anyone figure out a way to get wifi on their boat ? not like, wifi at the dock, im talking like a totally personal hotspot. like they have in new cars. the car has wifi wherever it is. alot of us in the 1000 are roaming half the time and its a pain to connect with people while roaming, or streaming music etc... thought it would be cool to have if possible.

If you have cell coverage I just use my phone as a personal hotspot.

Use your smart phone or get a separate wifi puck. Who's your carrier and where is the area of concern? I can shed some light on ATT coverage if that's who you have.

Yes I have ATT. I'm not a tec guru so explain how you can have your phone be a wifi hot spot???

Where we boat is right on the boarder of US and CANADA. So often you're between various carriers up there. I just got a 300$ cell bill from one month because apparently I was roaming so often.

1000 Islands sucks for this. We use our phones for pandora, ect. for music and I'm in the same boat as you.... I usually turn off the data roaming in my settings so I don't get charged. Basically, if you get an American tower it'll work, if not, it doesn't work. Comes with the territory I suppose? I'm on Verizon by the way.

I believe Verizon has a portable hotspot that works off of satellites instead of towers. I use one for 4g wifi at home. It will cost you another line though.

Your iPhone can be made into a hotspot. Also all carriers will sell a hot spot as its own line generally around 65-70 per month. Sprint charges $8.00 to turn iPhone to hot spot. Problem is if your looking to use GPS or watch tv or anything that uses a ton of data it's never going to work out for you. They limit the amount of data

so.... its wifi, but they charge you for how much you use? thats the same concept as data usage then... i was under the impression if youre on wifi you arnt using data for running pandora or facebook or something. it might be worth it to open the hot spot open for the summer months to avoid large bills

But, you have to get the signal from somewhere....

The cellular network provides the connection to the internet - your phone or wifi puck provides the wifi signal to other devices.
no matter if you have a puck or regular smart phone - the network environment will dictate where the signal comes from. Sounds like the Canadian carrier has stronger signal where you are. Have you thought about upgrading to an international plan? There may be a chance that you can use your data when roaming.

I use a six year old Droid Bionic for all my internet access, set it up years ago as a hot spot long ago and it has worked flawlessly and seamlessly since day one. I get a consistent 10M+ up and down speed and use over 30gb month with NO overages in data but i have a grandfathered Alltel plan that was absorbed when Verizon purchased them. When i first started using it Verizon was throttling my data and they gave me some crap about using a "rooted" phone with outside apps. My exact response was F you its my phone and I will use it how i want and YOU will honor my unlimited plan, they saw it my way switched me to 4G (new at that time) and i have not had a single issue since. In the reviews section for the app i used to achieve this i wrote "F YOU Verizon . . . I WIN!" lol. My Bionic has a mini hdmi out as well, great for plugging into the 70 incher at home or motorhome to watch a movie or game

I will say one thing though, i was a big anti Verizon guy at the beginning but their customer service and actual service are second to none. They have come a long way, my connection works just about everywhere, i have fired it up in the motor home and gone from here to Mertyl Beach without so much as a hiccup in connection . . . .