need to have a satellite antenna as well as local Wi-Fi access, but the installation is expensive. Verizon wireless coverage might be sufficient. Of course, by the time I get around to it, the technology may have evolved into something else entirely....

If do this, i'll actually spend most of my travel downtime in or near big cities or medium-sized towns across the U.S., just for the convenience of local shopping, etc. So I might not need to outfit myself for the middle of nowhere.

 

[Suture]

You'd probably be better off with a standard data plan from a carrier; satellite-based Internet is slow, high latency, and expensive.

These "unlimited" plans are getting cheaper and cheaper from the major carriers here in the USA.

 

[chown33]

You need a decent list of requirements before you start deciding on what technology you'll obtain to meet those requirements.

The two most obvious requirements are time horizon (i.e. how many years in the future) and remoteness (which includes the length of time one would be at that remote distance, i.e. temporal as well as physical remoteness).

A less obvious aspect of remoteness includes what country you're in. Huge tracts of northern Canada are far more isolated than anything in the US outside of Alaska.

Another obvious requirement is budget.

Sure, you could start making a wish-list of tech, and then invent the requirements to fit the tech, but that's backwards. I'm not saying it's not done, or not uncommon, just that it's backwards. Sorry if making a requirements list isn't as fun as shopping for gear.

 

[maflynn]

Did you check out new RVs and see what options they have? While RVs can be very expensive I think they may offer a lot of what you're looking for in terms of internet access.

 

[Meister]

You'd probably be better off with a standard data plan from a carrier; satellite-based Internet is slow, high latency, and expensive.

These "unlimited" plans are getting cheaper and cheaper from the major carriers here in the USA.

These kinds of plans only exist in the US and Austria.
There is a cap limit on mobile traffic everywhere else.

My tip: Park your RV close to a starbucks

 

[GanChan]

I don't know how far in the future I'd be doing this, unfortunately. If/when it happens, I'll be living out of the RV (which might just be a camper shell on a truck) and touring the country, generally taking major highways and hovering around major cities instead of mostly "roughing it." So Wi-Fi would be available to me most days, either at local businesses or local RV parks. I'd need a cell phone anyway, so I imagine I'd just carry a Verizon voice/data package as my always-there other option.

Yeah, the satellite thing looks like more trouble than it's worth, unless I was planning on spending days at a time away from any Wi-Fi or Verizon access, or leaving the 48 states. Not likely.

I know I would want 2 computers for redundancy. I'd also need to figure out how I want to have snail mail forwarded to me as I bop from place to place.

 

[localoid]

There's a Motosat Datastorm mobile satellite Internet dish system that some RV owners use for mobile Internet access but it requires a somewhat expensive investment in equipment and professional installation, which runs in the $6000 to $12,000 range from what I've heard plus about $100 per month subscription. It gives you an computer-operated "automatic" roof-mounted satellite dish that finds and locks to the satellite automatically within minutes provided you have a clear view of the southern sky. Downstream speed is supposedly up to 1000kbps and upstream is up to 200kbps, but can be as slow as a dialup modem under some weather conditions.

A somewhat cheaper satellite Internet option is to use a manually pointed, tripod-mounted dish, but it may take about 1/2 hour to get it setup every time you change location. It usually runs at least about $700 to $2000 in equipment plus about $60-$130 a month for the feed. Speeds are in the same range as the Motosat/Datastorm system.

 

[rdowns]

Definitely doable.