Why taking your WiFi on holiday is a good idea
Wireless is essential to our very existence – at least, that seems to be the case with the younger generation now. You are asking for trouble if you take your kids on a long car journey, or to a remote location for a holiday if you can’t be sure that you will get a decent mobile signal or WiFi connection while you are enjoying your time away. In fact, actually enjoying your holiday might be very difficult indeed if they can’t get connected.
But it’s not just the kids either. These days, all of us want to stay connected with social media, with messaging apps and email. We have all become used to keeping up to date with family, friends, our social activities and areas of interest, and what’s happening in the world, through our mobile devices. Some of us now also use these devices as the main way in which we consume television programmes, video and music entertainment.
Even when we are in our own homes we do this; how often have you or other members of your family been on one room watching something on a big-screen TV, while someone else is in the same or another room watching a different programme or listing to music on their own device?
Taken for granted
We have become so used to always being online that we don’t even think about how it happens. But of course, it would not be possible without a network connection and in the home, that’s going to a be the WiFi router that is hooked-up to your broadband service. That should provide all the bandwidth that you need and these days, data is unlimited on such connections.
When we go on holiday, we fully expect to have access to all the same services. But that’s not always straightforward. Sure, you will have a data allowance on your smartphone, but many of us are such voracious consumers of data now that we will soon use that up. Most of use only have contracts for the data we are likely to use regularly, and parents often limit the amount of data that their children have to prevent them from spending too much time online – and to keep the cost of their mobile contract down. This is why we all try to connect to WiFi all the time – it’s basically free and will give you all the bandwidth you need. But what if you can’t get WiFi? Or it’s so slow that it’s hardly worth it? This can often be the case when you go on holiday to a remote location – or one that only has very basic and slow WiFi.
On the move
Getting a signal can also be problem on the way. You may pass by plenty of hotspots on your journey, but if you’ll go in and out of range in moments, so these hotspots are no use to you or anyone in your vehicle. They will instead have to rely on their smartphones. And on a long journey, it’s all too easy to use up a lot of the data allowance.
Unless of course, you have a hotspot in the car. With a portable LTE router, as long as you can get a signal you can share a single 4G connection and data allowance between several users. Zyxel’s WAH7706 supports download data rates of up to 300 Mbps and with its smart, compact design, it is easy to take with you and looks great too.
And more importantly, this device will ensure you will also get a proper break. By taking your WiFi with you and purchasing low-cost data, you can provide the whole of your party with a simple, consistent way to access the web both while travelling and during the holiday break. That way, everyone can stay in touch and you can really enjoy your holiday too.
