There are many Campgrounds that offer what Rversonline calls “Modem Friendly” service by having one or more telephone lines available to guests for no charge.  This allows us to conveniently perform daily email activity.  We know how to prepare new email and read old email while not connected to the Internet or “offline”.  Thus, we use a small amount of time on these phone lines to call our Internet Service Provider and send/receive email.  We then give others a chance to use the phone line.  FMCA, Good Sam and other associations are starting to provide a bank of these phone lines at rallies for the convenience of the ever growing group of Internet Campers.  There is another group of campers that want higher speed access to the Internet for much more than email.  There is at least one company, Motosat (http://www.motosat.com),  that has announced high speed Internet through satellite two way connections.  The cost of this service is very expensive at $5000 to install.  Not many campers will be able to afford that high cost. 

Another emerging technology could allow any campground to offer this high speed Internet service for as little as $2 per night.  Wireless Local Area Network technology has evolved to the point where it can provide high speed (over 56kb) Internet connectivity that operates on your laptop in your RV.   Several manufacturers make equipment installs in minutes with no physical wiring required.  Unfortunately, this equipment only works on IBM PC Laptops so you Mac owners will have to look for other solutions.   There is at least three companies that packages this service” for Campground Owners that don’t want to “do it yourself”.  http://www.camplan.com, http://www.rvsurf.com and PCcampLink offer to design, install and operate Wireless LANS for campgrounds.

When increased demand for high speed internet service in RV parks so justifies, RVers Online encourages campgrounds to consider offering this service to us “speed freak” Internet Surfer Campers at a reasonable cost and not at the exclusion of the Internet Friendly phone line at the office.  For the foreseeable future there will still be many, many RVers who will travel with laptops solely for the purpose of email communications with family and friends, and for whom a couple of minutes at a “modem friendly” connection will suffice.  There are a growing number of us who want and will pay for this service if offered.

Here’s how it works.  A $250 to $300 device called a wireless Local Area Network hub/router is installed in a central place in the Campground.  The hub/router is a high frequency radio receiver/transmitter with two directly attached antennas that are 3 inches long.  The hub/router has the capability of handling up to 256 users simultaneously. 

It is connected to the Internet in one of three ways.  First a phone line with a 56KB modem for about $25 per month.  Second a phone line with a DSL service which offers up to 640 KB for about $50 dollars per month.   And third uses a T-1 Line or Frame Relay at 1,000 KB or higher speeds for about $1000 per month.  This hub/router is given a fixed Internet address by the service provider, usually the local phone company, and stays connected to the Internet 24/7/365.

Each camper is provided a PCMCIA card radio transmitter/receiver and simple to load software on a CD.  Most campgrounds will ask for a deposit on this device since it costs about $150.  The range of the wireless Local Area Network is about 2000’ and therefore would be able to service any site in a typical campground.  The camper would install this card in the PCMCIA slot in his laptop, load the software driver from the provided CD, start the program keying in this Internet service provider and viola, he is instantly on-line.   For example, if you have Internet service with AOL, you would simple key in “aol.com” in the addressspace.  From this point on, you would operate just as if you had successfully made a dial-up connection to your ISP.

The Internet access from the hub/router is shared by all of the users that are connected.  The campground would start with a 56kb modem line which will give excellent service to 10 users.  When the average number of users has increased beyond that point, the campground would upgrade to a DSL line which will give excellent service to up to 50 users.  When the campground has built the business to more than 50 nightly users, they would increase their connectivity to the Internet by installing a DS1 line from the phone company which will service the 256 maximum of the hub/router.

Doing the financial arithmetic, once the threshold demand for the service had been reached, shows that a typical campground could rent you this service for as little as $2 per night.  So Campers, would you spend $2 per night to get unlimited high speed Internet access from the comfort of your RV?  I know that I would, because it is a lot better than my current options.  It is a pain to find a phone line to use, waiting for the courtesy email desk to open up or to talk the campground owner into using the fax/credit card line for a few minutes.  Then to further have to look up the local phone number for my ISP only to find out that there is none and then having to spend 6 to 10 cents per minute to use their 800 number.  My only other optionis to use my cell phone to connect at 4.8 KB if I’m lucky and there is cell phone coverage.

LinkSys (http://www.linksys.com) Model WAP11/WPC11,  SMC (http://www.smc.com) Model SMC7004AWBR/SMC2632W, Sony and Panasonic are among quite a few companies that build these wireless LAN Systems.

As you High Speed Internet Freaks travel and find a nice campground where you like to surf the web in the comfort of your RV,  give this article to the owner and maybe the next time you stop, they will have decided to offer this service.  There are at least two campgrounds that offer this service now.  The big advantage of this technology for campground owners is that the initial cost is very low.  After this small initial investment, the cost of the equipment grows in proportion to the number of users.  The spread sheet shows this relationship.

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