Ethernet ports in campground pedestals

[Neal]

I'm seeing several campgrounds now with ethernet jacks next to the coax connections. Assuming this is for Internet which I'm not sure if it's in use now or not, I haven't asked, I think it's a good thing if this is the trend. Doing away with Wi-Fi and moving to cable connected Internet would be nice. Obviously there is the issue with getting from the pedestal to something internal that can use it. Time will tell but it's caught my attention a few stops now.

 

[CaptainGizmo]

Yes, sort of.
Some have moved to FIOS, which is an awesome thing!

Others have used a sealed modem and just provide and Ethernet port to the guest; I’m gathering this will be the more prevalent right now.

Kinda wondering, however, that Ethernet will be the preferred connection as some parks select shared satellite like I’ve heard about.

IOW, cable is dead?

 

[lemondrop9344]

Interesting observation with regards to Ethernet availability at a camp site.
Assuming the park has adequate inbound capacity, I would like to understand why the network engineer decided on Ethernet cabling vs WIFI. The only reason I might be able to come up with is to charge for better internet service via Ethernet.
On the surface I can't believe Ethernet (over the life of the installation) would be more cost effective than a wireless setup (assumed caveat is adequate bandwidth at RV park hub). The logistics/costs of setting up a wired network in a RV park of any size would be daunting.
Even when I left the corp. world in 2007, office network connections were migrating to WIFI vs Ethernet cabling.

 

[marc2912]

Interesting observation with regards to Ethernet availability at a camp site.
Assuming the park has adequate inbound capacity, I would like to understand why the network engineer decided on Ethernet cabling vs WIFI. The only reason I might be able to come up with is to charge for better internet service via Ethernet.
On the surface I can't believe Ethernet (over the life of the installation) would be more cost effective than a wireless setup (assumed caveat is adequate bandwidth at RV park hub). The logistics/costs of setting up a wired network in a RV park of any size would be daunting.
Even when I left the corp. world in 2007, office network connections were migrating to WIFI vs Ethernet cabling.

Depending on the size of the park wifi can be a nightmare to manage. Even with modern antennas structures, trees, rvs etc can wreck havoc on your site. If you're running ethernet to all the APs anyway (I hope most moderns sites aren't meshing) you have main lines already ran. The main cost is the cabling/conduit but in this day and age of more and more people being connected and some working fully remote I would totally pay a premium for a cat6 line. I have my own APs in and out of coach anyway.

 

[MemoriesByTheMile]

WiFi in parks can be a nightmare. After arriving in a park it takes a bit of time for me to adjust our WiFi to get the best performance. Choice of antenna, 2.4 vs 5.8, channels, power output — finding the right balance due to the abundance of all the WiFi radios “screaming” for attention is not fun. And of course all of the congested WiFi signals leads to reduced speeds (and complaints from campers) even if the campground has adequate bandwidth coming to the campground.
Personally would like to see hardwire in order to not deal with all the WiFi.

 

[GypsyR]

My vintage class A has an RJ11 jack for a phone cable. Any old campgrounds ever provide jacks for that?

 

[marc2912]

My vintage class A has an RJ11 jack for a phone cable. Any old campgrounds ever provide jacks for that?

Does it have a phone on the wall in the kitchen with a 20' cord?

 

[lemondrop9344]

Perhaps I am incredibly naive with my thinking.
I've attached a couple of screenshots reflecting a speed test I ran just a few minutes ago along with the screen shot of how I have my Peplink configured to utilize the RV park WIFI. The results speak for themselves. This is not an anomaly.
When I checked in, I was provided the SSID along with the password. At the site, I have the Peplink scan for wireless networks & once identified I key in the password. It just works.
There are multiple WIFI access points throughout the RV park (in excess of 250+ sites) mounted on elevated poles.
I completely agree with all the points being made with regards to RV park WIFI. Most of it just plain SUCKS! However, I submit that RV park WIFI can be very good as evidenced by my attachments.
I suspect that there are a combination of factors involved with most RV park WIFI networks.

1. Insufficient bandwidth available from an ISP. If it's not there, not much you can do about it.
2. Poorly designed RV park networks. Ethernet connectivity won't fix this. WIFI will only make it worse.
3. Signal interference inside the RV park as well as inside the RV. Can be mitigated to some extent with additional hardware (both RV park & RV owner).

As one of the posters noted, running Ethernet cabling & conduit would be a major expense. Length of Ethernet cable is generally limited to about 100 meters & the little connectors are not the most robust. That would suggest one would most likely have to go with coax which is generally limited to about 500 meters. If the bandwidth isn't available from the ISP, what is the point of investing in the network infrastructure.... be it WIFI or hard wired?
The hardware involved to support a wired network in a RV park, IMHO becomes price prohibitive very quickly. I can't even imagine the hassle involved in trying to retrofit a RV park to a wired network.
I'm not saying it can't be or won't be done. I'm just thinking a properly provisioned WIFI network would be less expensive. There may be a different technology available that I'm not familiar with as my background is not in networking. I'll gladly stand corrected.

 

[DavidL]

You could bring your own WiFi router, plug the WAN port into the campground's ethernet connection and then stream WiFi Internet to your current WiFi devices. No rewiring needed.
But wired Ethernet is always a better, faster, more reliable solution than WiFi.