Rural Internet & Cell Phones

[PuffyC]

Texting annoys me especially customers ahead of me at the hairdresser who have to pull out their phone when it beeps, makes the wait longer and I would put money on it that the message is not even important.

That is annoying. It really aggravates me in-store as well when it's just a phone call. I've been in countless places with money in handing trying to buy something and the 2 employees they have are totally consumed talking to people on the phone. How about dealing with the customers that are there before even answering? Or maybe if it's that important hire someone to work your phones?

check out Star link.
Hughs net frustrates a lot of people because they get the cheapest service but even if you get their top o the line uoploading is dead slow.
Starlink gets 100 to 500 Mbps both ways
Problem with starlink is they have no customer service not even a phone number. It's all low altitude satellites and they aren't good ones.

I pay $150 a month for HughsNet and half the time it is only useable for very basic stuff like streaming a low res show or surfing a web page. The other half of the time it's not usable at all. Like literally not usable. But they're the only game in town so we just let them do and charge whatever they want, consumers be damned. I'd gladly pay 3 times what Starlink costs if it meant I could get true high speed Internet that worked.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

That is annoying. It really aggravates me in-store as well when it's just a phone call. I've been in countless places with money in handing trying to buy something and the 2 employees they have are totally consumed talking to people on the phone. How about dealing with the customers that are there before even answering? Or maybe if it's that important hire someone to work your phones?

I once got so frustrated at a woman taking phone calls while I was waiting to buy something that I walked around the counter and started to run the cash register myself. That got their attention. I told her I was the customer with money in my hand, and didn't like someone who wasn't even there cutting in front of me in line, and there was a reason they put a hold button on her phone.

They threw me out. <shrug> I did it so the next guy wouldn't have to put up with that crap.

When I was working, we had a "No Cell Phones" sign at the front counter. If someone answered the phone while we were waiting on them, they went to the back of the line. If someone answered a cell phone in a meeting, the meeting was over.

 

[Raul-02]

'd gladly pay 3 times what Starlink costs if it meant I could get true high speed Internet that worked.

check 'em out. They have a high up front buy in cost. You pay for some special gear.

 

[PuffyC]

check 'em out. They have a high up front buy in cost. You pay for some special gear.

I've been on the waiting list for at least a year now

 

[Whawkins]

Well I grew up in country the age of rotary dial phones & ungodly expensive long distance charges, TVs with rabbit ears and only 2 channels. The radio station us kids listened to went off the air from dusk till dawn.

I now live near a big city, and carry 2 cell phones!! One from my employer and my own. They force their way into every aspect of life.

A few years from now, I will be retiring and moving back to the country to a piece of land I own that has no cell phone service and no over the air TV signal. It will be an adjustment, but one I am looking forward to. We will have internet, and therefore WiFi, which modern cell phones can use for nearly everything and if I really want to, I can put up powerful WiFi booster antennas to cover most of my property enabling cell phoneuse, but why?? I will be retired & no longer be paid to carry around someone else's cell phone. Also, being retired, I can claim to know everything so will not need the internet to google answers to everything!!

 

[Torvy]

Well I grew up in country the age of rotary dial phones & ungodly expensive long distance charges, TVs with rabbit ears and only 2 channels. The radio station us kids listened to went off the air from dusk till dawn.

I now live near a big city, and carry 2 cell phones!! One from my employer and my own. They force their way into every aspect of life.

A few years from now, I will be retiring and moving back to the country to a piece of land I own that has no cell phone service and no over the air TV signal. It will be an adjustment, but one I am looking forward to. We will have internet, and therefore WiFi, which modern cell phones can use for nearly everything and if I really want to, I can put up powerful WiFi booster antennas to cover most of my property enabling cell phoneuse, but why?? I will be retired & no longer be paid to carry around someone else's cell phone. Also, being retired, I can claim to know everything so will not need the internet to google answers to everything!!

