Budget Amounts for TV / Internet - RV-Dreams Community Forum

Camper Chronicles · RV-Dreams Family Member

Budget Amounts for TV / Internet

Lucky Mike · RV-Dreams Family Member

simple answer...

Dish network..... 30 bucks..no contract
Millenicom Internet -20Gb...... 70 bucks....no contract

so basically for good cheap and reliable and no contracts!! a hundred a month.....things can be had alot cheaper but for the price and quality these 2 cant be beat !!!!

The Bear II · RV-Dreams Family Member

We have DISH network and pay for the top package (I forget what they call it), we spend $109.00 per month. We get all of the channels, movie channels and includes the local channels for our area. That price includes the rental for 3 receivers ($12.00).

We recently purchased the tailgater antenna and a VIP 211 receiver for about $450.

Consider our DISH setup as an example of the most you would pay.

cherylbrv · RV-Dreams Family Member

Is it safe to assume the DISH network (satellite) does not support internet, but is only for streaming live tv and movies?

Lucky Mike · RV-Dreams Family Member

Correct Cheryl.......Satellite Internet is a whole nother game in its self

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Now, I know absolutely NOTHING about this program, but I do suspect that it may be targeted strictly to stix n brix residences. We are customers of Direct TV and I noticed on their website the other day that they have a "bundle" with Direct TV and internet. Looking down towards the bottom of the page at the link below, they have this statement "DIRECTV partners with phone & internet providers like AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, Exede, Cincinnati Bell, HughesNet, and Windstream around the country." Unfortunately, the only way to get any information is to call Direct TV. Their website gives no details as to cost or exactly what is provided or what is in their "bundle" or whether it will work on RV's. I kind of doubt that they will.

Direct TV bundle

We've been with DirectTV for 10 years in our homes and the last two in our "stationary" RV. About a week ago, our DRV/receiver went out and I really need to give them a call about a replacement. When I do, I might even ask them about this.

Terry

laurly · RV-Dreams Family Member

We have DirecTV $92/month. No movie channels, but HD extra channels included in that, one receiver. Our internet is via Verizon with 2 smartphones and one Jetpack with 2gb data for $175/month.

Technomadia · RV-Dreams Family Member

For internet - your budget will be highly dependent upon your style of travel and needs for both reliability and bandwidth. We can all share what we spend, but it all comes down to what will work best for you.

For us, we keep the Millenicom 20GB plan on Verizon for $70/mo, and then a 10GB plan on our AT&T mobile share plan with our iPhones (cost with phone service about $165/mo). In addition to that we have a lot of cellular & WiFi boosting gear on board.

We're not much into TV, but do keep a streaming plan on Netflix for about $7/month, rent discs from RedBox and purchase content on iTunes as we desire. We of course only stream when we have an unlimited & fast internet source.

For lots and lots of information about assembling your mobile internet arsenal, here's our page with our articles, video chat and even our book on the subject: www.technomadia.com/internet .

- Cherie

-- Edited by Technomadia on Saturday 7th of December 2013 12:09:00 AM

Alie and Jims Carrilite · RV-Dreams Family Member

We're in the same reange as Technomadia and Laurly. The Millenicom and Verizon 10g for us.

folivier · RV-Dreams Family Member

Gotta agree with Millenicom. We also have AT&T phones with a smaller data plan. Use it to supplement when Verizon doesn't have service. We also bought a free Verizon flip phone while in Idaho. Only had Verizon service. BestBuy had it for $10 and it came with $10 of service. We're only charged (I think) $2/day only on the days we use it. So it is only turned on when needed.
Just watch out for data overages if you stream TV or movies.

el Rojo and Pam · RV-Dreams Family Member

Terry and Jo wrote:
Now, I know absolutely NOTHING about this program, but I do suspect that it may be targeted strictly to stix n brix residences. We are customers of Direct TV and I noticed on their website the other day that they have a "bundle" with Direct TV and internet. Looking down towards the bottom of the page at the link below, they have this statement "DIRECTV partners with phone & internet providers like AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, Exede, Cincinnati Bell, HughesNet, and Windstream around the country." Unfortunately, the only way to get any information is to call Direct TV. Their website gives no details as to cost or exactly what is provided or what is in their "bundle" or whether it will work on RV's. I kind of doubt that they will.
Direct TV bundle
We've been with DirectTV for 10 years in our homes and the last two in our "stationary" RV. About a week ago, our DRV/receiver went out and I really need to give them a call about a replacement. When I do, I might even ask them about this.
Terry

Terry, be careful when talking to Direct TV about a replacement receiver, When Pam called them to replace ours we wound up in a two year contract for the receiver. Now its $400 to get out of the contract...urghhhhhhh! We've been with them since '98 or' 99.

