Laptop internet ?

I do not have a tv in the truck.

I watch dvd's on the computer.

If I am in Canada, I watch dvd's.

 

It is no problem with Verizon.

They do not have a cell phone requirement on theirs.

 

I'll throw in a few cents worth here!
SCREW TV!
Just another piece of crap that if it comes lose will hurt when it hits you on the head! Or makes it to the floor and breaks!
Not to mention that there are areas that even getting static is iffy! AND if you don't have that HDTV or the antenna kit you're screwed! Then there is the loss by a thief problem! My laptop has an alarm program and it reports it's location to me if stolen! Plus I get a picture of the moron the first time he turns it on!

I fired my TV when I got my broadband card years ago!

So what if it was a rerun or I could see the show a week later, I missed it already so heck I'm still up to date and I can watch my favorites when I want to like when getting loaded or unloaded and not allowed on the dock!

Games play faster on a broadband than that unsecure and dangerous WIFI at the truck stops where you pay stupid money to have that privilege that might be working IF you can get close enough to the antennas! It's real fun to get kicked off a site because your ping is in the big hundreds! OR when a tall truck parks between you and the antenna! THAT is fun when you're in a game and you jump over something and freeze in midair where every noob in the room shoots your arse as you're hanging there! Embarrassing to say the least!

Get UNLIMITED broadband if you are going to use it for watching videos or streaming content as you can burn through 5 or 10 gigs of usage in a day! Go to whoever you use or wish to use and look up the Broadband usage chart. They hide as they really want you to go over that 5 gig mark and sock it to you in charges which make foreign country roaming look like a cheap ticket item!

Yes, it's a little more but in the long run it's well worth the cost! It's either pay that cost or pay the same in CD/DVD movie rentals!

Besides if you're at a dock and either too early or late and the appointment is for the next day, broke down in BFE, stopped at a rest area or doing a layover waiting days for a load and the WIFI isn't working or you NEED to go on line and the nearest truck stop where you are paying stupid money for a service that AOL dialup makes look like molasses in the winter time on a good day and you have to drive 50, 60, 80 or 100 miles to get to, whats costing more? The, have it almost anywhere broadband or a drive to and hope it working and waste of fuel and time getting their WIFI?

In the long run unlimited Broadband is the overall winner!

Not to mention the risks of using WIFI!

Yes, WIFI is not secure, as you can have your signal hijacked and you'll never know it and all the anti virus, firewall and malware protection programs will never know you were hijacked!

Good luck and talk to all the cell providers. You don't have to take their cell service if you only want the broadband! Also look CLOSELY at the coverage maps! All of them are misleading! Open them up and zoom in to areas! You will see that those pretty colors they use for an area thin out in areas where a mountain range is or they can't get rights to a series of towers so check the areas you run in the most and then make a decision! Yes we can say Verizon, Sprint, Alltel and ATT are just fantastic in our book but some drivers might not notice that an area they don't stop in as they don't use Pilot or Petro or whoever isn't there or they always stop 100 miles down the roadand the coverage sucks to say the least!

I choose Sprint because of where I drove and because they were my carrier untill I was canned from one job and the next job the area was "pretty well covered" but there were a lot of small dead zones!

Just look closely at the maps and your usual lanes!

 

look into the technology forum but if you have one of the new high tech smart phones, you can get internet through them. you can just use them as your router through tethering. I don't know much about it but run a search on it.

 

I agree with the unlimited plan if available.
Read an article on the new 4G Sprint system. You can burn though 5 gigs of bandwidth in under an hour. That is fast!!

 

yea, i like to utilize netflix and also play an online game called Evony that i am ADDICTED to

 

There are many things you can do to make a public wifi safer rollover.

Use WPA2 encryption.
Turn off file sharing.
You can use a virtual private network (VPN)
Turn off network discovery if you still have Vista.
Stay away from ad-hoc networks and disable ad-hoc sharing.
Turn off your wifi when you aren't using it.
Use a firewall.
Plus your computer will show icons of one computer and the wifi antenna. If a second computer is involved you will see a second computer icon.

Cell phone signals can be intercepted too. But if I was a hacker, I would be going after something bigger than a trucker.

 

Same here,very with Verizon.

 

Actually not a lot of drivers are that computer savvy. That's why they get their signal hijacked! I covered this somewhere else and several times! A hijacker that uses the wifi signal and then retransmitts it does not go into your computer so the firewall is useless. All he is doing is giving the computer a route into the internet. If the computer is set to automatically connect to say TA WIFI it will do so and it will not be able to tell if that signal is coming from the antennas on the building or that RV or truck parked closer. All it does is reads transmitted singal and it has all the information it needs even if done with an encrypted signal! It still is happening at truck stops, coffee shops, resturants and motels!

