Crawling out of the sleeping bag on a cool summer morning with the smell of sizzling bacon wafting from the skillet.
Grabbing that first cup of camp coffee and greeting the day by opening up your laptop to see if Wall Street is being kind to your stock portfolio.
Welcome to the new world of camping, where Internet access is almost as important as having enough firewood.
"It used to be that when campers would make reservations at an RV park they would ask if the park had water, electricity and sewer," said Kelly Hogan, CEO of Boise-based NomadISP. "But today it's water, electricity, sewer and Wi-Fi."
For Nomad, the call for the Internet in the wild has meant big money. Four years ago, it was one of the first companies to bring the Internet to RV parks and campgrounds. Now, having installed wireless Internet access in more than 300 parks, Nomad is on track to collect more than $1.2 million this year in revenue.
"One of my interns summed it up best when he said, `It's really cool. You can be in the woods and surfing the Web,'" Hogan said.
Nomad employs 12 people at its Boise headquarters. It is now one of the top companies that RV park and campground owners turn to when they want to bring the Internet to campers. The company recently landed a contract as a preferred provider of Internet access at KOA Kampgrounds of America.
"From our standpoint it has gotten to the point from not just being nice to have but necessary to have at our RV parks," said Daniel Freedman, an owner of the Hi Valley RV Park in Boise and Ambassador RV Park in Caldwell, Idaho. NomadISP's first installation was in 2002 at Hi Valley, Idaho.
Hogan spent much of his career working for big tech companies such as IBM and Oracle before arriving in the Treasure Valley in 1995 to work for Micron Electronics, which is now MPC Corp.
His inspiration for NomadISP was his inability to get high-speed Internet access from his home on Lake Harbor in Boise to his office across the lake. He fabricated a wireless microwave system to bring wireless Internet from his home to his office.
After that, Hogan started exploring a way to bring similar systems to remote areas.
Since the company sold its first product, its customer base has increased tenfold. Hogan sees more growth ahead. He estimates that only about 18 percent of the RV parks and campgrounds in the country are now connected to the Internet, and Nomad dominates 40 percent of that market.
A park with 100-150 sites spends $3,200 to $4,500 for equipment and pays $100 to $200 a month for service. That price can go up dramatically in larger parks. A 350-acre park in New Hampshire spent $25,000 on equipment, Hogan said.
Nomad stations trucks in key areas around the country. Employees from Boise fly to the areas and take the trucks to install or service systems.
In a 2006 KOA survey, 53 percent of campers said they brought their laptops camping, up from 32 percent in 2005.
"For us it's just become another amenity we like to offer to our campers," said C.J. Armstrong, a spokeswoman for the Billings, Mont.-based company.
Armstrong said about 80 percent of KOA's 450 campgrounds now have Wi-Fi access. Most parks include it in the nightly fee.
Freedman said a new generation of RV owners -- primarily baby boomers and young families -- has become accustomed to having Internet access no matter where they go.
"It's an important commodity," said Claudia Burnight, a year-round resident at the Ambassador RV Park in Caldwell, Idaho, who has been a full-time RVer for
four years. "I pay most of my bills on line, keep up with my banking and keep in touch with my family and friends."
She said some people have turned their RVs into mobile offices and need Internet access for their work.
Most demand for Wi-Fi is at large and high-end RV parks, but Hogan expects smaller parks will have to follow.
Idaho's state parks don't have Wi-Fi service, but Jennifer Wernex, a spokeswoman for Idaho Parks and Recreation, said some customers ask for it. She said the agency is looking into testing it in a park.
Bob Schneider, the newly elected president of the Treasure Valley Good Sam Club, based in Meridian, Idaho, said he brings his laptop along on every RV trip and looks for parks with Wi-Fi service.
"The ability to sit in your RV and surf the Internet, check e-mails and whatever else is a great convenience," he said.
Schneider said some parks charge too much for Wi-Fi. In March, Schneider said he took a trip to Nevada, where some parks charged up to $8 a day. Freedman, the Boise and Caldwell park owner, said short-term residents don't pay for access, but long-term residents pay $19.95 a month.
Hogan thinks parks eventually will have to provide the service at no extra charge. He said it's becoming more difficult to charge for a service that is free at so many locations. Hotels and coffee shops offer it free, and even some McDonald's have free access.
"The consumer has pretty much come to the conclusion that Internet access should be anywhere and free," he said.
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(c) 2007, The Idaho Statesman (Boise, Idaho). Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via News com. Photo © PaulPaladin - FOTOLIA
