Product Evaluation Policies

Thank you for your interest in having your mobile internet related product included on the Mobile Internet Resource Center. We are a top trusted source of unbiased information about mobile internet for mobile consumers like RVers, cruisers and nomads.

We are a completely independent educational, news and information source for the niche topic. We take absolutely no monetary compensation from manufacturers or vendors so that we can remain as unbiased as possible on our assessment of a product offering.

Our Product Inclusion Policy

We are super focused on mobile internet products and services that are a fit for USA based nomads. Examples would include cellular data mobile hotspots, mobile routers, cellular signal enhancing equipment, WiFi extending gear, satellite internet and bandwidth management.

We attempt to be inclusive of all options available to mobile consumers in a wide range of price ranges and feature sets. And we try to be unbiased about any product, and instead report on the features, benefits, trade-offs and realities of a product and its suitability for different approaches to RVing.

It is not necessary to send us an evaluation unit to be included in our public News Feed or be added to our Gear Center. We attempt to cover all relevant news with our readers.

Our general criteria for including gear in our resources include:

• Consumer accessible - must be available for direct purchase in the USA by consumers, either directly from the manufacturer or via online vendors. While there are many products available ranging from DIY to Enterprise, we are focused on packaged and supported products designed for consumer or prosumer level.
• US focused / certified - if certifications are required for the class of product, it must be certified for use and sale in the USA. If certifications are not needed, the product must have relevance in the USA market - such as covering frequency bands used by the USA cellular carriers. 
• Mobile internet specific - we only cover products that are focused on mobile use for RVs, boats and other vehicles. While residential products and general consumer electronics (like smarphones, laptops, tablets, etc.) can be used in a mobile environment, we don't focus on them.

Our Product Evaluation Policy

If a product is likely to have an appeal to our members, we may wish to receive an evaluation unit to put into testing. Acceptance of an evaluation unit is dependent upon the relevance to our audience, how unique it is given similar options we have tested and our own open time for putting products into evaluation. 

We make no promises as to how much hands on time or visibility any product we receive will be given. Our goal is to provide our premium members relevant feedback they need to make informed decisions, and product reviews is not a primary focus of our resource center. 

Here is the possibility visibility you can expect from us when you provide your product for inclusion in our testing arsenal:

• Public Inclusion - If your product is new to the market or has a substantial upgrade, we may decide to do a First Look video and News Brief style article. If appropriate, it may be included in our Gear Center. We may also include mentions of us having your product in our testing hands wherever it is a natural fit - such as relevant articles, forum replies and news announcements. Your product may also receive extra attention in our content when they are used as 'props' in our informative videos and written articles.
• Member Deep Dives - We provide more indepth product analysis exclusively to our premium members. They're who pay for our time to evaluate products. As we are evaluating your product, we share hands on testing notes in our forums - and after we've enough experience to share, we will provide summarized analysis in our Gear Center. If we have concerns about your product's functionality, we will do our best to contact you first for response (or possible exchange if we received a defective product) before publishing. We do not publish our analysis or hands on testing notes to the public, or provide public reviews. 
• Product Feedback - If you desire feedback on your product based on our utilization of it, we will be happy to provide a complimentary quick private general overview to your company. However, we can not offer extensive feedback, marketing advice or analysis.
• Vendors - If you are a vendor for a product you are providing us, we will always include a link to your store, and mention you as the company who has so graciously supported this resource center. If you want to offer a special discount code to our readers to encourage their business, we do allow this (and we accept no kickbacks for it.) As our readers & members tend to make purchases based on reputation - this goes a long way to many of them that you support us, and indirectly, them. However, we do list other places we trust that our readers can purchase the same product - we do not give exclusive listings to any vendor.
• No promotions - We are an independent new source, and do not advertise or promote your product specifically. But we do our best to make sure your product is visible to our readers in a number of authentic ways, particularly if it lives up to its marketing claims.
• No Endorsements - Any statement we provide about your product may not be used as an endorsement in your marketing material. You may not use our logo, branding or team member names without our expressed permission. 

Return of Your Product

We consider any products sent to us for evaluation to be on extended loan. 

• We need extensive hands-on time with your product to provide feedback to our readers. We test in a variety of situations, and it may take many months for our team to give a product a proper evaluation.
• We regularly re-test products as we receive new entries into our testing arsenal. This ensures your product continues to receive mentions in future articles we write. If we receive a similar product later and don't have yours anymore, we can not continue to conduct head-to-head testing reports that include your product.
• As you release new firmware patches, we test them - so that we can report on them and provide feedback to our readers.
• Our premium members have a wide variety of products in their hands. We're sometimes a first line of support in diagnosing potential problems. If we have your product onboard, we can actually reduce your support load by having immediate access to your product.
• We regularly create instructional content in the form of written guides and videos, and utilize the products we have on hand for 'props'. This gives you an opportunity for authentic and unpaid product placement in our content.

If you have intentions of us returning your product back in a certain amount of time, please be very upfront about this so that we can make sure we get as much hands-on time as we can with it before returning it. It also impacts the way we go about installing your product for evaluation - temporary installations actually make it MORE difficult for us to conduct testing.

After we feel we have gotten sufficient hands on time with your product, or it is no longer something we need to continue to keep around - we will offer to return it at your expense. If the version of your product we have in our arsenal becomes obsolete and you have provided us a new model, we can either return the old one to you or offer it to our members on a donation to charity basis.

If you do not want your product back, we then offer your product to our premium members in exchange for a donation to a charity or cause of their choice. We do not resell equipment or profit from it. 

Our Reach and Demographics

As of January 2022, the Mobile Internet Resource Center has over 250,000 page views a month, nearly 55k members of our public Facebook discussion group where we cross post news articles & provide casual feedback, 5000 paid premium members who rely on mobile internet (most join specifically to get unbiased purchasing advice) and over 5000 subscribers to our monthly public newsletter. We also post mobile internet related content on YouTube, where we have over 65k subscribers and 200,000+ views a month.

Our audience is a highly targeted demographic in a very niche topic about RVers who need to keep connected.