How We Find Strong Cell Signal While Full-Time RVing
As digital nomads living full-time in our RV, finding a strong enough cell signal in order to work is essential to our lifestyle. In this post I wanted to give you all some secrets we use in order to find strong cell signal and also the equipment and cell plans we use in order to work remotely.
Deanna and I have both taken our corporate careers on the road and need solid connectivity throughout the day in order to accomplish our tasks at work. After 8 months on the road, we’ve NEVER needed to move our RV to another location to find cell signal we can work from.
If you want absolute assurance you will be able to work during the week, I think these tips and tricks will be very beneficial in finding your next campsite/cell signal.
Finding Strong Cell Signal
Actually finding strong cell signal that we can use to work with can be quite challenging while on the road. It can especially be difficult if you are dead set on a specific location whether that be a National Park or some other remote location.
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TIP #1 – Don’t be dead set on a specific location, be flexible.
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Although cellular providers are getting better and better with their coverage capabilities and trying to slap coverage in places you wouldn’t imagine, there are definitely still some gaps out there. So my very first tip is to be flexible on the location and realize if you want a guaranteed signal, you may not get that perfect spot as advertised on Instagram.
We’ve also noticed that a lot of absolutely beautiful state and national parks aren’t only hard to book in advance, but also have terrible cellular reception. The best bet might be to find another nearby campground or RV park with good connectivity and drive the 10-20 minutes to your ultimate destination.
Apps and Websites We Use To Find Signal
We honestly have not needed a huge arsenal of apps and websites in order to stay connected for our jobs. We stick to an app, a website, and strategically choosing locations based on some common sense.
Open Signal – App on Android and Apple Store
Opensignal is by far the most reliable tool we have found thus far for finding cell coverage signal. It is relatively easy to use and I show you how we specifically use it in our YouTube video at the top of this post. However, below is a screenshot of the app on my phone.
Green = good cell signal… while Red = bad cell signal.
While traveling through southern Alabama we were really wanting to stay at a campground on Dauphin Island. I’ll use AT&T in this example since it is really our main provider for internet. (I will go into our different cellular plans and how we boost signal later on in this post.)
Bringing up OpenSignal we saw that there really weren’t a ton of data points to begin with in this part of Alabama for AT&T, but the campground located on the eastern side of Dauphin Island was mostly red meaning NOT a great signal. So based on that data, we opted to go to with a campground just north of the island near Alabama Port which was really only a 15 minute drive away anyways. As you can see on that image of OpenSignal, Alabama Port had several green dots near that location.
Sometimes 15 minutes can really be the difference between a good and a bad signal. It all depends how much you REALLY have to be at that ideal spot or if close enough will do for you. If you are like us, we HAVE to have a good signal in order to work so it is not much of a debate.
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TIP #2 –Cell signal tends to be located near civilization (go figure)
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Deanna and I love going on hikes and different adventures so we tend to gravitate towards locations off the beaten path as much as possible to remain close to those adventures. However, in order to keep our jobs afloat, we also tend to stay on the edge of towns or close enough to a major road to have the best chance at a reliable cell signal.
Campendium – Website Used for Campground Reviews
Although we mostly use Campedium.com as a source of reviews for the campgrounds themselves before visiting, we also use it as a source for cell coverage.
Here is an example of a RV park we stayed at in Florida where you can specifically see how many bars people had while visiting. (Clerbrook Golf & RV Resort)
If you click on the link and scroll down a bit, at the time of this post, 3 people have reviewed this campground. Campedium averages the cell phone coverage up per unique review and displays that information towards the top of the post.
Although this can be helpful information, it doesn’t always give an accurate reading on how good the actual signal is at the park. You may have a review posting 4-5 bars of signal, but then get to the park and realize you are on an overloaded cell tower and the signal is next to worthless.
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TIP #3 – Have multiple cell carriers
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It may not be the cheapest of options to have multiple cell carriers, but if your job is absolutely dependent on a solid signal then having a multitude of ways to bring is signal is key. This brings us to our next subject in this blog post, what carriers and plans do we use?
What Carriers and Plans Do We Use
AT&T – Our Primary
We were lucky enough to snag an AT&T Unlimited Plus plan before they were replaced by AT&T newer plans. This doesn’t mean there isn’t a good AT&T plan for you out there currently. We use this plan as our primary because it is “unlimited data” only limited to network congestion on cell towers.
This plan has 22gb of hotspot use before AT&T can throttle the connection back to a limited speed.
So far on our travels in 8 months, we’ve only been throttled noticeably a couple times. Neither of those times were the entire stay at our campground, but only during peak hours in the evenings. You can no longer purchase this plan from AT&T, but there might be ways to get one of these plans from a current owner.
This plan costs us about $100 a month and is totally worth it. We use it on a dedicated Netgear Nighthawk which has been great on battery life and has the capabilities for an external antenna (more on that later).
