Wandering Wifi

[mandadawn]

I have been trying to get on WiFi for the past hour at a Flying J and the Wandering Wifi system seems to be down. I keep getting a weird log-in page and when I log in, it says they're having trouble redirecting me to the log-in page and to try again in a few minutes.

Is anyone else having this problem? I sent them an email on their website and they're supposed to be giving me a call/email about it soon. I paid $20 for a month and I'm not going to be happy if I lose a day because of this. (I already think it's ridiculous that they charge you for continuous usage because hey, we can't park at a Pilot/Flying J every day.)

UPDATE: I had my husband contact customer service (since he's the one who pays for it, lol) and they told him that it's an issue with Flying J and that they're trying to get it fixed. Also, if it comes up with a weird log-in screen don't log in because it won't work. Basically they said that log-in screen shows that this location isn't connected to WiFi for whatever reason and they called the store to troubleshoot and are waiting for a call back. Hope they hurry! BUT they also said they're giving us an extra day of WiFi since we've lost so much of this one and that they will give us another day for each day it's disabled (we're here till Monday morning). All in all, I'm pretty satisfied with their customer service!

 

[tknight]

dont even get me started on the rip off wandering wi fi system that the truck stops tout as a great deal, the systems basically are marginal , you need to be directly in front of the antennas and they at best only broadcast 30' or so, the contractors that are hired are clueless as what is needed when installing these **** poor cheap pos antennas, the main problem is height, they install them low to the roof top line, causing a very poor broadcast range, it sometimes is not much higher than a truck passing by, some of the so called wifi hot spots are located on the roof of the fuel island, and they are forever falling out of adjustment, just look at them some day, the wandering folks, well, basically useless, they love the money with nothing, nada in the way of customer service,

I was just at petro bordentown, and all the front spaces have now been converted to vip parking, so the internet isn't available anywhere else, in their lot, the antenna on the roof of the service building, well, it's also worthless as signal drops off 40' out into the main driveway, if your lucky enough to get signal, it drops off every time a truck drives into the path, which if you know that stop, its very busy.

one of these days wandering might just care about taking our hard earned money and look into fixing this, they can ask me as i'm a very tech person and can spot headaches instantly, you need full bars of service if you want it to work, and then its still up to traffic driving and reflecting the signal off into outer space.

I've gotten wifi from nearby hotels with more signal than standing 30' away at a truck stop from their systems. I paid for a year at both pilot and ta for their services, none of which i've got any praise for, they all stink! I get lucky now and then, but it's a rare thing,
If they cared they would also put up an antenna so the our front parking can get it also.

they need to invest in umbrella antennas and mount them on the light poles above and over head, they also need to use stronger repeaters, so the problem isn't going to happen with weak signal,
Ive spent a lot of time wandering the parking lots looking for strong signal, then staking out a place to park, and watching for a truck to leave, even then its still not reliable,

so, thats my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

[Turtle]

Part of the problem is also their use of outdated 802.11b routers, which already have severely limited broadcast range. Even the few locations with 802.11n (none that I know of have 802.11ac) are configured to be backwards compatible with b and g devices. Very few locations have separate routers for b, g, and n networks. When someone connects to an 801.11n router with an 802.11b device, the entire router drops its speed to that of the slower b network.

At the house I've got a dual band router with one band set to 802.11ac-only and the other band set to 802.11n-only. And there's another router I have set to 802.11g only. Anyone visiting with an 802.11b device is out of luck, the 802.11g devices won't even see the n and ac routers. This keep both the range and the bandwidth at the maximum.

I gave up on paying for WiFi a long time ago. I just use my smartphone tethered to the laptop (grandfathered in on unlimited data) or I'll use free WiFi every now and then. A lot of the PFJ Denny's locations have their own, free WiFi. Many of the Wendy's and McDonalds locations do, too, especially those that aren't owned by PFJ.

 

[mandadawn]

I HAVE noticed that their service is super slow sometimes but I usually can get good signal. I only buy it at Pilot/Flying J because we don't fuel at TA or Petrols so we rarely stop there. It's slow but with the way we burn through our cell phone data, it's worth it. I like the ones that have multiple connections because there's usually at least ONE with decent speed.

Also, the problem is FINALLY resolved. We got two days worth of credit because it literally JUST started working. Apparently the notes on my account said they tried to call the Flying J yesterday but they told them they were too busy to worry about it. Called again this morning and they said that when they called they had nobody working who could troubleshoot the router and to call back in an hour or two. I was about to give them a third call when I tried to get on one last time... and it worked, finally. So I'm thinking this is more the J's fault than theirs, this time at least.

 

[aquitted]

I have a high gain magnetic mount antenna I bought at a computer store at home it has one piece that plugs into the side of the computer then the antenna plugs into it. It has a 10' cord. Doesn't make it faster really but you get full signal plus others you might be able to use from anywhere in the parking lot.

 

[paidtourist]

I've tried the PFJ wifi, and to put it nicly, IT SUCKS. I drive a CV and sometimes park where I could throw a rock and hit the ant. And God forbid if I want to watch a news clip. I called them once while at the FJ southside of Indy, he told me that the technolgy did not exist to work well in a truck stop. After a stupid comment like that I did'nt take the time to argue with him. Wandering Wifi does not care, Period. But seems like since PFJ's name is all over the sign in pages. They would do something. Or start looking another carrier. So my guess is they dont care either

 

[aquitted]

Incase anyone wants to know the wifi antenna i use is made by INTELLINET it's a foot tall and is on a magnetic mount and swivels. it has a 7db gain and cost $38.00 model 524018. You also need a $35.00 adapter to plug the antenna into then you plug the adapter into the usb port. This antenna really boosts the truckstop wifi signal and other wifi.