Cellular Internet Connections: It’s Not Just the Signal, it’s the Speed

Where most people look for pretty trees at the campground, we look for pretty cell towers!

by Chris Guld www.GeeksOnTour.com
We travel all over the country in our Motorhome and we depend on our website, GeeksOnTour.com, for our living. Internet connections are very important to us and we rely on Verizon thru our Android phones to provide that connection. We also live-stream a smartphone educational show every week. It’s called What Does This Button Do? and we do it from our motorhome. In case you are not aware, “Streaming” and “Internet Hog” are synonymous!
I have to be reminded that some people use their phones to make phone calls! Just to be clear, we’re only talking about Internet … Data … connections in this article. Voice is a different topic which may or may not be affected by the same factors.
Most people judge their cellular Internet connection by simply looking at the signal bars on their phone. 1-2 bars = bad; 4-5 bars = good. But that’s not always true.

Using Ookla Speed Test App

Signal strength is only one measurement, and in my opinion it is not the most important one. We have been in places where we were seeing only 1-2 bars, yet our Internet performance – the speed – was very good. We have also seen 4-5 bars and had low speed. We use the Ookla Speed Test app to check our speeds. We’ve seen download speeds ranging from .2 Mbps to 74. But, those numbers don’t always correlate with the signal strength.

In the image above you can see that the signal strength is not that great, yet the speed is VERY good! And, we’ve seen the results go the opposite way as well; where the signal strength has been registering 5 bars, yet the speed is <1Mbps.
When we pull into an RV park now, we drive around with our cell phones out and Ookla Speed test running. At each possible site, we’ll do a speed test. We were recently at the Thousand Trails park in Hershey, PA and we planned to be there for #48 of our What Does This Button Do?, so we really needed good Internet. When we pulled into the park, our signal strength was registering only 2 bars … of 3G. Not good. There were some areas where we saw no signal at all. Then we found one area with 2 bars of 4G, so we started an Ookla speed test and saw less than 1Mbps of speed. We thought we would need to leave and find another park, but we kept looking at other sites and doing speed tests. We found one, where Ookla registered 2-3 Mbps both up and down, so we parked. Surprisingly, we were able to do our show just fine.

Not all Cell Towers are Equal

Realize that the signal strength bars are simply measuring how strong the signal connection is between your device and the nearest cell tower for your service provider. So, there may be times when you are very close and have good signal strength, but it’s an old tower with outdated equipment. A better connection doesn’t help if what you’re connecting to isn’t any good. And vice versa – you may have a weak connection but if the cell tower you are connecting to has the latest and greatest technology, you may still get good results. Realize that “Old” and “Outdated” may be measured in months!
Cellular technology is very fast-moving. If you want to learn more about this, we recommend the excellent book: RV Mobile Internet Handbook by Chris Dunphy and Cherie Ve Ard of Technomadia. You can find the book and much more on their website RVMobileInternet.com.

The Numbers Don’t Tell the Whole Story

You can’t just look at the numbers and know how good your Internet connection is. I thought we would be unable to do our streaming show from the Hershey campground based on the numbers, but it went just fine. There are so many factors in this complex technology.  It’s your experience that counts. Browse to a website; did it load fast or are you still waiting? Try to play a Youtube video; does it start right away and continue straight thru or does it stop every few seconds to buffer? Try uploading a video; does it complete or does it die halfway through? If you’re not getting the results you want, there are signal boosters that will help, but only IF the problem is signal strength. If the problem is cell tower equipment quality, you may need to move!

Renew your Verizon Unlimited Data Plan Now

Last year, I wrote an article, “Get your Verizon Droid or iPhone before July 7 (2011)” to urge new Verizon customers to act quickly.  Now, they’re at it again!  Last year, on July 7, Verizon ended the unlimited data plan for new customers.  This year (we don’t know exactly when) they will end it for existing customers.  Meaning, if you have an unlimited data plan now, when you upgrade your phone and sign a new 2 year contract, you will lose that unlimited data – there will be no ‘grandfather’ rights.  They will be implementing tiered and family sharing plans instead.  For more details, see this PCWorld Article.

