Fast Internet

[ultrarunner]

The Cube must have a better antenna because my previous work around when I needed to get something done was to place one cell in the dining room light fixture as a hot spot.

The Verizon cube also covers the entire house.

 

[oosik]

So.......there is a first time for everything. I'm on HughesNet because - no land line, no fiber optics, no cell active internet. It's Hughes OR nothing. Hmmmm......maybe smoke signals.

Last month I exceeded my allowed "Plan" gigabites. Look out the sky is falling. Many emails from Hughes - "you have to purchase tokens to get added gigabite service".

Ha, ha - so for the last week I was on "restricted service". Know what - there was not a DAMN bit of difference between being "on" the plan or being "on" restricted service.

The upload speed and download speed was exactly the same - either way - restricted or not.

I know - HughesNet is not blazing fast. But it's sure fast enough to get the job done here.

I sure don't need the blazing fast speed of fiber optics when I only type 30 wpm.

 

[gsganzer]

I'm in internet no-man's land. For years I had a line-of-sight radio internet antenna that beamed to a repeater on a neighbors barn, to an antenna 6 miles away. It just got slower and slower as the company added more customers. It eventually got to the point that it was barely functional.

Now I use an AT&T brick. It's better and we can usually stream, but it's still not ideal.

My wife is looking to go back to work and is searching for a "work from home" or hybrid project management position. It's interesting that some of the positions will actually list your required internet speeds. Ours is fast enough to attend an on-line meeting. But it's marginal to be able to be the presenter for a meeting. Typically, when I have to present a meeting for my work, I don't take any chances and I go to a nearby Hampton Inn that lets me jump on their internet, because I'm a Hilton Diamond member.

I'm looking for what my next option is and I'm considering looking into Starlink. At least I can write off the internet as part of my business.

 

[EddieWalker]

My wife works from home as a teacher at the University. Most of her work is through emails, but at least once a week, and sometimes more often, she has to do Zoom meetings. For our internet to allow that to happen, we have to turn off all the other computers, pads and laptops that connect to the net. And we unplug the ROKU and Alexa.

We're on Skynet Country out of Gladewater TX, which is a small town about a dozen miles away. We have an antenna that points that way towards a tower that we cannot see, but it's where they have something that receives and sends out the internet. After a big storm its not uncommon for them to be offline for awhile. For $100 a month, it's the best option we've found so far.

Supposedly we're at 25 mb/sec. Whatever that means. The lady that we talked to said that's the fastest available to us at our location, but there is a faster plan available for $20 more a month that's twice as fast.

Skynet high Speed Internet | Wifi Service & Broadband in East Texas

Skynet is the largest wireless high speed internet service provider in East Texas. Dependable home broadband and home wifi service or rural areas

www.skynetcountry.com

 

[ponytug]

My wife works from home as a teacher at the University. Most of her work is through emails, but at least once a week, and sometimes more often, she has to do Zoom meetings. For our internet to allow that to happen, we have to turn off all the other computers, pads and laptops that connect to the net. And we unplug the ROKU and Alexa.

We're on Skynet Country out of Gladewater TX, which is a small town about a dozen miles away. We have an antenna that points that way towards a tower that we cannot see, but it's where they have something that receives and sends out the internet. After a big storm its not uncommon for them to be offline for awhile. For $100 a month, it's the best option we've found so far.

Supposedly we're at 25 mb/sec. Whatever that means. The lady that we talked to said that's the fastest available to us at our location, but there is a faster plan available for $20 more a month that's twice as fast.

Skynet high Speed Internet | Wifi Service & Broadband in East Texas

Skynet is the largest wireless high speed internet service provider in East Texas. Dependable home broadband and home wifi service or rural areas

www.skynetcountry.com

For perspective, 25Mbits/s is on the high end of DSL, and the low end of a point to point wireless, like you have. With point to point, it is all line of sight, so distance, terrain, and the company's equipment dictate speed. The fact that they don't offer you something faster suggests to me that either they are happy not to upgrade their equipment, or they can't get a great view of your place, and know that equipment won't make a difference without large investments.

If you want something faster, you might want to give Starlink a try, 100/10Mbits/sec (down/up) though usually faster in many areas. Video presentations are not an issue. Will it work during a hurricane? Maybe, maybe not. There is a whole thread here, if you are interested.

All the best,

Peter

 

[riptides]

It is not only speed to worry about. It is actual connectivity and stability of the connection.

Good signal strengths all the time is better than fast speed and drop outs.

I rely on stability first, including all weather conditions at the best and worst.

 

[Oaktree]

HughesNet is not blazing fast. But it's sure fast enough to get the job done here.

I sure don't need the blazing fast speed of fiber optics when I only type 30 wpm.

We had Wildblue for the first 6 or 7 years we lived here. You're right, it's not very fast, I think on a good day we might have gotten 300K down, and something considerably slower up (yes, that's kilobits, not megabits). Streaming wasn't really a thing back then but for just email/web surfing it was OK. Latency was horrible, and was very much affected by the weather.
When Time-Warner cable came thru in the early teens we jumped on it. Timing was perfect, Wildblue was becoming Excede and was switching to a new satellite or something which would have required getting new equipment and a new 2 year contract, only one year of which was price-protected. A 3-way bundle (internet, phone and basic cable tv) was cheaper than what we paid for Wildblue and phone company landline.

Supposedly we're at 25 mb/sec. Whatever that means. The lady that we talked to said that's the fastest available to us at our location, but there is a faster plan available for $20 more a month that's twice as fast.

When we first got cable in 2013, that was about the speed we got, though it has increased over the years since. That speed was adequate for anything we needed to do, including streaming.

There is a wireless ISP in our general area, though I don't think we're where there's a clear enough signal. Likewise, cell service here is iffy. Very hilly/mountainous here.

 

[newbury]

I'm in internet no-man's land.

We're on Skynet Country out of Gladewater TX, which is a small town about a dozen miles away

Both of you seem to be prime candidates for Starlink. Unless your local govt can get in on the honeypot of federal/state funds for rural internet that last mile of fiber is EXPENSIVE.

 

[Torvy]

@EddieWalker. I'll second what Newbury said. Starlink isn't perfect, but it is considerably faster than any other wireless option. We have no indoor phone signal, but use the wifi from Starlink for that. A few dropped calls. Like any internet, it can lose connection with power flickers as it resets.

We can stream movies, music, games and whatever simultaneously. Wife used it her last couple of weeks at work for zoom/teams meetings.

Only other drawbacks would be cost and waiting to get your equipment.

 

[CliffordK]

I've been tethering off of T-Mobile for a while now. On paper it seemed good. However, the phone periodically jumps from 4Gs to 5Gs to Zero Gs.

It is pretty extraordinary if I go into town and can download a couple hundred megs to the phone in a matter of minutes when it might take hours at home.

I think there are better land line options at home now, and I may try either Cable or DSL again.