No, not zombies.
Internet access.
They’re not everywhere, you know. Or maybe you don’t know.
Those of you who live in big cities never have to wonder if you will be able to access your data or not. For those of us who live on the road there is “Coverage?” available for the iPhone and iPad.
The couple known as Technomadia live in an RV so they know what we want. (Check them out at http://www.technomadia.com) And being technomads they develop an app to do it and then sell it through Apple’s App Store. Coverage? is the one that tells me at a quick glance whether or not an area I am about to move into will have a signal for me.
At least they try to tell me. Their data can only be as good as that supplied by the data vendors: AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, & T-Mobile. As we all know, when it comes to data the phrase is GIGO, which stands for “garbage in, garbage out”. In this case it is Verizon’s garbage.
Verizon said I would have no signal in Brady, Texas, where I planned to spend the night but it would be back in Eldorado where I planned to stop for lunch the next day. Wrong. When I stopped in Brady I had enough phone signal to be able to call Walmart to get permission to park there overnight. I didn’t try the data because it looked like I was roaming so didn’t want to risk it. The next day, in Eldorado, I had no signal at all. I did get in a nice nap there, though.
So, by the time I got to Fort Stockton I had been two days without internet. Driving helped fill in that time but I knew I things in my on-line world must be getting backlogged. So I checked into an RV park for two nights. That let me catch up on all my internet stuff as well as do housekeeping chores like tending to my tanks: dumping and filling as the case may be.
Because having your black tank fill up puts you into another type of dead zone.
TTYL,
Linda
We have been extremely lucky with Verizon. We only had a few hours one day that we didn’t have a connections. We also had a booster in the motor home. We don’t have one yet in the 5th wheel.
We’re all drooly-happy with our new booster. Upped our speed by 10X, and moved us from 3G to 4.
When I was on top of a mountain in Arkansas, I could not get signals on cell phone or computer. Well once, I got a tiny signal on the computer & was able to actually shoot off a blog post before I lost my connection. I could get the phone to work IF I put it in the center of my bed & used the headset. Or if I took the phone down the hill to the lake. But it really wasn’t necessary for me to be online anyhow, I enjoyed the atmosphere much more.
Having cell signal is important. I usually check out the little maps online if we’re thinking about to an area that I’m a little concerned about. Most of the time all is pretty good but certainly not always. Dead zones aren’t fun no matter what kind they are.
Thanks so much for the Coverage?-love!
And so true about GIGO – I just re-checked Verizon’s maps directly (hoping maybe the update we just processed reflected what you found in reality, and give you good news that ‘we’re on it!’), and they still show no coverage – at all – in Brady, and 3G coverage in El Dorado. Oh well.
It was fun checking in on your recent adventures and hitting the road solo. How wonderful for you! Wishing you all my continued best!
We’ve found pretty good coverage with Verizon. Sometimes it’s really weak but seldom do we lose it completely. And if we don’t have it, I don’t want to be there. Sometimes with Jim’s fishing areas, we don’t have service but I try to be good about that.
We find flaky coverage even within an area at different times of day, or if someone is parked in a certain way nearby that is somehow blocking the signal. We have an antenna on the roof, which helps some. But there are places where there simply are no towers, thus the NO SERVICE banner is prominent at those times. When we used HughesNet while fulltiming, there were fewer of these areas, but they did exist, even with that huge antenna.
Virtual hugs,
Judie <– Sierra Vista, Arizona
http://dorrieanne.wordpress.com/
Today: Tee-shirt Storage – RV Tip
2 DAYS WITHOUT INTERNET!!!!
Egads. That’s like a whole week. I’d be filling up my backwater tank pretty fast too if I had to go 2 days without my internet. You are a brave woman, Linda.
Capt. Fritter
2 DAYS WITHOUT INTERNET!!!!
Egads. That’s like a whole week. I’d be filling up my blackwater tank pretty fast too if I had to go 2 days without my internet. You are a brave woman, Linda.
Capt. Fritter
ditto captain.
rv braveheart linda! so amazed at what you do! keep truckin’ girl! xo tam