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Summary:
People like - and need - to communicate
while traveling of course. The way
they communicate however, is changing.
In June of 2001 cell phones were very
important to about 50% of the RVers who do
our poll: now 93% have a cell phone
and consider it "very important".
The internet too is becoming much more
important. We asked the question
"How important is the internet to you
as part of your traveling?". On a
scale of:
0 = not important
5 = very important
we got the following answers
over 3 separate polls taken on the following
dates:
| June 2001 |
2.70 |
| September 2003 |
3.05 |
| October 2004 |
3.80 |
The growth in the importance
of the internet can be judged by the following
somewhat surprising result: the internet is
slightly more important to the RVer than TV!
Comparing TV and the internet
on the importance of each to the RVer on a
scale of:
0 = not important
5 = very important
we got the following:
What's more: most RVers
now believe that where cable TV is advertised
as a service provided by the park, it should
be included in the daily rate - ie parks
should not charge extra for cable TV.
How do RVers connect to the
internet? 21% use their cellphone (many
consider it too slow however), 13% use
libraries or other points outside the RV park
and 7% use an RV mounted satellite
system. 17% don't use the internet while
traveling but the largest group - about 42% of
those polled - use the RV parks' facilities.
Only about 9% of those polled
had used WiFi at an RV park up to the period
of this last poll. Generally speaking,
they liked this facility very much and hoped
it would become more widely available
quickly. Many people commented that they
were prepared to pay for this service as an
extra daily charge by the RV park.
You can see some of the
comments in the Roaming
Times' forum and in the information
sections listed below.
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