Rural Cable and Internet

[JDgreen227]

$81 is pretty steep for DSL. Is that the phone and DSL? We used to pay about that for both, but my wife called them and asked for a discount. They knocked $10 off our bill. That was over a year ago, so we have saved more than a hundred dollars. Hate to pay it, but I don't think I could live without the net. We don't have cell phones, [thank the Good Lord] so our total for Dish-phone-internet is less than most.

Yeah....HAVE to pay for the phone line to get DSL....how else could I get it?

 

[Midniteoyl]

Neighbor is about 300 feet across the draw...

The pole is about 500' up the draw on his side and the way the road meanders... it is a fair distance to lay in a cable to me along the drive.

Olympia Washington Comcast said 2" conduit with access inervals and a upright box at my gate.

Neighbor has lines overhead and new country regs require buried and this is a huge part of the cost to my place.

So far the wireless has worked great when it works... problem is sometimes it needs to be reset and have no control over that other than a phone call to neighbor and hope their home.

Home is rented presently... Conduit would be a good project for me and my tractor if and when I move back.

Never lived in a home with cable or sat... just got DSL a few years ago for work and TBN and it gave ATT a headache getting it working in California because of the distance from Central Office.

Cable wanted $20K to run it 1/4 mile to my house.. crazy.

Anyways, was wondering if you were close enough to run Ethernet cable, but you are not. Well, barely for 100mbps which is 100meters. Your neighbor allowing you to tap into his wireless is very generous. Are you using directional antennas? As for resetting, the neighbor dont trust you enough for the router login so you could do it yourself?

 

[Midniteoyl]

$81 is pretty steep for DSL. Is that the phone and DSL? We used to pay about that for both, but my wife called them and asked for a discount. They knocked $10 off our bill. That was over a year ago, so we have saved more than a hundred dollars. Hate to pay it, but I don't think I could live without the net. We don't have cell phones, [thank the Good Lord] so our total for Dish-phone-internet is less than most.

That would be total for both. I was suppose to pay $60 for both, but with the phone 'add on fees' it comes out to $82.

 

[Alan L.]

I'd go for any DSL or cable over satellite for internet. For TV both services are reliable and will only go out in heavy rain, especially toward the south where the satellites are. Usually when it rains it does not go out and all but when it does it is only during the downpour. I had Directv for 10 or 12 years with virtually no trouble and Dish for 7 years with very little trouble from the signal itself - have had trouble with the HD DVRs which seem to crap out about once a year and have to be replaced (for free, but you lose the recorded programming that you have not archived to an external hard drive.

My internet comes off of ground base wireless - I have a dish mounted about 40' up my TV tower, pointed at a water tower about 7 miles away. Very dependable and works great, but I do pay about $57 a month including taxes.

 

[Midniteoyl]

Yeah....HAVE to pay for the phone line to get DSL....how else could I get it?

Actually, you NOT have to buy the phone service anymore. Congress said so a few years back. BUT, companies have decided to add a 'line maintenance' or 'line access' charge which basically makes it cost the same anyways... Phone companies are becoming the biggest rip-offs.

 

[Midniteoyl]

I'd go for any DSL or cable over satellite for internet. For TV both services are reliable and will only go out in heavy rain, especially toward the south where the satellites are. Usually when it rains it does not go out and all but when it does it is only during the downpour. I had Directv for 10 or 12 years with virtually no trouble and Dish for 7 years with very little trouble from the signal itself - have had trouble with the HD DVRs which seem to crap out about once a year and have to be replaced (for free, but you lose the recorded programming that you have not archived to an external hard drive.

My internet comes off of ground base wireless - I have a dish mounted about 40' up my TV tower, pointed at a water tower about 7 miles away. Very dependable and works great, but I do pay about $57 a month including taxes.

Dish was stupid and put the cooling fan on the bottom. You needed to put it on 1/2" or so blocks to get room for the cooling air. Now with the 700 series, they pull air from the right and blow out the left. You need to leave a good 8" or so on both sides. At the moment though, I have my cover loose and angled up in the rear with a 1" block to allow for better cooling.

 

[rich_ncal]

I am currently on AT&T DSL. The service is rated at 3MB/sec, but the speed tests results are about 2.0MB/sec. 2.0MB/sec is good enough for Netflix to stream at 720p. Sometimes Netflix drops to lower resolution, but most of the time it runs at 720p.

Next week I am upgrading to AT&T U-verse for DSL for the 6MB/sec service. Hopefully the new sevice will test above 5.0MB/sec. The upgrade was free and the new gateway is free. The monthly DSL bill will be $41/month with the new service, a $5 increase.

I am planning to cancel my DirecTV when my contact term ends. Then for TV I will have Netflix and the local channels over the antenna. I will miss a few of the DirecTV channels, but most of the channels are junk. Not worth the $70/month.

 

[dmccarty]

...
I am planning to cancel my DirecTV when my contact term ends. Then for TV I will have Netflix and the local channels over the antenna. I will miss a few of the DirecTV channels, but most of the channels are junk. Not worth the $70/month.

We canceled Directv last year and should have done it years ago. Complete waste of money. Between Amazon, Netflix and YouTube we have plenty to watch. Yesterday, we were laughing at old Carol Burnette shows on YouTube. The History Channel is on one of the streaming services we use but we have not watched it much since it went to reality programming. A pod cast I have listened too for years is now recording their shows and putting on YouTube. I really don't want to watch them since I do not want to know what the people looking life in real life but I don't think I will be able to resist watching them since they are adding video content that is interesting.

We have at best, 1.5 mbps down on DSL which stinks but it works well enough to stop paying for Directv and the $%^&*() they show. Cable/Directv has so many channels with nothing worth watching while paying for content that we never watch. Streaming is sooo much better, even with our unreliable DSL. The only way we would go back to cable or satellite, is if they allow us to pick the channels we want, and not pay more than $20 a month. I doubt that will ever happen.

Later,
Dan

 

[Midniteoyl]

We canceled Directv last year and should have done it years ago. Complete waste of money. Between Amazon, Netflix and YouTube we have plenty to watch. Yesterday, we were laughing at old Carol Burnette shows on YouTube. The History Channel is on one of the streaming services we use but we have not watched it much since it went to reality programming. A pod cast I have listened too for years is now recording their shows and putting on YouTube. I really don't want to watch them since I do not want to know what the people looking life in real life but I don't think I will be able to resist watching them since they are adding video content that is interesting.

We have at best, 1.5 mbps down on DSL which stinks but it works well enough to stop paying for Directv and the $%^&*() they show. Cable/Directv has so many channels with nothing worth watching while paying for content that we never watch. Streaming is sooo much better, even with our unreliable DSL. The only way we would go back to cable or satellite, is if they allow us to pick the channels we want, and not pay more than $20 a month. I doubt that will ever happen.

Later,
Dan

It wont happen.. FCC and Congress shut it down. No 'pick your channels'.

 

[PMA]

After my contract expires I am quitting direct tv. All these storms we having, it goes out, the other night when we got the 6 inches of rain, it stayed off for about 4 hours. I have been with direct since it was prime star. We can now get cable through the local telephone coop and it is cheaper. If not for the computer and iPhone we would be in the dark. It seems direct is getting worse, every thunderstorm it goes blank.

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