One of the challenges I’ve faced when traveling and working out of my RV is getting high speed internet service.  It’s estimated that over 1 million people are living in their RV’s Full time.  For those that work out of their RV’s it’s challenging to first off get a reservation and secondly to find a park that has fast fiber service.

Let’s look at this another way, most RV’s today may come with 3-4 TV’s and most parks offer cable connections and I’m sure I speak for others, but cable just isn’t working these days.  At best you’ll get old cable channels that offer old TV stations from back in the 70’s.  Our society is much hungrier for internet TV these days where you can login to your App of Choice like Hulu, Netflix or Pandora.

How can we get that kind of service if the park we’re in doesn’t offer fiber?  Well up until now, you could use your own portable Dish Network satellite which did lessen the pain, but it still wasn’t great.  There were a couple of other options, but none of them offered the speed you need.

In my RV alone, I have 3 TV’s, 2 phones, my desktop computer and a laptop.  At most, I have 7 connected devices and that’s just one RV, take 7 the number of RVs in one park, let’s just say 100 RV’s at best.  That’s 700 connected devices at one time.  How can you get excellent high-speed internet while traveling?

Insert Elon Musk. It seems everywhere you turn these days, you’re hearing about Elon Musk and how he’s changing the world in a good way.

If you don’t know, Elon Musk is a South African entrepreneur known for founding PayPal, Tesla Motors and SpaceX.  He became a multi-millionaire in his late 20’s and today he is the richest man on Earth surpassing Jeff Bezos.

Musk became more famous in May 2012 when SpaceX launched a rocket carrying the first commercial vehicle to the International Space Station.

In March of 2018 SpaceX received permission to launch a fleet of satellites into the low orbit around the Earth for the purpose of providing internet service. He named the satellite network – Starlink.  He intended to “deploy the world’s most advanced broadband internet service and make it more accessible in rural areas where the current service is not available, too expensive to have or just unreliable.

It's hard to say how many satellites have been released above our skies but I know that he’s gotten permission to launch 12,500 though 30,000 are planned right now.

Right now, if you live in a remote area that’s never had internet service or you just want the service to replace what you’re currently using, you can order the Residential service.  However, because his service is so popular and he’s still recovering from the Covid delays, you can expect to order Starlink now with a future delivery date.  I have ordered the residential Starlink and it was expected to delivery in late 2021, but I’m still waiting.  I also believe that because I’m in a heavily populated area that my delivery will be late because Elon is smart and he’s going after the remote area’s first. I know this because a friend of mine ordered his way after me and he’s been using his service out in the boonies for several months and I’m still waiting.  The really cool aspect of this is that this residential service can have up to 128 connections! 

The hardware cost is $599 and it’s $110 a month for the service, which is way less than I pay now and the service is expected to be a lot better than what I have now.   I want to use this service for my short-term rentals and I’m really excited to try it out, but I have to be bit more patient until mine arrives!

I checked back the other day, and now Elon is offering Business Service which gives you more broadband service than the residential service.  This means that any RV Park that currently does not have service can now get service!  The hardware cost $2500 and the service is $500 a month.  I’ll leave the link in my notes so you can check your service address.

I’ve saved the best for last!  Elon now has service for RV’s!  Basically, you’ll need to check to see if service is available at your home base.  If it is, you can place an order and from what I understand the unit will ship right away.  It’s an easy setup.  Place it in your RV and when you get to your destination, you setup the unit with a clear direct path to the sky, start up the service and start using it.  As you travel you can stop and start service wherever you want, but you cannot use the service while driving.

Here's another helpful hint, go join the FB Group call Starlink for RV’ers and other mobile users to learn about individual experiences.  So far, I have not read anything that would deter me from buying it now.  The only reason I have not is because I’m not traveling right now in my RV otherwise I’d be on board. 

I’m Mechiel Kopaska of the Fearless Innovator Podcast, thank you for listening and I hope you found this information helpful. 

Starlink