"Working from Home" at the Cottage - Wifi help

Jo-Anne

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jul 14, 2000
It looks like mine and my husbands work won't be looking for us to go back into the office until late summer (depending on how the phases go). We have both been working from home since mid March. We have a cottage in Haliburton/Muskoka (Dorset) area so were thinking that it would be a much more pleasant work environment once the summer season kicks in (of course we will follow all the guidelines that are set out for the area!). We have a boat in cottage and right now the best we get when in the cottage when using cell data is one bar of service. We are thinking of getting a booster and a mifi to enable wifi into the cottage so we can do our normal business thorughout the day (emails, teams chat, teams/webex meetings). We thought about using our phones as hotspots too, but thought the mifi might be a better more reliable option. Would love to hear from anyone else with options/watchouts for devices that enable reliable and cost effective wifi when in a remote/rural area. THanks
 
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If you are only starting with one bar of service, you might be disappointed by the quality of service even once you boost the signal. If you need video meetings, you need a solid high-speed connection.

Does Xplornet operate up in Muskoka? The cover many rural areas of Ontario with fast(ish) internet based on RF communications. They would need a tower within sight of your location.
 


https://canadianisp.ca/ - Under Dorset I'm seeing a handful of wireless and point to point providers. See who's available and then look them up on https://www.dslreports.com/ to find reviews.

From my experience, no one with Xplornet is happy; they have a tendancy to massively oversell their towers so expect to get significantly less bandwidth than expected during peak times if you go that route.
 
Not sure about cottage country, but in the RVing world, weBoost seems to be the go to device for boosting your cell coverage. I used the one we have while at Fairbank Provincial Park to boost our 1 bar of service to something strong enough to get online and book the kids swimming classes the day they opened (Note: we prefer the low ratio classes, and they tend to fill quickly around here).

As was already mentioned though, line of sight is going to play a more important role than just boosting. Boosting can't solve obstruction issues. Whichever booster you get, you'll want to make sure you can get the external antenna as high as possible, and as clear of any obstructions as possible, and then aim it at the best cell tower in your area for your provider. I had used a couple of different apps (OpenSignal, TowerLocator Canada) to see where the cell towers were when I aimed the antenna for our booster, but there's also different websites available that do the same thing.
 
Not sure about cottage country, but in the RVing world, weBoost seems to be the go to device for boosting your cell coverage. I used the one we have while at Fairbank Provincial Park to boost our 1 bar of service to something strong enough to get online and book the kids swimming classes the day they opened (Note: we prefer the low ratio classes, and they tend to fill quickly around here).
Would be interesting to see if you can find a unit to try first - either borrow or get a money back agreement. Most boosters will up your signal 1 to 2 bars at most, and if you are only at one bar that may not be enough for "work from home" quality internet, especially if you are doing zoom meetings.
 


Would be interesting to see if you can find a unit to try first - either borrow or get a money back agreement. Most boosters will up your signal 1 to 2 bars at most, and if you are only at one bar that may not be enough for "work from home" quality internet, especially if you are doing zoom meetings.
I was able to try ours out before we bought it, sort of.

We were at an RV rally in Goshen, IN, and there was a vendor there from TechnoRV who was selling the boosters (as well as several other items). While discussing with him about wanting to try it out, he invited me to go to his RV and try it out myself using their unit. Being able to see the difference it made (the rally was thankfully in a bit of a dead zone, so it actually did make a difference) I was convinced and bought one. Whether or not it's going to work specifically for work, is hard to say. I've rarely done any work in the RV, except under extenuating circumstances, as our camping trips are vacation time. I don't even bring the work laptop unless I have to, and I've got my phone setup where I have to use the web browser to open outlook's web access to see my work mail, and no direct pushes to my phone. This has really helped me to stay disconnected when away.

There are others out there that 'full time' from their RVs, and these kind of boosters are all they use. Those people tend to run multiple devices, like having a Mifi and a JetPack with different providers, so they can use the one with the best signal, and they will typically separate their internet from their phone usage. Not sure if this is capable on Zoom, but I know with WebEx this is possible. Connect to the meeting with one device, and instead of running audio over the same device, you have WebEx call you and you do the audio over the other device. This will free up some congestion.

I'm not one of them, so for those rare occasions where I do have to work, I will make sure all background processes, updaters, backup utilities, etc... have been shut off before connecting to my phone's hotspot, and with that minimal amount of bandwidth used, I can usually make it through a meeting without an issue. Mind you, there was one case where the campground we were at was far enough away that the phone actually had like, no signal. The phone dropped into voice only 2G access. Without an LTE signal to boost, even my booster didn't help and I had to throw the laptop in the truck and run into town to the local McDonalds to get the work done that needed getting done.
 
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@Kaadk, sounds like you have it well in hand, but I was more directing that to the OP who's situation is a bit different, and who's skill and knowledge may not at the same level.

I'm a Computer Engineer and also an RV'er and use these technologies often. I find that results often don't live up to the promise.
 

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