Paying for WiFi

My experience has been that where free wifi is offered it is invariably extremely poor - very slow and not secure - even on CLs etc. We are currently on the C&CC site at Charmouth which has free wifi and it's pretty useless - there just isn't the bandwidth there to make it viable.

I have recently bought a TP Link 4G router, a Poynting aerial and mast and I'm getting 35 Mbps download on EE even though the EE phone signal is poor - and it's secure. OK - so it means a bit of an outlay for the kit but the running costs pale into insignificance as compared with this Club's offerings.

We haven't used that many sites yet but have normally found it OK. However, when we used to use CAMC WiFi that was also the case. The change came post covid, with much higher occupancy rates at the times of year we use them and a different demographic. When we have used C&CC sites they have only been about half full, as it has been pre the main tenting season and many of the grass pitches were empty. On the one we did use in August which was rammed ( so like many CAMC sites most weekends) the WiFi was absolutely rubbish.

It so just a shame you can’t buy a roaming option when at home. Normally either my EE or OH’s O2 will provide a signal but not always both. I know I’m not supposed to mention France in the UK section, but here as my phone is free to roam I have never yet not got a signal. Perhaps there is some legal restriction on allowing it in your own country. I would happily pay more if I could have access to all four main networks on the same sim, it would be worth it for the convenience.

If it was included in the price I would think there would be far more complaints about the poor service, at least now there is a choice to pay or not.

It's the present position is that the club doesn't and really I don't see that as being somehow anything to do with being a member's club. It is a club for touring outfits (mainly) and looking after member's interests. I personally don't think adding 'free' wifi is at the top of my list of interests nor a main point when considering to use a club site. 

I suspect if it was for many other members then club sites wouldn't be as full?

Who knows the answer? Maybe C&CC are more business savvy and efficient so are able to include WiFi in the basic price. Perhaps they saw the disaster that this club uses and went to a different supplier for a better product. The permutations are endless but I suspect it's little to do with attitude to members and more to do with having a better grasp of running a business - and they are both businesses.

Only CAMC can tell you why they do things the way they do.

I would turn that round and say what incentive is there for the C&CC to invest in better WiFi if they are not making a charge for it? Also what need would there be to provide an upgraded service if what they provide gives people a reasonably reliable if basic service? What the CMC seems to be doing by upgrading WiFi services seems to be providing the possibility for streaming according to the reasons they give. That of course increases costs to the Club which means its unlikely they would go down the "free" route. 

I have recently stayed on two C&CC sites, on one the WiFi was Ok on the other it was poor and I had to revert to using my own phone data so my comments are based on my recent personal experience.

The user and all related content has been Deleted User

I think I would agree with that. It does actually question whether the CMC are actually right in spending money trying to upgrade their site WiFi. I can see the need for a WiFi provision of a couple of sites where it is difficult get decent mobile signal but it is questionable whether that provision needs to be site network wide? 

David

Lebara. 15GB of data, utilises Vodaphone network but piggybacks onto all of the others for coverage…….£10 per month, with unlimited calls, and 100 minutes to other countries.

It might not reach Clumber Park Club Site though, but you can get some sort of signal in Clumber if you drive to a higher point, and are desperate. Probably the NT won’t allow a mast in there, so I blame the NT😁

It's interesting how the access to WiFi varies. We were on a CAMC site this year, one we've visited a lot to see family. This time we were in a corner, quite low down and our usual WiFi access was useless. We could access the site WiFi so I used it for free access to CAMC website but decided not to pay the daily rate as the signal appeared less than good, a silver rated site. We always switch to any available free WiFi to save on data usage however we never expect too much from any of these things.

TDA Clumber was our worst experience, queuing for the pay phone was like time travel. Have things improved?!

Should add we have stayed in places with absolutely no signal for anything.  We found out the emergency contact worked on one CL when friends spotted someone prone in a field!