What's the best way to Internet on the road?

I pay the same with my IPhone using the unlimited text, calls and data. Now as far as data once I reach a certain level it goes from 5g to 3G and that has only happened 2 or 3 times.

 

Internet on the road?

People complain when I use the internet from home here. LOL.

If you have the time to use internet besides OTR driving, you are not working hard.

 

Ditto. That's all you need.

 

2 hrs to watch Netflix and eat then almost 8 hours to sleep.

 

It isn't about working hard.
It is about working smart.

And since when did OTR mean that you can't have a little time for the little things in life?

Being OTR does not, I repeat NOT, mean that I can't relax between driving shifts.

 

There are many forms of relaxation on the road away from home. The problem is when dispatch thinks you are rested while you are carousing somewhere.... and snap snap.. off you go fetch this load.

I used to carouse back in the day when you actually had a week or more to go to CA instead of two and half days.

I use a prepaid smart phone for net on the road. It's so easy. google something and you are there online. But for us it's tornado tracking. We are dead serious about this here in Arkansas when the sirens scream. Sometimes we patch into the police scanners of our county or some other area we are traveling in to follow them.

 

Little by little I find myself using my smartphone more and more. I have it mounted in a position it is easy to access with a Bluetooth headset. During tornado season I use the MyRadar app to make routing decisions on the fly. I use Google Satellite View on the fly in addition to my Rand McNally if I get in a pickle. Getting backhauls off load boards is done with a variety of apps. Truckers Path let's me know availability of parking at rest areas and truck stops and whether scales are open. RigData helps me find rigs when the turn by turn directions from the shipper are wrong. My smartphone is a tool I use every day.

 

Ya know I am a luddite. The height of technology was my own GPS antenna from Rand which I still own, and a laptop loaded with Rand's street view software which I still own... collector's item anyone? ANyhow... also a topo of all USA and flight maps as well for frequency purposes for understanding if there is a bigger problem like 9-11 where they diverted two falcons over our heads in Detriot to go after a 4th airliner being reported headed for DC. There was some battle talk that leaked over in those days. Fortunately the 4th plane crashed near Scranton and because of that, ALL Fighters over head are armed now without fail.

Today's technology I think makes people somewhat dumber. Hear me out. In my time the telephone and the right numbers to everyone associated with the industry was king. You were somebody. Now it's impersonal. You never meet the lug who issues you a purchase order for a lumper 2300 miles away. Never. Come on.

I think it will worsen over time to where you and I sit home and drive trucks online monitoring them remotely the same way our military in Las Vegas Air Base monitors combat drones over Afghanistan.

Do you really want to be the one minding a robot truck from home 10 years from now? I build computers big and fast enough to do it, just need a fiber optic connection to make it happen or 5G. That is coming in a couple years.

Who knows? Might be on the road again but only from the keyboard which I am using to type to everyone here but actually driving and minding a robot truck.