So, if you are eligible for an upgrade, do it NOW.  I just upgraded my Droid1 for a new Droid Razr Maxx 4G (a great device!) yesterday, and they continued my unlimited data plan with no questions asked.  I now have unlimited Internet access for two more years. 

If you’re wondering why an unlimited plan is such a good thing, read my article from last year where I go into much more detail.  But, check out the current plan costs.  For $30/mo now you only get 2GB of data per month.  Although that’s enough for basic email and web-browsing on your phone, it’s not nearly enough if you like watching videos on your phone, or if you like to share your phone’s Internet connection with other devices – like many of us RV travelers do.

Current Verizon Pricing

Although I believe that an unlimited data plan is worth fighting for, it’s not as important as it used to be.  It used to be that overages were charged at .25/megabyte.  That added up QUICK!  If you went over your allotment by just 1GB, your overage charge would have been $250!  Now, the overage fee is a flat $10/GB.  So, if you have the $30 for 2GB plan and you use 10GB in one month, your bill will be $110.  That’s bad, but not heart-stopping like the per megabyte charge.

This tip by Geeks on Tour: a membership website with hundreds of Tutorial Videos on topics of interest to travelers, such as how to use Android smartphones, managing digital photos with Picasa, Route-Planning with Streets and Trips, and sharing your travels with a website using Blogger or with friends on Facebook. You can subscribe to our free e-newsletters, or become a paid member and be able to view all of the videos in the Learning Library.

3G vs 4G: The Tortoise and the Hare

We recently purchased a 4G mobile hotspot from Verizon.  It’s a tiny thing with magical powers.  With just one press of a button, it turns the immediate area around it into a Wi-Fi hotspot.  You can plug it into a power source, or it will run on batteries for about 4 hours.

A similar device, called the Mi-Fi, has been around for a couple of years, but those are 3G only.  The 4G Mi-Fi is coming soon.

What does 4G Mean?

Without getting unnecessarily technical, we are talking about the technology that Cellular communications companies use to deliver wireless Internet connectivity. The ‘G’ stands for ‘Generation’ so 3G is third generation technology and 4G is fourth generation technology.  4G is better.  It’s faster and it goes farther.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that it exists only in limited areas.  Below is Verizon’s coverage map, 4G is represented by the dark splotches, the red is 3G coverage, and the white is no coverage at all.

How Fast is 4G?

We live in our motorhome and happened to be staying in a friend’s driveway in Franklin, Tennessee, just south of Nashville.  It is a solid 4G area – and it was exciting to use our 4G connection.  Click a link – you’re there.  Watch a video all the way thru – no hesitations.  What a joy!  For those of you who like numbers, I ran a speed test using testmy.net and here’s the result:

Read that as 9 1/2 Megabits/per second.  A really good 3G speed would be 500Kbps – that’s 500 Kilobits/second, or 1/2 Megabit/per second.  We were browsing the Internet at 20 times normal speed!  We never wanted to leave.  This was not only 4G, but it was extra fast 4G.

The 3G signal available from our same location was horrible.  It was extra bad 3G. Here’s a screen shot of that speed test:

That’s just over 1/4 Mbps!  Our spot in Franklin, Tennessee is the poster child for why you want a new 4G device.  With it, using the Internet was a joy. Without it was torture.

Data Limits

In the Tortoise and the Hare, the blazing fast bunny runs out of energy.  With our blazing fast 4G Internet connection, we quickly ran out of our data allotment.  Our mobile hotspot device was on a $49/mo plan for 5 Gigabytes of data transfer.  After one week and 4 Gigabytes of usage, we changed our plan to the $80/mo for 10 Gigabytes of data.  Today, May 28, we’re at 9.88 Gigabytes.  We’re in Ohio now, outside of any 4G area and we’re using our 3G Droid cellphones, tethered to our computers for Internet access.  Verizon’s penalty for going over our allotment really isn’t too bad – $10/Gigabyte of overage.  If we were still in the good 4G area that had lousy 3G, we would probably pay the overage.

