mobile broadband advice

[photofreak]

Hi fellow campers...
Driving to Florida in October and we need some advice on mobile broadband.... We are Canadian so we are looking at no contract, but something able to work from Buffalo, NY thru to Disney and back...
Have looked at Virgin and TMobile so far, but open to hearing our fellow campers opinion...
Thanks in advance!

 

[angelmom27]

I have tmobile it is a contract though. are you just looking at the pay as you go phones? i havent had any issues with them.

 

[luckycharm19335]

I use Verizon Wireless MiFi.
Again, it requires a contract, but it does work all up and down the East coast of the USA.

 

[CDNCruiser]

Friday the 13th, Golden Glow, Arbor hot dogs, Erie Beach Hotel, Knechtel's Lake Erie perch . . . you live in a great little town.

Oh Yeah . . . I was born there too!

We still live in Canada (Kingston) and we use Virgin Broadband2Go

We cross the border at Ivy Lea (1,000 Islands) and it works all the way to WDW. We use it while we stay in our motorhome at Fort Wilderness. Works like a charm.

No contract, purely pay as you go.

Highly recommend it. Bear in mind though that it's no good at home. You can only use it in the USA.

 

[photofreak]

Friday the 13th, Golden Glow, Arbor hot dogs, Erie Beach Hotel, Knechtel's Lake Erie perch . . . you live in a great little town.

Oh Yeah . . . I was born there too!

We still live in Canada (Kingston) and we use Virgin Broadband2Go

We cross the border at Ivy Lea (1,000 Islands) and it works all the way to WDW. We use it while we stay in our motorhome at Fort Wilderness. Works like a charm.

No contract, purely pay as you go.

Highly recommend it. Bear in mind though that it's no good at home. You can only use it in the USA.

Thanks angelmom27 & luckycharm19335 but being a Canadian, we are avoiding the contract as we won't use it often enough, so no contract is our only real option.. but thanks...

CDNCruiser!!! Haven't talked to you in a while... How are you?? Are you going to be at the Fort this Halloween? We're looking forward to our first Halloween stay there!!!
Thanks for the advice... Virgin is actually the one I was looking at. The Mifi so I can hook up multiple units to it. This trip we're going to have myself (an Iphone junkie), my 3rd year university student (who has assignments due while we're away) and my youngest daughter who will probably have school assignments as well...
How's the speed of Virgin? and does it work well at the Fort? I'm not looking for quick speed but it needs to work... lol
Also, can I pick your brain on cell phones? What do you suggest or use while you're in the US... Our fees skyrocketed to use it outside of Canada... Grrrrrr the money hungry canadian cell companies!! lol

 

[luckycharm19335]

No problem just trying to help.
Good Luck and have a great trip.

 

[CDNCruiser]

We use MiFi too, a Cradlepoint CTR350 and run two laptops. Speed is good, not what we're used to with cable access at home, but much better than dial-up. And the price is far superior to Disney's $9.95 a day!

As for cell phones, we don't use them if we can avoid it. The roaming charges are killers. We text each other when necessary. We use Skype to call home. I think Skype costs about 2.4 cents/minute to call land line phones and cells. Look for a Skype compatible phone, they plug into a USB port. You can find them at WalMart, Target, Best Buy, etc.

-

 

[LynneyPooh]

DH and I live in South Carolina. We just got rid of our internet with ATT and got Virgin MIFI and we love it, and NO CONTRACT! We've had it about a month and have traveled a little with it (within NC, SC and GA) with NO problems. DH carries a Virgin cell and has had it for about 4 or 5 years- no contract and good service in Flordia.
We go to WDW @ the end of Oct. We're carrying the MiFi with us then, but I think you'll be there when we are so unfortunately I can't help concerning the MiFi service @ WDW.
(In June we had ATT mobile, with great service at the Fort, but in Jan the Mobile was horrible at C. Beach.)

 

[LynneyPooh]

BTW forgot to tell you we can run up to 5 devices at a time. The more devices, the slower it goes. However, the most we've had going @ once was 3- 2 laptops and 1 IPOD Touch, and it was still faster than my best ATT service

 

[CDNCruiser]

Virgin works just fine at the Fort. We've been using it there over the course of about four trips in the last two years. DW has the laptop on the dash of the motorhome all the way to Floriada and back and she is in constant contact on Facebook. There are no gaps in service along our entire route which is I-81 to I-77 to I-26 to I-95 to I-4

I highly recommend Virgin Broadband2Go.

 

[BethC1952]

We've had Virgin Mobile cell phones for 8 years now without a problem anywhere from New York to Florida. I just got the Mifi device last month and it works perfectly. We'll be taking it to the Fort in December to connect two laptops, a Nook and a Kindle!

Beth

 

[snocrossmechanic]

I work for Sprint, who owns Virgin and Boost, and the Virgin data cards are great. Cheap to purchase and cheap to operate. I am sure you will find it will take care of your needs.

A bit of advice. You may want to get one and set it up in advance. You dont want to get caught up with any issues when your actually on your trip.

If you are having trouble finding one PM me and I can direct ship to you.

Have fun on your trip.

Mark