Canadian Internet - RV-Dreams Community Forum

Neil and Connie · RV-Dreams Family Member

Canadian Internet

Lucky Mike · RV-Dreams Family Member

Try Craigslist in Canada for that area under cellphones......you might be able to pick one up cheap and have it shipped down.....or ebay.

Im sure when your done you could sell it on here!!

Raytronx · RV-Dreams Family Member

A lot of the Mcdonalds have free wifi and there are coffee/donut shops called Tim Hortons all over the country and many have free Wifi like Starbucks.

Here is a link to their WiFi locator

When I was visiting the maritimes I was able to get a pay as you go sim card for my Ipad, no contract through Bell, also you might check the Telus website they are big out west.

Ray

-- Edited by Raytronx on Thursday 20th of December 2012 09:53:31 AM

RVPAINTER · RV-Dreams Family Member

We were in Hubbards Nova Scotia for 1 month this summer and in Old Quebec City for one month this summer and campground WiFi in Canada at best is HORRID - we were without it most of the time and when we could get it, it was very iffy and very,very slow. We have a WiFi Ranger mobile boost in our rig and it was not much help.

dianneandsteve · RV-Dreams Family Member

With all due respect...is it really fair to paint the campground WIFI in an entire country as HORRID after just visiting a couple of campgrounds:) We have had HORRID and really good reception in many places throughout our travels in both Canada and when visiting the U.S.A. We purchased the Telus MiFi and cancel the service when heading south. You could check with Telus and Rogers to see whats involved in buying one then selling it before leaving. And if it's feasible...with the following on this site I'm sure somebody is going to be heading north and would be glad to have it. Cheers!

adeline and ed · RV-Dreams Family Member

I don't know where you were in Canada but service is SAME in both countries..........In between Banff and Jasper it is iffy because of the mountains

RVPAINTER · RV-Dreams Family Member

My post indicated where we were and in those 2 locations the WiFi was horrid - other parts of Canada I don't know about as we were only in the parts mentioned. In these parts of Canada if you are going to rely on just the campground WiFi you will be sadly disappointed.

Raytronx · RV-Dreams Family Member

My experience with campground WiFi in both countries is its not built out with the bandwidth to accommodate peak demand when it is jammed packed. Also when its packed there are more rigs blocking things. I guess if your an owner you only want to pay enough to handle the average amount of campers.

Also in some spots like Eastern Canada the camp season is really short, the campgrounds have a whole different philosophy than some further south that can get a good load of campers 8-9 months of the year.

Generally its been my experience if the park is near capacity the WiFi will suck , if its half full usually fast WiFi. The WiFi booster usually only helps get the signal to the rig not make the crowded WiFi faster.

Ray

RVPAINTER · RV-Dreams Family Member

Raytronx - you just described my month long experience in the area I mentioned - the campground was full all the time and the WiFi wasn't just bad - it was horrid - also a lot of kids trying to download all sorts of crap. However that said we LOVED Nova Scotia - great place and the scenery was GREAT!

Raytronx · RV-Dreams Family Member

RVPainter, We were there summer 2011 and most were like that, but in September all the kids left and the campgrounds emptied out and most WiFi Was good. :)
Traveling in FLA in January 2012 was the same, full parks, terrible park internet even the TenGointernet pay type!. ;)

We went to all 4 maritime provinces and loved them all

Cheers Ray

Neil and Connie · RV-Dreams Family Member

Thanks all. I'll check Craigslist and also see if we can rent a MiFi short term. We had already pretty much planned on McDonalds and Hortons (along with Panera and whatever else we can scrounge up) if the park wifi isn't up to snuff. We'll be there from mid May to mid June; so hopefully for at least the first part we'll miss the heavy summer season. As I said we'll get an international plan for one of our iPhones and set up call forwarding on the other to the one that has service for phone. We already figured phone service would be iffy in the parks (our phones were left off the last time we were up since we were only there for a week or so)…but figure most parks will have wifi.

We've had good wifi and bad wifi and I can't say it's always depended on whether the park was full. Here in Fort Myers the park is pretty full and we're averaging 1.5 Mb/sec. We've had wifi that was down in the modem speed range and others that were decent.

I think I'll get Connie to tell her boss that work may be spotty for that period just in case we have trouble with bandwidth…I just wanted to make sure that I hadn't missed any obvious avenue to explore.