Welcome!
Our goal with the Mobile Internet Resource Center is to provide a central resource center about mobile internet options for US based travelers - RVers, boaters, truckers and nomads of all sorts. From tracking the news, how-to guides and helping our members with their specific questions.
We are pleased to share our research and experience so you can save time & money and get out there exploring what drives you!
We are a community funded resource - supported by our premium members & readers.
We are not sponsored by any product or service that we mention on this site or in our book. We are not resellers of any plans, equipment or products. We do our best to research options, test out gear and share real world experiences.
About RVMobileInternet.com
What you'll find here is a repository of our knowledge on this niche topic that complements The Mobile Internet Handbook. Here are the four main areas of the website:
- News - We track the mobile internet industry to keep an eye out for news releases about products & services. We then analyze the news for how it impacts travelers keeping connected.
- Guides - Our book is written to be a comprehensive overview of this topic. But it changes often. The guides in our Knowledge Base are meant to be living components - more focused on comparing specific products and plans, and how to best use them in your travels. They're updated constantly as new products come out, and plans shift.
- Product Info and Review Center - We list the specific products & services we are tracking. We share product specifications, our own review of those we have hands on time with, and our premium members can also share their experiences.
- Forums - Open only to our premium members, this is where we field questions they have in navigating their own mobile internet arsenal. We also host a free Internet for RVers Facebook group.
We try to provide a lot of content on this website for free - to the public. We're only able to do so in thanks to the support we get from our premium members. In return, they get a lot of extra perks.
About Our Team
Chris Dunphy, Host / "Professor"
Chris was previously Palm & PalmSource's Chief Competitive Director - it was his job to stay on top of the mobile industry. Before that, he was the founding technical editor of boot magazine (now called Maximum PC).
In 2006, Chris gave up his downtown San Francisco apartment and hit the road full time in a tiny RV, soon after partnered with Cherie and have been perpetual nomads ever since.
Chris is the 'Graduate Professor' of the site, our uber expert on things high tech. He tracks the industry, analyzes, designs & orchestrates our review testing modalities and authors our most in-depth and high-geek content.
Cherie Ve Ard, Host / "Professor"
Cherie has been a location independent software developer since the early 90s, developing software in the medical & government fields. She's also been a technical writer and trainer, teaching high tech topics to a wide audience. She's been a digital nomad from early on in her career utilizing mobile internet in her travels. She joined Chris on the road full time in 2007.
Cherie is a Professor of the team, helping keep the high tech topics accessible and explainable. She keeps an eye on the industry, communicates with the team, manages the content and orchestrates social media. She's also usually first on the scene in our member Q&A forums.
You can follow her and Chris' personal adventures at Technomadia.com.
Liz Pfleghardt, Teaching Assistant & Contributing Author
Lover of long distance running, balloons, & candy. Full-time RVer exploring the U.S. indefinitely with her high tech partner Jake.
She's our lead teaching assistant in our Internet for RVers public group, correspondent for our News Center, proofreader of all our content and assists with helping our members.
She's also the big rig driver & dump station specialist - and you can follow their personal adventures at lifewithdyna.com.
Tom Jordan, Teaching Assistant
Full-time RVer with his wife Lori - out to see the US for as long as it takes. He's a teaching assistant in our Internet for RVers public group, helping RVers stay connected on the road.
Their adventures can be found at http://tomandlorirvlife.com/, Facebook and YouTube.
Jack Mayer, Contributing Author
He and his wife have been RVing for over a decade, and Jack has a high-tech background. He's a highly respected tech guru on RVing forums. You can follow his adventures at JackDanMayer.com.
He's a contributing author to the book writing a chapter on Antennas and Installation, contributes in-depth reviews and guides to our Resource Center, and helps out members in the Q&A forums when he has time.
Dennis & Jeanette Vieira, Web Master & Designer
RVers since 2010, the Upthentic team splits there time between coasts. Dennis is our behind the scenes web master, keeping our site updated and cranking along. He also works with us to implement new features and constantly improving our website.
Jeanette is our amazing style wizard - helping us keep a consistent look and feel in our graphics and presentation. From book to website.
Want to join our team? We are looking for contributing authors, assistants and tech experts for content creation - or other roles you might be able to fill. Be in touch at: info@rvmobileinternet.com.
The Story of RVMobileInternet
RV Mobile Internet is brought to you by Two Steps Beyond LLC, the business run by Chris Dunphy & Cherie Ve Ard of Technomadia.com.
Chris Dunphy & Cherie Ve Ard hit the road in 2006, when we were in our early 30s. We weren't retired early or taking a gap year - we took our tech careers on the road while we embraced our wanderlust.
We've primarily traveled by RV since then, mixing in other side adventures. We now split our time between RV and boat throughout the year - wintering in the south in our bus conversion, and spending warmer months exploring America's intercoastal waterways, rivers & canals as we slowly embark on the 'American Great Loop' by boat.
Our posts on our personal travel blog, Technomadia, about how we kept online became some of our most popular. We shared about each new element of our setup, and ended up fielding a lot of questions about cellular, WiFi and satellite (we tried it all over the years!).
In 2013, after yet another question about mobile internet landed in our inbox - we decided on a whim to compile all of our blog posts on mobile internet into one place.
The first edition of The Mobile Internet Handbook - published in 2013.
In under three weeks, we had turned that compilation into the first edition of The Mobile Internet Handbook, and then we went back to our 'day jobs'.
A year later, that little handbook, was already seriously out-dated (after all, technology changes rapidly). We had a lot of requests to expand it to cover even more topics - and the little Facebook Group we launched to go along with the book was rapidly growing.
We launched an Indiegogo campaign to fund us taking a few months off other projects, hire an editor and graphic designer. The support we received was overwhelming.
Mobile Internet Aficionados is our premium membership component of this resource center.
The outcome was a greatly expanded 'real' book, launching this website and our Mobile Internet Aficionados premium membership to continue keeping it funded.
Running this site has become our main professional focus.
We would have never imaged it possible, and we wake up every morning pinching ourselves - we get to do the things we truly love: talk about mobile technology, live mobile and help people pursue their dreams.
It really is our joy to provide this service - and we are blessed to be supported by our community.