Pay campground wifi

[hemsteadc]

Campground wifi has become a real nemesis for me.  I'm talking about the kind where you have to pay for service.

You'd think I'd know better when the signal is poor to weak, but I somehow think it will work if I'm able to get the Sign up page and pay.  No, that's not what's happening.  What happens is that it works for a while, a few hours maybe, then after that it's good luck getting anything.  I'm in this situation right now where I've paid for 3 days of unlimited service, but not only is it slow, it's intermittent.  I'm about 500' from the antenna.  The only way to use it effectively is to go to the building where the antenna is.  The Sign Up page doesn't say "You will not be able to use this inside your Rv."

Now for the real head scratcher.  I have a CCrane long range wifi extender antenna, a small parabolic antenna which captures and amplifies signals inside my coach.  That's worked well in many situations, but not here.  It will not bring up the sign in page of the wifi provider.. it simply times out.  I don't need a passphrase to get into the system, but it does need a username and password.  

Tech support from this company says "We do not support the use of extenders."  Is that true?  Is that even possible?

[Will B.]

They "don't support" more likely means they "don't care".  I don't think there's a tech stack that can ignore them.

Let me suggest you actually try turning it off.  Sometimes they can do more harm than good. (No idea why.)

Secondly, if I were you (and depending on your budget), I'd completely skip ever thinking about campground WiFi and go with a cell-based service.  For two years, I've been using an AT&T sim card through a Pepwave device (from MobileMustHave.com) and have been exceedingly happy with it.  I think I get up to 500gb/mo for about $120 (not counting equipment costs).  I'm a tech guy so setting it all up was simple enough for me.

Only once in two years have I needed campground WiFi, and it was really good (Carrollwoods in North Carolina).  Fortunate, too, because AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile were all quite weak there.  I did also use the campground WiFi at FunTown RV (at Winstar World Casino in Thackerville, OK) and it was pretty good, before we got our Pepwave setup.

Just some ideas, hope that can help.

 

[hemsteadc]

I'm using my phone to write this, but I'm not on  an "unlimited" plan, I'm using its hotspot, and hotspots have their limits on any plan.  Just curious about what's up with these idiot CG services.  This is not the first time this has happened, and it's always in Nevada.

I camp at Mesa Verde which has NO cell service, but does have pretty good wifi with repeaters all over the place, and the extender works well there.

I've emailed Crane tech support to see what they say.

Edited January 26, 2022 by hemsteadc

[TXiceman]

The WiFI boosters only boost the signal.  The real problem with campground WiFi is band width for the server.  Think of the server as a big highway, say 20 lanes.  If the traffic is light, there is plenty of band width and the speed is higher.  Now comes rush hour and every lane is full of traffic, and it slows down to even a stop.  The booster can do nothing to increase the speed when the highway is full.

Ken

[hemsteadc]

Understand, but that isnt the issue.

[hemsteadc]

Reply from Ccrane:

" It is possible for RV parks (or other business networks) to block repeaters/extenders via advanced settings. However, it is unusual for them to take this step. In that case they are allowing a connection only to be made to a single MAC address. Since the WiFi antenna and repeater/extender both have individual MAC addresses that's where they can block them. On the off chance they are not blocking them though, try resetting the unit from scratch to see if it will connect to the parks TOS login page. If it still doesn't work then they must indeed have a security setting blocking."