Internet in the Country

[Fastowl]

I don't think it's been mentioned, but DishNET I think is actually HughesNET, or at least uses there satellite and some of the equipment has Hughes name. Exceed (don't think spelling is right) is also (I think) either a HughesNET company or at least leases there satellite. So, even though there are 3 or 4 company's "competing" it may all be one company.

I used to have Starband at the ranch. Speed got to the point that it was equal or less than dialup. Switched to Dish about 18 months ago. Better speed but still slow. When I signed Dish told in eastern U S they ran on a dedicated Dish satellite. In south and west Texas they still piggyback on a Hughes satellite and they could not provide the same speed as what ads claimed. If I still wanted it on those terms I could proceed. I did and it was better than my old service but it is still slow. They said sometime in the future they would have their own satellite to cover our area with more speed...still waiting.

No option for DSL where we are (we have a Verizon fiber line into the ranch but too far from a repeater) and the only cell phone that works there is AT&T and it is spotty. So I guess we qualify to be almost beyond the middle of nowhere.

I still research from time to time setting up my own line of sight service from the nearest town about 8-10 miles away as the crow flies but there are some hills in the way. Anyone on here ever set up there own system to go from cable and then to a wireless to cover that distance?

 

[CowboyRon]

I was wondering about the new FCC regulations, and how this would affect broadband in rural areas.
In the old days of the landline phones there was a tax. This tax supposedly went towards building phone lines in rural areas. Do any of y'all think this will happen with broadband?
I currently have a 1.5 dsl from century link. I can stream movies good with my roku as long as no one else is on the Xbox or web browsing.

 

[dirt ditch]

With the new regulations I bet all of us will be paying a new tax for Internet service.

In the past we had Wildblue. It worked but the download limit sucked. We are now on a local wireless system. $49 a month for 6 gig download speed.

 

[paulharvey]

So, I figured I would give an update on my adventures in satellite internet. The Dishnet got terrible as time went by. We would use up the 10 gigs in about 3 weeks, and what was funny, if you bought up an additional 1 gig, it would only last a day, and that was with out connecting to any devices. Finally got so sick of it, we bought out of contract ($200) and went back to Windstream, who has upgraded switches and all in area. They advertise $39.99 or $29.99/month, but it works out to like $70/month. It worked great for first two weeks, and now Every time it rains, we loose Internet for the rest of the day, and then got to reset modem the next day.... it's DSL, so it's got to be wet wires on their part...

 

[MMagis]

I apologize if I’m mentioning something that has already been discussed, I didn’t ready every post. But has anyone tried the options available through Verizon? I’ve had the MiFi mobile internet for about 4 years now, and it’s fairly decent. It runs $50/month for 5 gig, so it certain limits video viewing. But at the time it was my only option to upgrade from the dial up I had. The downside is that it’s super fast one day, and much slower the next. They have a new option now, which provides 4G internet at all times. It’s $60/month for 10 gigs. They’ll be setting it up on Friday, but my neighbor has it and has been very happy with it

 

[RedNeckGeek]

I apologize if I’m mentioning something that has already been discussed, I didn’t ready every post. But has anyone tried the options available through Verizon? I’ve had the MiFi mobile internet for about 4 years now, and it’s fairly decent. It runs $50/month for 5 gig, so it certain limits video viewing. But at the time it was my only option to upgrade from the dial up I had. The downside is that it’s super fast one day, and much slower the next. They have a new option now, which provides 4G internet at all times. It’s $60/month for 10 gigs. They’ll be setting it up on Friday, but my neighbor has it and has been very happy with it

Please let us know how you like the new Verizon service.

From my experience with the aptly named Exede satellite internet, 10Gb data cap isn't at all difficult to exceed. In fact I just had to purchase another Gb, and there are still several days left in my billing period.

 

[KiotiKowboy]

I looked at my cable Internet statement to check my average usage. It runs just over 100GB per month.

As I am about to move into the country in a few months, this topic is of some importance. It seems most of the satellite solutions have SEVERE data restrictions, so I'm looking for a good solution.

 

[TripleR]

We had Hughes.net for years and occasionally ran out of data, but we never came close when we went to Gen4. Service was acceptable except in rain and the cost high. About a month ago, we found a line of sight radio repeater we could access. We save $30 a month with acceptable speed 3Mgps and no data limit. It is a local business without even a website; purely by luck the guy noticed our house from the highway and stopped in.

 

[kcflhrc]

Internet for rural America is going to change a whole lot in the not too far future.

Today, CenturyLink reconfirmed our commitment to rural America by accepting 33 statewide offers from the Federal Communications Commission to deliver fast broadband speeds to more than 1.2 million locations through the Connect America Fund (CAF). CAF is designed to accelerate the build-out of broadband to rural areas – where the costs of deploying service are high – through financial partnerships with broadband companies. By accepting approximately $500 million a year for seven years from CAF, CenturyLink will be able to bring Internet service with speeds of at least 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload to more than a million people who do not currently have the broadband access that many of us enjoy today.

 

[MMagis]

I looked at my cable Internet statement to check my average usage. It runs just over 100GB per month.

As I am about to move into the country in a few months, this topic is of some importance. It seems most of the satellite solutions have SEVERE data restrictions, so I'm looking for a good solution.

Do you watch movies/TV over the internet? We use the internet a good bit, but have never used more than 6 gigs. But, because I know I have a limit, we don’t watch videos and such. Your options are going to be completely dependent on the exact area you live. If I had the need for 100 gigs of usage per month, I think I’d be out of luck. Someone a few miles away would have no problem. I know the owner of a local tech services business with the ability/desire to set up wireless-high speed rural cable in my area. In our case, there’s someone with the water company that doesn’t want to lease him a spot on the tower for the satellite. But in a lot of rural areas this is an option, but one you’ll have to search for locally.