Hi all. Thank you for such a wonderful forum folks! I'm David and am seriuosly considering the fulltimer lifestyle. I work as a contractor back to a leading telecom company working on software installions from my home and use DSL for everything. As all my work is done remotely I am studying up on the possibility of doing it from an RV (havent bought one yet) with something like Hughes Net sat service for e-mails and uploading my builds.
May I ask for feedback on what monthly costs are as an average please? Assuming no payments on the rig (except insurance) and knowing what Sat services and air-cards offer for those costs, what do some of you find are your monthly budgets please?
Thanks again for a great forum!
David.

Before I start answering I will recommend you browse through the "Technology on the Road" posts for satellite/wi-fi/aircard info.  I think you will find your answers.

Both satellite internet and cell phone internet (aircard) plans start at $60/month and so far only satellite has higher end plans available with more speed and/or larger bandwidth limits.   Aircards from everyone (Verizon, Sprint, AT&T) limit you to 5GB/month before they either slow your speed way down or charge you extra, a lot extra for overages.   Verizon just started a buy your own equipment and pay month-to-month for internet plan without a two year contract, still at $60/month.  Satellite and the other cell companies seem to need some kind of contract length. 

The basic satellite plans do not have fast upload, 50-200 Kb is normal.  Cell can have higher upload speeds, but depending on load and location it can also be slow and fast is 500-800 upload.  If you really need better than a high end satellite system with a 1 meter or larger automatic dish is what you need.  Those are over $10K for the dish and $300/month.  How large are those "builds"?

Judy: What davidh is talking about is not your normal usage of surfing and email, he is doing more intense internet operations that use more than the normal retired RVer.  I know people who have used 12GB on Verizon and there are people hitting the 250GB limit on Comcast cable modems.  They are day trading, they are doing software develpment, they are downloading CDs and movies. 

Note that my wife and I use between 2.5 and 4.0 GB per month just doing our normal thing, so 5GB is a bit close for us.

Davidh...I don't know the first thing about all that electronic HI-Tech stuff...but I do know that all of us Dreamers are glad that you climbed on board with us. We are glad to have you and if you need any advice on what is a good Beer or Ice Cream I will do all I can to help out. Speedy

Thanks to you all and thanks for the warm welcome!