To Buy 4G or Not to Buy 4G

If you’re going to buy a cellular wireless Internet device now anyway, why not get 4G as long as it also does 3G?  Notice the lights in my picture above of our mobile hotspot – there’s a 4G indicator light as well as a 3G indicator.  If it can’t find any 4G signal, it will connect with a 3G.  If you have a 3G only device – you’ll be very disappointed in Franklin, Tennessee!

If you aren’t already planning on buying such a device, then it’s a harder decision.  Is it worth upgrading when 4G is still so rare?  Pay close attention to the coverage map for your provider before deciding.  Geeks like us just gotta have it!

Your Mileage May Vary!

Don’t take any speed test, or anyone else’s (even ours!) experience as gospel.  Speeds vary from minute to minute, mile to mile, and computer to computer.  This story is useful just to let you know how drastic the speed difference *can* be between 3G and 4G.

by Chris Guld, Geeks on Tour

Geeks on Tour is a membership website with hundreds of Tutorial Videos on topics of interest to travelers, such as managing digital photos with Picasa, Route-Planning with Streets and Trips, and sharing your travels with a website using Blogger.  Members can view all of the videos in the Learning Library.

My On the Road Data Diet

How I Exceed My 5 Gigabyte Limit with Verizon

This is not a good thing!  The point is to stay within your contract limits.  When you go over, there are extra charges. 

Our contract allows 5 Gigabytes of data usage per month.  Check the image at right and you’ll see that we’ve used over 4 Gigabytes and we’re only on day 8 of 31!  Looks like I’ll have to go on a data diet for the rest of the month.

What’s a Gigabyte?

Data usage is simply Internet use as opposed to voice.  Voice plan usage from your cellular provider is measured in minutes, Internet/Data usage is measured in Megabytes/Gigabytes.  Data usage is also referred to as Downloading, Uploading, or Bandwidth.  Think of it like a stream of water going thru a hose, email and other text is just a trickle, video is a firehose.  You’re measured by how much data is going thru the connection - what you’re looking at, not the time you’re online.

Each Gigabyte is roughly 1,000 Megabytes.  We teach people that 5 Gigabytes is usually plenty for a month of one person doing normal browsing, email reading and maybe some Youtube watching.  But, if you share that connection with multiple computers, or you watch a lot of video, then 5 Gigabytes won’t be nearly enough.

Just to give you an idea, a large, high resolution picture that you view on the web may consume about 1 Megabyte.  You’d have to view 1,000 of those pictures to hit one Gigabyte of usage.  Over the period of one month, you might view 1,000 pictures on the web.  Watching a typical, standard quality, 3-4 minute Youtube video will use roughly 10 Megabytes. So you could watch 100 of those for 1 Gigabyte of data usage.  See this article from the folks at evdoinfo.com for a chart: What does 5GB (Gigabytes) Get Me?  Here’s another article for more detailed info on data usage for videos.  The only thing we tell people they cannot do is to watch full length movies.  Watching one Netflix movie online can use up to 2 Gigabytes of your allotment right there. 

How Did We Go Over Our Limit?

We had not watched any online movies, so how did we rack up so much data usage so fast?  First of all, for the whole winter season, we were in one RV park where we contracted with Bell South for a DSL line.  DSL is nice and fast and has no limits.  So, we got spoiled.  We didn’t have to pay attention to data usage all winter.  Now that we’re back on the road, we need to be paying attention.  Both Jim and I are sharing our mobile hotspot Internet connection from Verizon.

