Hi! I am new owner in RV Resort in Sebastian, Fl & had used their WiFi subscription service called WiFiRV & very disgusted with their service. Had registered & paid for usage & had many problems getting & staying connected. I contacted their service, which stated thet were in Texas. When I asked tech where, he said Texas, I said I know that & he replied where (can't remember right now), but then asked after many attempts to get connected, for his home office & he said he didn't know. I said you work for this company & can't tell me where your home office is & replied yes. Amazing!!!
Anyway, I had also talked to resort front office who also had been having problems. When I did get a tech who said they were having issues & I asked for his 2nd level support & said he could not provide me with that. I have been in Information Technology for over 36 years & could not believe that could not be done. I asked for call back & never got that either. When I called again later that day they told me that it was going to be looked at within the next 5 days....."5 DAYS"...!!!!! My boss would have crucified me !

My main poit here is that the park is looking to replace this service & would like to know if anyone, particualrly a park owner is aware of any good subsciber servicres that I can recommend to our park? Thank you in advance for any & all replies.

If you have ahd experiences with WiFIRV service that would also be welcomed as I am going to try & get to their home office.

Eddie
ssetw03

I don't recommend specific services, but my provider no longer provides any customer support except for support to park ownership and I fully understand why. 95+% of all problems with wifi connections are related to the end user's computer. The person cannot connect due to configuration issues with their settings. (you would not believe the number of people who have their machines configured to only connect via dial up, connect only through their secured VPN, etc) The connection may fail due to coverage issues within the park (and these change daily depending on where certain types of RVs are parked i.e airstreams are very opaque to wifi signals and if the user is trying to connect inside one or from the other side and line of site is blocked, they may get no connection.) Also, not all machines transmit with the same power, so the customer may be getting a great download connection, but their computers wifi tranmitter is not powerful enough to give even a modicum of upload speed. (a wonderful tool is speedtest.com (net?) it will show download and upload speeds. If upload is less than 1/4 of download, there may be a problem. The few services I am aware of that attempt to offer customer tech support are very expensive and can usually be counted on to not be able to solve problems. I would actually suggest the campground get some local help to install the access points to get the best park coverage and set up the portal page. They could then use a variety of access code systems to control access to the system.

You might also try http://myspeed.visualware.com/voip/

As a RV owner, I'm not sure why you just can't send the OP a PM and give him some recommendations, since you don't want to do that in the public's eye, so to speak. He needs help and he came to this forum asking for it.

I've used Tengo and several others before, and most of them aren't very good. I've had more success with Tengo than any others. However, this is from an end user rather than an intermediate supplier.

Hi,

I think that the type of service a park may offer is quite dependent on the campground's location. If it is close enough to a town or city that offers high speed--then some sort of arrangement with the local DSL provider or local cable modem provider may be best.

It would be very hard for an outsider to make an assessment of the needs.

Out of one hundred clients (200 campers) how many wish to have wifi access through the campground wifi?

For pricing--if it can't be below $2.00 per day and there is cell phone access--your clients are going to complain. If there is no cell phone service then you can probably charge more as you will be in a position of a monopoly.

If you are going to have to use a satellite service then it may be best to throttle bandwidth in some way, so that all users get a "fair share" of the signal.

I just checked out the pricing at WiFiRV. I can tell you I would not be paying those prices. I'd drive to the local library first--just on principle.

Good luck finding a local knowledgeable installer.

For Eddie:

here is an email for John who works for wifirv jmbii@WiFiRV.com. I am so sorry to hear of your troubles as I just gave them a down payment to install wifi in our park.If you could email me and let me know if you get any help from John.

Question to other campers and owners, what is a fair price for connecting one day - week - month.


We would have liked to give it free but since we didn't know how to hook it up and it cost me several thousand, I can't afford to do any more.

