Maintaining family contact OTR

Discussion in 'Questions From New Drivers' started by john10204, Oct 23, 2010.

  1. john10204

    john10204 Light Load Member

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    Oct 20, 2010
    Fort Wayne, Indiana
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    I am wondering how most truck drivers keep in contact with family members on the road. I am thinking of going the route of laptop with webcam to not only talk to my family, but to be able to see them too.
    How do you get internet in your truck and what does it cost?
    I plan on bringing my digital cam and taking pics of America, while not behind the wheel of course, and facebooking it to family and friends. That's what I'll be doing in my downtime.
     
    Last edited: Oct 23, 2010
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  3. brinkj23

    brinkj23 "Asphalt Cowboy"

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    I used verizon as a carrier and there smart phones have an option that you can tether the phone to the laptop via usb cable and use it as a modem. It ran me about 120 a month two years ago.
     
  4. john10204

    john10204 Light Load Member

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    Oct 20, 2010
    Fort Wayne, Indiana
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    Ouch..that's expensive..Do most truck stops have free wifi? I guess that may be a cheaper way to go.
     
  5. brinkj23

    brinkj23 "Asphalt Cowboy"

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    Truckstops have wifi, its not free and they are slow. Usually it's like 6 bucks for a day but they only give you a small bandwith to use, so if you're doing lots of videos or pictures you will use it up quick and they will disconnect you. You can get monthly subscriptions but each truckstop has a different plan and you will be staying at different brand truckstops all the time so you would have to buy a separate one for each stop.
     
  6. brinkj23

    brinkj23 "Asphalt Cowboy"

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    But that 120 a month was also for a nationwide cellphone plan.
     
  7. ukdon

    ukdon Light Load Member

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    Nov 21, 2009
    Pensacola, FL
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    I currently use Sprint and the cost is about $90/month for up to 5Gbytes of data. Works fairly well in most areas which are 3G when I get to a 4G area, it works great. I use Skype to talk with my wife and my grandchildren in the evening so we can see each other while we talk for most other conversations, just use the cell phone.
     
  8. RobertSmith

    RobertSmith Medium Load Member

    I know sprint and cricket have a usb modem you can buy and set up with a plan. IT works anywhere there is a cell signal. Cricket is the cheaper of the 2, but both see reasonable.
     
  9. brinkj23

    brinkj23 "Asphalt Cowboy"

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    They will work if you are somewhere that has a 3g network, most decent sized towns. But they don't work at all in the hillbillyvilles. I got a friend who's got a verizon usb and I think she pays 60 bucks a month. So if you have a cell phone plan as well then its pretty much around 130-150. That's why I just used my cellphone as the modem, it's the same thing as the usb cards, it just plugs into the phone an laptop. Ask verizon or whoever you wanna use about smart tethering.
     
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