Reminded me of my youth. Our local radio station was the same. It was managed by my best man's dad and my other groomsman had a evening gig there playing music in the summer...sunset was about 5-6 hours later in summer up north. I spent a lot of free time at the station. Rotary phone had a very long cord....I had 2 older sisters....haha. TV was always bad reception. We were 90 miles away from the nearest station and in a valley.

 

[Jstpssng]

Most areas of the US have at least voice cell phone service, and you have to get pretty far from the interstate to not get enough data for email and messaging. This assumes you're using ATT or Verizon. Some of the discount carriers, you're lucky if you can browse the web even in large cities. I guess you get what you pay for.

My rural telco is building out fiber as part of the government's rural broadband initiative. I get faster home internet than most people in major cities can get. Before that it was DSL and usable but not great. I would not have bought property where I couldn't get at least decent internet service.

My employer had Verizon for years. I would go for weeks at a time without seeing more than two bars on my phone... normally it was less. For a while their data had better coverage, but after a couple of years that tapered off. About 2 years ago they switched back to USCellular, a company I'd had for years with great cell coverage. Not anymore though... I don't know what's changed but if not for a booster the phone would be just so much dead weight.

 

[kcflhrc]

I literally couldn't do my job without my phone. My Dispatch App and everything I need to do my job is on that phone. It is a necessary evil for me.

 

[ratpie]

Just keep in mind that the T-Mobile 5G Home Internet for us rural folks is not going to be 5G in the near future. It will connect to 4G LTE with the appropriate downgrade in speeds. You literally have to be within 1500 feet of a 5G Tower to connect to that band and that aint gonna happen anytime soon in the rural world. Can you imagine a tower every 1500' in the rural areas how many they would need? About as feasible as fiber to rural areas and about as cost effective. Just because T-Mobile's site says it's available you should read the fine print that says if 5G not available will connect at 4G.

seriously?

none of your statement is true.

1. att and verizon are not using 600mhz for their 5g. i explained that, if you would have read my entire post.
2. t-mobile developed 5g for a higher capacity bandwidth that carries more data at a farther distance. it does this by "lengthening" the frequency wave of the transmission. then they tune that wave into the old UHF tv system that they have registered with the FCC.
3. 4g LTE isn't downgraded. the frequency wave can only carry 1.3 Gb of data.
4. 1500 ft? just stop... i live 10 miles from my closest 5g tower.


please educate yourself, before you spread any more inaccurate information. because of consumer ignorance, att and verizon can advertise that they have 5g.

 

[ratpie]

There is so much of this is advertising hype. Is there anywhere I can get a good basic explanation of the difference in systems available? For my own understanding I need some basic information. I'm from an older generation. My mind works best with explanations that are grounded in science rather than populr advertising .

For example, what is a Big B?? as in, " 250 to 400 GB (that's a big B) of data each month."
I think of B as being a symbol for byte, which in turn is a n string of 8 bits of information.

If TMobile has a clear frequency "base" in the 600 mHz band, that makes sense to me. Higher frequency obviously means faster data. What is the span of their base? And what do ATT and Verison do that is different? And why does only TMobile have such a base?

And how does any of this help us rural people? Our internet comes in on the telephone line and we convert it to an in-house network. Everyone I know does the same. Most have satellite for TV, but not for internet.
I have no idea what our speed is, but that is something I am curious about. How to easily check it?

rScotty

small b is a bit, big B is a byte. there are 8 bits in 1 Byte. the cable and phone guys have tried to water down the Gigs of data by using b instead of B. that way they can offer smaller bandwidth packs and not upgrade their networks. a 4g mobile phone can transfer at a speed of 1.3 Gb/s. that's 1300 mega bits of data every second. if you actually look at the marketing flyers and adds, i'll bet it's 200 to 400 Gb, or they just say Gigs. and the omission is deliberate.

here is a great old article (2017) that touches on what i was saying earlier. T-Mobile's New 600MHz Band 71: What You Need to Know

and here is a clip another band-aid fix, by att and verizon, to say they can compete with t-mobile's network. even though they are not using band 71. AT&T and Verizon finally switch on their C-Band 5G networks | Engadget