Verizon – Our Secondary
For Verizon, our backup plan, Deanna and I both have Above Unlimited plans on each of our cellphones. If we were to look for any cell plan upgrades in the future, it would be finding a cheaper solution with Verizon. We bought these plans at only our 2nd campground after realizing the AT&T signal wasn’t nearly as good as we had hoped. We already had Verizon on our phones, but needed some plans with more data.
Each of our phones get 20gb of hotspot use, before it is also throttled on congested towers. However, each of our phones get 75gb total data EACH including the 20gb of hotspot use. So even if we both use our 20gb trying to use it for work, we still get 55gb of data per device that is un-throttled for streaming or whatever else we want to do online.
Each of our plans (per phone) are about $100 a month (or $200 a month total) for Verizon making this fairly expensive. We will definitely be keeping our eyes out for a better Verizon plan alternative for the future!
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TIP #4 – Always be on the lookout for better plans
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I recommend getting a membership at RVMobileInternet.com in order to stay current with all the latest and greatest plans out there. Chris and Cherie from Technomadia dedicate most of their time to keeping up with all ways to stay connected as you travel, whether that be land or sea.
If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t have snagged our AT&T plan at the very last minute before we hit the road.
With 5G technology just around the corner, I imagine carriers will have to tremendously increase their data limits otherwise folks could use up their entire plan in a few minutes. If anyone will know the latest, Chris and Cherie will definitely keep you informed.
What Equipment Do We Use to Boost Signal?
Although trying your best to find good cell signal is a great start, sometimes a little help doesn’t hurt in case you miss by a bit. As of this moment, we only use two different types of signal enhancers in order to boost our signal when needed.
Most of the time we honestly don’t need either of these devices, but when we do need them, they are lifesavers.
NetGear MIMO Antenna
When we are trying to use our primary provider (AT&T), our Netgear Nighthawk hotspot has 2 ports to allow for an external antenna to hook up. It uses 2 TS-9 connectors which technically degrades the signal capability of the Nighthawks internal antennas from 4×4 MIMO to 2×2 MIMO. However, it certain circumstances it is necessary and very helpful to do so.
The NetGear MIMO external antenna is a directional antenna that gives your hotspot a much larger chance to pick up cell signal IF the cell signal is close enough. If we find ourselves in a situation where our Nighthawk hotspot is not performing at optimal speeds, we first hook up this NetGear MIMO antenna to see how it performs.
It will take a bit of testing to figure out where exactly the cell towers are (apps for that but haven’t figured them out yet personally and they seem unreliable), but once found it usually does provide a bit of a boost to the signal. Sometimes this actually helps so much that we wonder how this can only cost $27 on amazon.
WeBoost Drive 4G-X RV
Although the WeBoost Drive 4G-X RV is an expensive tool (nearly $500 on amazon) to add to your cell signal boosting kit, in our opinion, having a booster is essential to keeping us working on the road. With that being said, we might use this booster about every 1/10 campgrounds we stay at because we actually need it. It is kind of our last possible effort to squeeze every ounce of signal and speed in order to keep up with our jobs.
There are cheaper options as well that I hope to review in the future, but until then, this remains in our boosting kit.
Have we used it enough to make it worth it? Absolutely. This is why no matter how much you follow all the methods we mentioned previously, none of this is an exact science and signals do fluctuate even when staying in one location.
While staying at Sky High Camping Resort in Michigan, our cell signals were very inconsistent and having a booster on hand gave us that peace of mind that we would remain connected.
We have installed this particular booster on two of our different RVs, both with unique installations to avoid leakage and reduce drilling. Check out our WeBoost Leakproof Installation post and also both our install videos if you want some more guidance and how they work.
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TIP #5- Redundancy and backup plans
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The more redundancy and tools you add to your cellular toolbox, the better the chance to find a reliable signal and the less chance you having your cell signal slipping away.
Purchase the Items Mentioned on Amazon (Amazon Affiliate links)
Connecting While Boondocking?
If you want to hear from some boondocking experts on how they stay connected on the road, I recommend checking out Fate Unbound‘s post – RV Internet Access on the Road – Stay Connected While Boondocking.
They are an awesome Full-Time RV couple with an array of pets they take along with the on their journey throughout the USA!
NOTE FROM WRITER
Prefer to see things rather than reading? Check out our related video on YouTube regarding this subject instead located at the top of the post! 🙂
I would sincerely appreciate you sharing this with others that you think may be interested in learning how to stay connected on the road!
You can find us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. You can also subscribe to our channel’s RSS feed via the subscribe button on the sidebar. If you have any questions or comments go ahead and leave them below and we will try our best to get back to you! Thanks for reading/watching!
Also be sure to check out Deanna’s food blog, The Harvest Skillet, when you get the chance! A lot of awesome and healthy recipes to use there!
Adventure On!
