Network - Wireless & Wired Connections

[Miami_Son]

We plan to be traveling the country by RV for about a year, camping mostly in RV parks. Already know not to depend on their wifi for streaming, so we will have some kind of unlimited 4G hotspot access of our own. Since this will be our "network" the Roku and any streaming apps should recognize it as a static location, right? We're worried that some services may not work if they require a static "Home" location and we hope this will solve that issue. We also have 4G in our Suburban and HDMI input for the video system. Would love to be able to use the Roku in there so the wife can watch TV while I drive. Anyone done either of these things with their Roku and which streaming service best supports this? We're currently on PS Vue, but dumping that for Sling. Thanks.

[atc98092]

The Roku itself shouldn't have any issues RVing across the US. But each channel has their own geographical requirements. However, the Roku doesn't have a GPS, so it doesn't know where it is. As long as you're using a US carrier for your hotspot, there shouldn't be any issues. But there are a few apps/channels that require you to be connected to a particular ISP, such as a cable provider, and that you subscribe to a particular channel via cable. But that shouldn't be a problem with Sling. 

[Tajson]

"Miami Son" wrote:
We plan to be traveling the country by RV for about a year, camping mostly in RV parks. Already know not to depend on their wifi for streaming, so we will have some kind of unlimited 4G hotspot access of our own. Since this will be our "network" the Roku and any streaming apps should recognize it as a static location, right?

Yes, the Roku should be fine for RVing as along as you are not too close by any borders you will be considered in the US. There have been reports that the hotspot picked a Mexican cell tower/roaming from Texas and likewise with Canada but they are the odd situations.

Secondly, you need to make sure that you understand the terms of service with your unlimited 4G hotspot if you want to stream throughout the month. Depending on your plan for the hotspot and your provider, you will probably have between 10 gigabytes to 50 gigabytes of data service at 4G LTE before you could hit a couple of issues: 1) Hard speed cap where you will have 3G (200-600 Kbps) of unlimited data service until next billing cycle; 2) Data speed throttling where you will have lower speeds than you experienced earlier in the month; 3) Data deprioritization where your connection will be deprioritized behind other users of the cell tower; and 4) rarely but some plans do pause the data usage until next billing cycle.

The plans use the unlimited term about how much data you can consume but it does not refer to the speed you can expect through all of the data usage. (Well, except one current plan where it is data throttled at 5 Mbps and have data deprioritization from the start where you will have the same experience the first day of the billing cycle and last)

Fair warning: There are campgrounds without any cell signal from any major providers so bring local content for your Roku.

[Tajson]

"atc98092" wrote:
But there are a few apps/channels that require you to be connected to a particular ISP, such as a cable provider, and that you subscribe to a particular channel via cable. But that shouldn't be a problem with Sling. 

Yes, Sling will stream without an issue if you have a decent cell signal.

Some other channels will also require that your present is considered in the region of your billing zip code and they wil geocode for it, mostly the Sport channels tho. This will be described somewhere in the terms of service  and some do allow to flip once or twice a year for a summer residence etc.