Once I got a notice from Verizon, I did some checking.  One culprit is my Windows Updates.  I had automatically received Windows 7 Service Pack 1.  I checked Microsoft’s site and learned that it was over 1 Gigabyte in size!  We are also preparing to deliver a seminar remotely using Skype and screen-sharing.  Our practice session probably cost us us a 1/4 Gigabyte.  A couple days ago, I purchased the latest Microsoft Streets and Trips program and downloaded it.  That was 1.3 Gigabytes!  Pretty stupid on my part since I already had the trial version installed on my computer.  We now have a 4G mobile hotspot from Verizon and we were so excited to be in a 4G area around Nashville …  I may have watched a couple episodes of Glee on Hulu because it worked so well … hey, I call that research!

What Can You Do to Limit Your Data Usage?

We need to go on a data diet!  Here are the things that we are going to do:

1. Always check for good Wi-Fi and use it when possible.
2. Stay aware of our current data usage by checking our account stats online at verizonwireless.com/myverizon and logging into our account.  If you don’t know how to do that for your provider, give them a call and ask.
3. Turn off automatic Windows Updates (Control Panel\System and Security\Windows Update)  note: if you do this, make sure to do your updates manually whenever you’re in a good Wi-Fi area.  Getting updates *is* very important.
4. Turn off Carbonite online backup.  I love Carbonite, but it *does* use bandwidth to backup all new files I create to the backup website.  Since we’ll be on the road for quite some time, I’ll probably turn off the service completely and just use our ClickFree for backup.
5. Turn off DropBox.  DropBox is a great utility that synchronizes a folder of data across multiple computers.  It does this by uploading them to a website and then downloading them to the other computers, so it uses double bandwidth (data transfer usage) going up and down!  If I remember, I’ll turn it back on when I’m connected to a good Wi-Fi signal.
6. Stay away from Netflix and Hulu
7. Limit our Video Skype calls.

How Much Does it Cost When you go Over Your Allotment?

Verizon used to charge 25 cents per Megabyte of overage.  That adds up quick!  If you went over by a Gigabyte, that would cost $250!  The fees today are much more reasonable – each Gigabyte of excess will be charged at $10/Gigabyte.  Check with your provider and your contract to see what your overage charges are.  If you’ve had your contract for a long time, you may even have an unlimited usage contract.  If that’s the case … don’t lose it!  Any change in your contract may get you started with a whole new contract – with new limitations.  The unlimited usage contracts are highly desirable.

Can I Increase My Limits?

This depends on your provider and the plans they offer.  Verizon does currently offer a 10Gigabyte contract for $80/month.  We might just have to do that. 

Kind of like those real diets … so often I give up and go buy some clothes in a larger size! 

 

by Chris Guld, Geeks on Tour

Geeks on Tour is a membership website with hundreds of Tutorial Videos on topics of interest to travelers, such as managing digital photos with Picasa, Route-Planning with Streets and Trips, and sharing your travels with a website using Blogger.  Members can view all of the videos in the Learning Library.

Tethering your Smart Phone for Internet Access

As RV travelers, you need to learn lots of different ways to connect to the Internet.  There's Wi-Fi, Satellite, and Cellular as the three categories of mobile Internet access.  But, within each of these categories there are *LOTS* of choices.

Cellular Internet Service
Cellular has become the most popular method of connecting, and it is getting better with every new cell tower installation or upgrade.  Verizon is the most popular service among RVers because they generally have the best coverage as you travel.  You can buy USB cellular modems to plug into your computer or router, you can buy a Mi-Fi which is a small, standalone device that creates a personal Wi-Fi hotspot.  Then, your computers, iPods, iPads, printers, etc. can connect to it.

Geeks on Tour Tether their Droid
We (Jim and Chris of Geeks on Tour) plan to get the new 4G Mi-Fi real soon now ... but for now, we're using our Droid smart phone to tether to our computers for Internet service.  The video below was recorded last summer on the road and we demonstrate how we tether the Droid.  For more information, see our website page on Wireless Internet.

This is one of our 'Gabbing with the Geeks' video blogs.  It's from summer 2010.