Price it into your site fees, it will save you a fortune in headaches. Use a password protected sign in page and then you can set some of your sites aside as sites that do not have WiFi included in the site fees. You can sell those sites at a discount and just don't give them the wifi code. Use a system that generates a unique password for each user and expires after a given time. We use a combination of daily and weekly password cards, and give each guest the appropriate number of codes for their stay. I say make it free, because you will lose reservations even if you sell the access for a couple of dollars. It is a hot button to some people. Secondly, if you call it free it will release you from a lot of technical support grief and people will not complain quite as much if it doesn't perform to their expectations. (if people are paying even $1.00 they will expect you to spend the entire day making their connection work even if the problem is on their end, after all they paid for it, therefore it should work no matter what even if it turns out their computer has no wireless capability and that is from a first hand experience) I also suggest you prepare a handout that outlines the weaknesses of your system. Tell them if the system will slow down at certain times due to high usage, tell them if it is not fast enough for everyone to stream video and run their internet phones. Be prepared, not having WiFi in today's world is almost a deal breaker for a campground and having WiFi will be the biggest headache in your campground.

Abbygolden, thanks for restarting my stuck brain, I did send them a PM. Once again, caught sleeping on the job. Western

I stayed at a park that had, what I thought, to be a VERY fair, and creative approach. The WiFi was, basically, free, but you had to pay $1 to get the access code. The $1 covered you for your entire stay, be it one night or a week or a month.

JJ

Everyone,
First of all let me thank you all of you for your comments & advice. I am going to reach out to park manager with this info & let her know where to look. At this point I cna't give you an answer of where we will go, but one of the next things I am going to do is to try to reach WiFIRV company HQ's & let them know of my experiences. I am also going to let them know that I have spread the word about thier site & lack of support. I will let all of you know whith a post back when & if I get a response.
It is always good to talk with fellow campers about experiences, as I have been doing for over 30 years & have also given out my advice from time to time.

Well ----HAPPY CAMPING ! And again thank you.

Eddie
ssetw03@yahoo.com

Campnout.
Thank you for the info. I will try to contact him as wel I am going to reach out to their corporate HQs. I will let you know if & when I get a response. Also I am going to be in touch with the manager at our resort & she if she has any postive or even negative response from them as to the issues we had. I will also let you know if they are going to keep them on or if they had or are going to replace them as was suggested.
Eddie
ssetw03

QUOTE(westernrvparkowner @ May 10 2009, 08:43 PM)

Price it into your site fees, it will save you a fortune in headaches. ...will release you from a lot of technical support grief and people will not complain quite as much if it doesn't perform to their expectations.

Most excellent suggestion! Have witnessed this first hand.

It's a 'face-saver' when a road-tired, pompus, self-described computer expert pulls into your park and cannot get his computer to work. Had a couple folks admit they figured it all out the next morning...

Hi Everyone!

Just talking on the phone to the manager of our Florida resort and she had heard from someone that WiFiRV site was bought out by someone else and maybe that was a good thing. As soon as I get more info I will let you know.

Eddie

From beautiful, SEVERE clear Moab (on my way to western CO for the summer)- glad I could help. As a RV CG owner, you already have too many things on your plate. There are only a few jobs I'd never want to have, your's is one of them. Thank goodness for people like you!

Severe? Are you stuck in a windstorm? I stayed in Moab two nights while enroute to the Good Sam Rally in Albuquerque. The day I decide to leave Moab, I got 70mph winds!!!

OOPS, didn't mean to get off topic...... Let's see.... MY air card still worked in 70 mph winds.....

JJ

JJ,

When using "severe" in this manner, it means that you can see forever. It's Texas talk, not generally recognized by the uninitiated! In otherwords, the weather here is specacularly clear, 74 right now (2pm) and getting warmer later. It was 51 when I got up this morning. The views at the Arches was great.

To the OP, you might try www.thewirelessweb.com and whatever the KOA here in Moab uses. The local wifi is the best I've seen anywhere.

OK--off topic again:




What part of Texas are you from?!!! I was born and raised here, and I have never heard severe used in this manner. Guess you can count me as one of the uninitiated.


On another note, have a nice trip and a great summer in CO.


TX