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 - we receive most of our compensation from our premium memberships to this site.
We are not sponsored by any manufacturer, vendor or service. We do not display 3rd Party ads. 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.
Our incentive is to be a trusted resource, not to sell you gear or plans you might not need.
About the Mobile Internet Resource Center
What you'll find here is a repository of our knowledge on this niche topic and news stories analyzed just for travelers. Here are the 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 guides are in-depth educational written and video content meant to teach you about the various topics that play a role in a mobile internet setup. They're updated constantly as technology shifts. We even offer a Classroom that walks you thought them step-by-step.
- Product Info Center - Our gear guides to mobile internet 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.
- Video Center - A lot of our content also has a video component to complement it - from our news stories, guides to tutorials.
- 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 to field basic questions.
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
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 (now splitting their time between an RV and a boat).
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 in-depth and high-geek content.
Cherie Ve Ard, Host
Cherie has been a location independent software developer since the early 90s in the medical & government fields. She's also been a technical writer and trainer, teaching high tech topics to a wide audience. 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 & website 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.
View Chris & Cherie's Personal Mobile Internet Setup
Liz Pfleghardt, Contributor
Lover of long distance running, balloons, & candy. Full-time RVer exploring the U.S. indefinitely with her high tech partner Jake.
She sleuths out details, assists in our Internet for RVers public group, breaks stories in our News Center, proofs our content, keeps guides updated 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.
View her Mobile Internet Setup.
Andrew McNabb, Contributor
An avid outdoorsman, father, traveller and gamer, Andrew and his family went full-time after too many years in the rat race in a motorhome.
He keeps on top of news stories, assists in our Internet for RVers public group, breaks stories in our News Center, writes & expands our in-depth guides and assists with helping our members.
Follow Andy's family's adventures at thefreefive.wordpress.com.
Tom Jordan, Assistant
Full-time RVer with his wife Lori - out to see the US for as long as it takes.
He's a volunteer moderator 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.
View Tom and Lori's Mobile Internet Setup.
Jack Mayer, Advisor
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 been a supporting force to establishing the Mobile Internet Resource Center, including being a past contributing author to the book and providing some of our initial in-depth reviews and guides to our Resource Center. We appreciate him continuing to be on call for our team and chiming in when he has open 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, fonts, colors and presentation. From book to website.
The Story of the Mobile Internet Resource Center
The Mobile Internet Resource Center is brought to you by Two Steps Beyond LLC, the business run by Chris Dunphy & Cherie Ve Ard of Technomadia.com.
Chris hit the road in 2006 and Cherie joined him soon after. 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.
Our posts on our personal travel blog, Technomadia, about how we kept online to continue working remotely became some of our most popular.
In 2013 we decided on a whim to compile all of our blog posts on mobile internet into one place for easier access.
The first edition of The Mobile Internet Handbook - published in 2013.
And thus the first edition of The Mobile Internet Handbook was published in under 3 weeks and we went back to our 'day jobs'.
We launched the RV Mobile Internet Resource Center in 2014 after the book was a success and realized it would take a lot of attention to keep this topic updated.
Originally we focused on RV-specific solutions, but now we are now simply the Mobile Internet Resource Center for all US based nomads.
We would have never imaged it possible - we get to do the things we truly love: play with technology, live mobile and help people pursue their dreams.
And we're honored that we are funded by the very folks we're serving - our fellow nomadic community.
Since we launched this site in 2014, we have conducted over 125 private advising sessions. As much as we love getting to assist our members in this format, finding the time to continue offering them as our membership and content we provide expands is becoming more and more difficult.
As our primary mission is creating resources that can help the many, the time has unfortunately come that we can no longer offer this level of in-depth personal advising.
We are considering some alternatives - such as less structured & shorter sessions, smaller video study groups or conducting advising sessions during member webinars as case studies. We'll update this page when we figure it out.. for now, we're focused on our backlog of content creation after a crazy few months personally.
In the meantime, if you're embarking on your research - please consider utilizing many of the resources we offer. We offer a classroom, book, videos, member forums and regular Q&A webinars. We are always delighted to assist our members in these spaces.
We decided a while ago to not pursue offering affiliates kickbacks for our membership program. The reasons are multi-fold.
For one, we are a community funded resource center. We prefer to keep our membership fees as low as possible for all and not need to build in allowance for marketing efforts.
Our marketing plan is pretty simple - we focus on creating quality content worthy of sharing and referencing folks to. We give away a lot of free content & resources that hopefully is valuable to our nomadic communities.
We strive for authentic recommendations and word of mouth referrals to our content & resources that are not incentivized by financial compensation. And we do take notice based on where folks say their referrals are from and try to acknowledge that.
As far our book and apps, they're offered on Amazon, iBooks and the app stores. You're of course welcome to use your affiliate links when sharing about them.