Wandering WiFi RANT!

Love's at I-70 exit 304 (Bennett Colorado) had good speeds with Wandering WiFi a week ago when I was there. I was getting 60ms ping and averaging 7 megabit / sec. (700kb/s) downloads. I played TF2 (on linux finally, woo) for 4 hours and had no lag or anything. Even when the truckstop was full the download rate never got below 3 megabits.

 

Are you kidding? I would have to say that about 50% of Pilot/J's have crap internet, and at least 90% of all T/A's. I normally use my EVO 3D on the sprint network with tether to connect my computer, and on a BAD day I get about 100kbps (average about 500kbps-5.0Mbps inc 4g) I'm at a T/A now just west of Dayton, OH on i70 and sprint seems to be having an "off day" here, only about 120kbps with 120ms ping so i'm parked in the front row, the only place to park closer to the building is on the fuel island (but someone might get mad) and I thought "why not spend a little and get a better connection?" B*LLSH*T!!! I tested at 346ms ping and less than 20 kbps!!!

THAT'S WORSE THAN DIAL-UP!!! And in case you're wondering, I ran this test at 3:00am when most everyone is sleeping. I haven't tested every T/A in the country, but so far EVERY one I have tested has been just about as bad, if not worse than this. The best I've been able to get from Pilot/Flying J is about 250kbps From now on, if I'm parked at a T/A and want to send an e-mail, I'll just use carrier pigeons, they're FASTER!

At $5 per 24-hrs, assuming about 10 drivers on average use the internet each day, that's $50 a day ($1,500 a MONTH!) FOR WHAT?!?!?! At that amount of money, every truckstop on the major freeways should each have their own T1 connection or better! (t1 about $212-$1200 a month and T3 $5000-$14,000 a month for the most popular truckstops) that's a potential internet bandwidth sharing of 45+Mbps, plenty to share with the entire parking lot, and then some! Internet demand has skyrocketed in the past few years and Wandering WiFi is stuck in the stone-age using AIR CARDS?!?! Get with the times already.

That's my rant for today, now I have to take a nap. :/

 

Don't do it its a waste of money. I switched to Verizon from that horrific t mobile a year ago and haven't regretted it one bit. I think its totally worth it,but I did at least get in when they had the double your gig promo. I get 10 but only pay for 5. That truck stop be will only make want to throw you laptop out the window. I've only been in two locations in a year where I didn't have access. I used to use that truck stop bs too. T/A usually worked the best and loves,but the big trick is you need to be on early in the am. Another problem is if even just one or two people are streaming you can just forget about it not enough bandwidth to even surf.

 

Exactly. It's usually about timing. I'm on Wandering Wifi now at a loves, and it gets slow in the evening, but overall it has been really good. I've downloaded 26 GB of data in less than 24 hours. I only bought a 1-day pass so I wouldn't eat up my time on my mobile hotspot. Earlier today I was getting 850Kbps. Took about a half an hour to download a 5 GB game from Steam.

Not sure that'd I'd buy an annual subscription though. Not consistent enough when they get busy and the QOS goes way down.

 

It's not just certain locations. I have tried to use this service in many different places and it just doesn't work, however, I have been to other truckstops in the middle of nowhere which provided free wifi, and their service has been leaps and bounds beyond wandering wifi. IMO, wandering wifi is just a ripoff. You loose customers now, you will never get them back.

 

Given the fact that I buy maybe $40,000 worth of fuel from TA and multiply that times our 300 drivers... I called their customer service and told them how quaint it was for them to still be trying to charge for wi-fi service when the rest of the world gets better service for free.. I told her I would stop at a McD's with truck parking next time...

 

The problem is this. Unless they are using an airfare from sprint ( and sprint sucks, hands down. Had them for almost a year. Was in an area that was supposed to get 4g service, but the only place undid was by their store, and downtown Dallas. Worse part of downtown at that), any split WiFi connection is going to suck, yes, if you have 7+ devices connected to your home WiFi, your own internet will suck. WiFi signal is only as strong as the antenna transmitting the signal.

with my experience with truckstop internet, if you want the high-speed connection, find a place to hook an Ethernet cable into. inconvienent sure but it'll be high speed they guareentee. Last time I talked to wandering WiFi support they were in the process of upgrading all the equipment.

with all that said, i haven't bought service from them since I got my 4G LTE smartphone from Verizon. 11 MBps (roughly a little over a 100 mbps) solid download speed baby. In most places anyways

 

I've found that truck stop wifi sucks, plain and simple. I wasted $20 on wifi for the month of may and it barely worked at most of the Piolt/J's that I stopped at. Now I'm on to greener pasture with a mifi device that will at least allow me to get online while I'm OTR

 

I subscribed to Flying J Wifi for a year before they went bankrupt and almost always got a good signal . Once Pilot took over and brought in Wandering Wifi I gave up after a couple of tries .

 

As a trucker I personally think you're ripping us all off when we use points/cash to pay for a months worth of service (because we all know that's a better deal than paying $4.99 per daily use) Besides not being able to connect, or connection being SUPER SLOW in major cities and rural areas, we are not always able to park at truck stop that uses your services (Pilot, Flying J, Petro, TA, Love's they all use Wandering Wi-fi...) I personally think that we should get 31 days as we use them, not consecutive as you have them set up now... or have all the truck stops interlinked so that if we are at a Pilot one night, a Love's another and a TA another we have access to your services period, not have to pay for each day or individual truck stops' internet access when they all use the same company.......