If more computer users would look at what they are signing on to then they MIGHT not get on a hijacked signal. Yes, if you see two of the same names you might not sign on but look at the TA or Petro with large parking lots. Look at the building and see how many antennas there are then look at the fuel island and notice more antennas. Some truck stops have more than the one router or transmitter. I've seen 2 and 3 of the same names at truck stops due to the size of the system they use.

The stupid thing about WIFI is the price! The hourly to monthly charge when broken down is way more than either the cost of wired internet at home or a broadband card in the laptop!

Look at it this way! Both of the costs of at home or the card can be boken down to a 24 hours avaliable a day cost. That WIFI can't!

Unless you drive all day delivering from a dock on one side of that truck stop and a dock on the other side and you stay in that parking lot every night all year long living out of the store resturant and showers! THEN it might be a good deal untill you finish reading this long drawn out post!

Lets go through the fun of getting to a WIFI hotspot!
1- You have to get to the horspot! It could be out of route but you have to do some email or something so you drive a vehicle that gets maybe if you're real lucky 7 mpg to th hotspot! If you're an O/O that is added to the cost of that WIFI as well it's your idea of a cheap deal! For a company driver he might not get charged for Out of Route but for both of you there IS the loss of a few quarter hours off the log book! How much is a quarter hour or three worth to you? HMMM? I figure I was making $14 an hour! Add that to the cost!
2- You get to the truck stop and can only find a parking spot way in the back and the signal strength is maybe at 1DB or 1 or 2 bars! Not to mention all the trucks driving around and pulling in front of you blocking the signal to where sending an email with 1 letter takes long enough for you to go inside to eat before it's sent! Then there is the bandwidth as all the other cheap drivers saving a few dollars are on line and slowing the thing down! Yep a good deal so far!
3- You drove 100 miles out of route, and there is no parking spots left and it's only 6pm! Great, the next WIFI of your prepaid hotspot is 150 miles away and away from where you need to be so you go elsewhere and pay their stupid price to use theirs! I really thought trucking was to MAKE money not throw it away on something you need but want to go "cheap" on!
4- You DO get to a hotspot and actually get a front row parking spot that is next to the building and you try to sign on but the system is down! Well that 74 miles OOR isn't that big a deal! It's ONLY money!
5-see #4 BUT the system is working and you sign on not noticing that there are a few links with the same name but one is at a 5 bar signal strength and away you go! You sign on to the system, you sign on to your web browser, then your email and you go to maybe Netflix that you pay for and your bank account and then order that new hard drive from Newegg and you're happy as a bug in the rug until several days later your email has been hacked, your bank account has been drained and you now own a nice motorcycle bought with your credit card and you wonder how they did it!

They did it by replaying what they copied as you transmitted IN THE CLEAR to another transmitter retransmitting a safe signal! Your firewall was never breached, the encryption did not matter as it was copied and then used as if it was typed on a keyboard into the bank, credit card or email servers and THEY have no idea either!

It's happened and still does! It is one of the most abused hacks out there and it's hard to bust these people if they're smart and only work the system for a few hours and then leave!
We can hash about the cell phones being intercepted or malware and other crap like what happened to my Facebook page today and it being copied and used to redirect "friend requests" to a phishing site but none of that matters when it comes to WIFI! It is NOT anywhere as secure as your cell or broadband connection.

How much does being cheap cost in the long run? Miles, time, bad signal, no signal, slow connection and the threat of having that signal intercepted not to mention the MORONS who actually try to gain access using windows explorer and the "My Network Places!" in it! Yes, there are some dummies that think they will get into your computer this way! It can be done if it's a complete moron who owns a computer without a virus and firewall program running!

Go ahead and use that WIFI. It's becoming old school and will be dropped in a few years but I'm warning you that being cheap in this instance can be a killer!

The guy I told the story of in Des Moines got caught because he kept going to the same well to many times and both visual sightings as he set up his antennas and directional finders caught him but not before he had screwed a lot of drivers out of more than a few downloaded porn videos and a few emails!

Quit being cheap!
WIFI costs less when you get the card or punch in your rewards card number..hmmmm.... but in the long run it costs more than that paltry $20 or whatever plus the added minutes at another truck stop!

Me I'd rather be able to go on line when and where I want to and with the knowledge that my signal is 1000 times safer than on that WIFI and at a higher speed so I can down load that movie and go! Beats waiting for that slower than AOL dialup any day unless your standard IS AOL!

Then there is the advantage of being able to go online to see how traffic is moving in most major cities or getting up to the minute traffic or weather or getting that load information from your broker already to be printed up and ready to be downloaded and on and on while miles away from BFE truck stop and their WIFI! It's NOT how much money is in your pocket today but at the end of the month and end of the year!

 

Technology is advancing and changing. They will be coming out with faster and better systems other than WiFi. I would hold out on making a contract with some company for poor 3g service and either get prepay verizon or virgin moble. I just use my Pilot or J points and get the 24 hr prepay for $5.10. when I know I am going to be there a wile. Also if a hotel is close to the parking lot park as close as you can get to the hotel for free wifi.