Camper Chronicles · RV-Dreams Family Member

Technomadia wrote:
For internet - your budget will be highly dependent upon your style of travel and needs for both reliability and bandwidth. We can all share what we spend, but it all comes down to what will work best for you.

- Cherie

HI Cherie,
My husband is a huge fan of your blog and the information on it has been our road map in this area. That being said we are struggling with putting a stake in the ground for budget purposes. I know this decision is very unique to the individual person (not unlike health care) but I've managed to get us a rough estimate on health care but we are still going round and round on internet :). Sometimes so many choices is not a good thing. I thought a good way to hone in would be to see what other folks are doing. Thanks so much for sharing your budget and for the great blog :) I am a bit of a hero here for talking to you directly. I think Lee is a bit star struck by you guys lol

Trace

-- Edited by Technomadia on Saturday 7th of December 2013 12:09:00 AM

-- Edited by Trace on Saturday 7th of December 2013 09:48:16 AM

-- Edited by Trace on Saturday 7th of December 2013 09:50:09 AM

-- Edited by Trace on Saturday 7th of December 2013 10:01:47 AM

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

el Rojo wrote:
Terry, be careful when talking to Direct TV about a replacement receiver, When Pam called them to replace ours we wound up in a two year contract for the receiver. Now its $400 to get out of the contract...urghhhhhhh! We've been with them since '98 or' 99.

Red,

I saw in another place where you referred to that. From what I understand, Mountaindale RV Resort (where we will be moving next summer) offers a satellite package for about $30, although I don't know what all is in that package. I presume the very basic plan, which wouldn't get me the channels I want. I really wish the satellite companies would let us make up "ala-carte" plans where we could pay a lower price for, say, only 20 channels at the most. I have absolutely no need for sport channels, movie channels, and a whole bunch of other nonsense channels. I'd settle for probably less than 20 channels, if I could get the ones I wanted.

So, I will be asking the question about having to commit to another 2 years. If Jo and I decide so, I might just tell them to cancel our service. I guess we'll just wait and see.

As for help for internet and phone costs, I'm not much help for anyone. We have two Android phones on Verizon and our youngest son has another, all on the family plan, and we have the Verizon Jetpack MiFi for internet. However, our usage on the combination of phones and internet needs a LOT more than just 2 to 4 gig of data. I think we are paying for something close to 12 or 14 gig of data. That will likely go down some when we retire, but maybe not much. At least with Verizon, we can go online and change our data plan with ease.

Terry

bjoyce · RV-Dreams Family Member

Those DirecTV deals are to have plans like cable and phone companies have, combination internet/TV/phone plans. They are intended for fixed locations and do not travel with you.

We don't watch TV, for too many years we both worked long hours and got completely out of the habit. (I don't think we missed much, except small talk with friends and family about shows.)

For internet we have the Millenicom 20GB plan on Verizon as our main plan, a 5GB/$50 AT&T hotspot for those places where Verizon is slow or non-existent, and ways to bring in campground wifi. Believe me, there are places Verizon has no service or lousy service, where AT&T has good service, and vice versa. Months we have provided our own internet the entire month, we use 10 to 15GB total. We probably use more when we have really good campground that supports streaming, but those locations are rare in our experience.

Our phones are now on the 6GB/$30 each smartphone Max Verizon plan. It is not as good as the unlimited plan we had up to Black Friday, though it costs the same. The Samsung Note 3 phones were $199.99 subsidized instead of $599.99 retail (down from $299.99 subsidized/$799.99 retail for Black Friday). Since we don't tether the phones, 6GB each is plenty for us, even watching the occasional Technomadia video.

sirwinston21 · RV-Dreams Family Member

Terry, Mountaindale has basic cable thru satelite for some sites but at this time not all of them. The Direct satellite that is rented to long timers has most if not all channels,