Bad Wi-Fi is the second most common complaint at independent parks, and the most expensive complaint to fix the wrong way. Parks pay their ISP more and the speed test still shows 4 megabits at site 22. They buy a stronger router and the speed test still shows 4 megabits. The cause is almost never the source bandwidth. The cause is distribution. One or two access points trying to cover a 60-site park, mounted low, behind metal-sided RVs, with no captive portal to control per-camper usage. This article is the working plan that actually fixes it.
The source bandwidth math (do this first)
Plan for 5 to 8 megabits per occupied site as a baseline for a guest using two streaming devices. A 100-site park at 70 percent occupancy is 70 active sites times 6 megabits = 420 megabits required at the source. The ISP plan should provide that, symmetrical, with low jitter. The asymmetric cable plans that park owners often start with (500 down, 50 up) become the bottleneck as soon as video calls and uploads start in the evening. Symmetric fiber is the only ISP plan that actually scales to a busy park.
If symmetric fiber is not available in the area, two cable plans bonded together with a load balancer is the second-best path. Asymmetric cable alone produces the experience that drives the complaints.
Access point spacing is the real fix
One access point per six to eight sites is the planning number that produces Wi-Fi guests actually use. Mounted at least 12 feet above grade. Clear line of sight to each served site. Backhauled by Ethernet cable in conduit (or fiber on long runs). The common failure point we observe is one AP mounted inside the office, behind drywall, attempting to cover everything. Indoor APs do not project through metal RVs. Walls, trees, and aluminum siding all block 2.4 and 5 GHz signal completely.
| Mounting that works | Mounting that does not |
|---|---|
| Top of utility poles at quarter-section spacing. | Inside the office (signal blocked by walls). |
| Top of tall pedestals at row endpoints. | Low under tree canopy. |
| Sides of large buildings (laundry, bathhouse, store). | On a bathhouse roof in the middle of a metal-RV row. |
| Dedicated 16-foot sched-40 poles between site clusters. | Anywhere the antenna does not see the served sites. |
Backhaul: cable beats wireless almost every time
Every access point needs an uplink back to the main internet gateway. Three options, in order of preference. Cat6 in conduit is the cheapest per access point, the most reliable, and the fastest. Trench work is real but a one-time cost. Fiber with media converters is the right choice for runs longer than 100 meters, which most parks of any size have at least a few of. Point-to-point wireless backhaul (the bridges that beam 5 GHz between two dishes) is the fastest to deploy when trenching is not feasible, and it works well, but it is sensitive to line of sight and weather in ways that cable is not.
The mistake we see most often is APs back-hauled over Wi-Fi to a central AP. That doubles the wireless congestion in the air at every step and produces the same complaint at the new APs that you had at the old one. Wired backhaul is the discipline that makes everything else work.
Captive portal: the control that produces the perceived speed
The captive portal is the login screen guests see when they connect. It does three things that drop most of the complaints. It limits per-device bandwidth (5 megabits down, 2 up is the standard guest tier; offer a premium tier at 25 down for a small daily fee). It enforces a daily data cap (5 gigabytes per device prevents one camper saturating the link with a Steam download). It blocks the worst content categories (torrents, IPTV piracy, common malware) which are responsible for the lion's share of abuse traffic on most park networks.
Field note: Use the booking confirmation number as the captive portal login. The guest already has it. There is no separate password to lose. Each booking gets a fixed device count (4 devices is reasonable) and the cap resets at the next booking. This single change drops unauthorized neighbor and visitor usage to near zero, which makes the bandwidth feel twice as fast without changing any infrastructure.
Free template: site survey and AP plan worksheet (PDF)
The PDF below is the planning worksheet we use with parks. Source bandwidth math, AP layout principles, backhaul comparison, per-AP placement sheet for up to 10 APs, captive portal configuration checklist. Fill in before you buy hardware. The 30 minutes of planning saves four times that in cable runs and redo work.
About the author
Sean Hakes is the founder of Campground Management. He has spent the last decade walking park Wi-Fi installations with a signal-strength meter and a clipboard. Send him a note if you want a hand planning the upgrade for your park.
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