Another off grid question

[63DH8]

I apologize for not putting this in the other post....

If you live off grid, what do you do about phone service. In both situations, I'm looking at a piece of land that there is no electricity or phone service for at least five miles. I'm looking at how practical owning and living on that land will be. The biggest positive thing about the land is the remoteness. I'm wondering how much of the cake I can have and eat it too.

edit: Almost forgot, no cellphone service in the area too.

 

[midlf]

Satellite phone service could be an option if you can afford it. I don't know if it would work but perhaps satellite internet with Vonage VOIP.

 

[RonMar]

Sattelite is an option such as Irridium or Inmarsat Mini-M. Both are expensive at around $1 per minute. We use both on the vessels I work with and they are ok for voice but are VERY limited on their data capacity due to their low bandwidth. That is how they keep the cost down, by using a low bandwidth low power sattelite channel.

You might check with the local telco provider in the area of the property. If it is rural, I bet they have worked on this type service problem before. Can you see the 5 miles to where the nearest phone service is located? If so, they may be able to offer a radio link phone system. Basically it is a miniature microwave setup. I worked with them a bit in alaska years ago and they worked pretty well considering how large a distance we were shooting them over. You will need line of site between the two antennas though. The specifics of the system involved would determine if data transmission would be capable over the system.

 

[MossRoad]

See if you could pick up cell service with an antenna on a tower. Or look into a cooperative with your neighbors. See if you can band enough people together to put a tower up at the horizon towards the nearest services. Ideas like that just take a little research.

 

[monkeymonk]

Sattelite phone/internet its pretty much the same as sattelite TV.the dish and hook up for internet and phone its around $1,100-900 for the initial hook up and round 50$ a month. The phone has a little delay at first when you call someone. You get unlimited min's with both phone and net.

Next option is a line of sight phone.(ronmar)You put an antenna up on a hill at you house and it points down to another tower round 2-8miles away thats hooked up to a hard line kinda like a land to sea phone. These phones have poor internet services (my experience) my family has had one for 16years and it works good for phone calls.

Theres also other options that are not FCC approved,but work good

Go with sattelite option its getting much better. cheaper and faster as well. Much faster than dial up anyhow

 

[Jimbrown]

Well I did for about two years untill the phone company laids some lines. Are you sure there is no cell phone? Just becuse one company does not cover the area does not mean that another one does not. The only that works at my house is nextel. Satellit is the next best I have Hugesnet for my internet it works just fine. You can do VOIP over it but it requires an upgraded service plan for it work well. would be about $80 a month my guess for the upgraded plan plus whatever for the VOIP. Personanly if I have internet and email I really don't care about the phone. You would be surprised how nice it is to not have the phone ringing.

 

[DANOCHEESE]

http://www.welcomehome.org/senecass/rob/domes/phone/

Check it out.

 

[George2615]

A friend of mine bought a place without phone service and no cell service. I climbed on his roof and had a weak signal on my cell so I went to a local radio service center and bought a small 6 element beam antenna, 30' of mast pole, 70' of low loss coax w/ end connectors, and an adapter to connect to his cell. Aimed the beam toward a known cell site and when hooked up had full strength signal on the cell. He used his cell for 4 years then the phone co. expanded service into his area and he got a regular phone line.

As far as power goes, solar is expensive to set up to run a house. Wind power is another option. Another friend who lives on a hill with constant wind has a wind powered unit that charges 2 banks of caterpillar type batteries which in turn are hooked to 2 separate inverters that supply 110V to run his garage and all house lighting but he does have local grid power for appliances. In a pinch he has been able to disconnect the local grid and run the whole house including appliances for 6 hrs. during power failures. A diesel generator would be the most economical for permanent power but still expensive. Or perhaps a combination of diesel and wind power?

 

[chucko]

why not internet phone trhough maybe a dishnetwork type system
you could do that little vonage dance in you underwear

 

[monkeymonk]

why not internet phone trhough maybe a dishnetwork type system
you could do that little vonage dance in you underwear

Thats right skype or something. You just need to read the fine print on some of these systems!

Blue goose is a very fast system the newest and fastest on the market.the only problem is the only internet phone system they let you use is AT&T and it costs about $25 extra dollars a month, so you might as well pay the extra and get the phone part.

My inlaws have another system last years latest system works well and you can use any system you wish for free

Im lucky the only service we have on the 8acre piece and surronding upper 5 miles of community is telephone, its a repeater system located next to the Forest Service lookout tower thats bounced from Etna to tower and down to a pickup pole on the river. Its one of the older type systems so it has its short comings.