No one is more insufferable than he who lacks basic
courtesy.
– Bryant H. McGill
By nature, RVers rub elbows with a lot of different folks,
and too often, we find those who truly are insufferable. Happily, most RVers
have developed courtesy in the lifestyle. We don't fire up our generators at
5:00 in the morning to brew a cup of coffee. We make sure our campsite is at
least as clean (or better still, cleaner) when we leave as when we arrived.
Holding tanks are dumped at dump stations, not in the storm drain.
But after hearing a discussion among some upset RVers, there
may be an area of RVing courtesy that needs a little attention: Internet usage.
While our personal freedoms dictate that we can 'go where we wanna go, view
what we wanna view,' that freedom can impact others.
If you use RV park Internet wifi, you no doubt have your
share of horror stories of slow connections, dropped pages, and hours of
frustration trying to get done what you need to get done. Often the blame is
lumped on the RV park's wifi system, but hang on, this could be a case of,
"We have met the enemy, and he is us."
There's so much the Internet offers: E-mail, bill paying,
mapping, great blogs (like ours!). There are also sites that offer plenty of
entertaining offerings: Netflix, Hulu, and others. But with all the Internet
has to offer, there's only so much an RV park wifi system can offer –
bandwidth. Every user takes a little chunk of that available bandwidth, and the
more the chunks, the slower the whole system works.
When someone logs onto the wifi system and takes a BIG chunk
of the bandwidth to say, download a movie over the Internet, or stream music,
that big chunk can really slow down all other park users. More than one RVer
has spent a disgruntling couple of hours trying to "take care of
business" on the Internet, only next morning to hear his park neighbor bragging
about the great movie he downloaded and watched the night before.
Add to your courtesy list: If you've got your own, personal
Internet connection, download your movies, audio books, and the like at will.
If you're sharing a wifi connection in an RV park, put off the big downloads.
Your neighbors will appreciate it.
"In the old days"... WIFI connections were limited only to the bandwidth available by the individual user's connection and/or the park's Internet service speed. Routers were stupid, allowing anyone to use any amount of bandwidth they could latch on to. The complaints from users that their service was slow were all to common and, courtesy was expected of users in the system. More than a few campgrounds post notices (seldom read) about abusers of bandwidth, no streaming / downloading movies, etc... But, that was the old days.
ReplyDeleteToday, it is not difficult to install a system with free WIFI access for all with restricted bandwidth settings available throughout the park. The same system can provide a fee-based service which would allow users more bandwidth - enough to stream / download movies. The best part is, the two groups of users would not impact the other's use of the system. End result? No more complaints (other than the cheapies complaining it wasn't fast enough to stream/download their flick - can't satisfy everyone).
It costs campgrounds $ to bring in enough bandwidth to satisfy the demands of a park-load of users (and abusers). Unless we all want to chip in and pay for a gigabit service at each campground, the best way to manage those costs is by providing the minimum service for free while up-charging for those who must have more than a few dozen/hundred KB/sec (more than enough for email and casual web browsing).
We have given up completely on park wi-fi. We have the Verizon MIFI with the 10-gig monthly account. Yes, it's expensive at $80.00/month, but Verizon has very good coverage, and an advantage is we have Internet wherever we go, at any time, not just when parked. It also fits easily into the laptop case, so if we want to take a computer with us somewhere in our toad, we're Internet connected!
ReplyDeleteWe carry DVDs and watch local TV enroute for entertainment. We DO catch up on e-mail, and plan the upcoming day's stops and destination, NOT download movies. My suggestion for longer-term stayers? Program your system to download those movies, etc, in the wee hours of the morning! Most others are asleep, and care less, then! Watch at your leisure!
ReplyDeleteI've never downloaded a movie on park wifi. Checking email is usually all I do. Our movies have been backed up to hard drives. Smaller than DVDs. If you really *must* download a movie, there are programs that you can use to schedule the download during the wee morning hours, and not slow anybody else down.
ReplyDelete