How about some internet provider advise?

[MotorSeven]

I am back on dial up.

I was with WildBlue satellite for over 2 years. 3-4 months ago their speed slowed way down. It was a big hasssle to get them out & when they did, the guy re-aligned the dish & said it's "got great signal". Well....it didn't and I was paying almost $80 a month, so I called HughesNet. They had a good offer, so I had them come out & put a whole new system in.

Wow...it ran way faster than WB. 3 days later, it slowed to a snails pace, so I called them. Now they tell me about this "Fair Access Policy"(what the ?), which translates to a 200MB download limit in 24 hrs. Now, if they had called it a "Download Limit" I would have noticed it in the fine print, but it is camoflaged under this Fair Access Policy clause. My wife ownes her own Real Estate Company, so she can hit the "limit" in one hour of searching properties for a client.

So, I call them a make my case/complaint. Nope, nothing they will do except charge me more money for a max of a 500mb limit. I say "no" and cancel my service. I am going to make a complaint to the State Att's office ref the false advertising. I am still disputing the equipment charges & I may be stuck with a brand new system, but that's another story.

Anyway, are there any other options for this rural guy? No, cell service here, no cable & no broadband. I am on NetZero now and it is terrible....................any suggestions?

RD

 

[sellercreek]

Sounds pretty grim. The only thing might be a fixed wireless broadband provider in the area. You might also check all the cell providers. In our area, Verizon has EVDO coverage in many areas where ATT does not and vice versa.

 

[Mike Costello]

I got hit the same way with Hughes Net. My wife has low vision and when she downloaded an audible book it triggered a slowdown in our speed. When I acquired about it, they told me about the socalled fairness policy. I told them it was a sneaky trick to not fully explain that part of their service.
What was really going on is that they don't have enough satallite bandwidth to handle all their customers, so they impose limits to stop you from using excessive download times in a 24 hour period. I was paying for the fastest service they had and even in normal times it rarely delivered at the speeds advertized. Very frustrating--so I dumped them. Hughes Net is one of the biggest scams out there!

P S--Anyone want to buy a little used Hughes Net complete system? I'll let it go real CHEAP just to get it out of my shop storage area!

 

[radioman]

I know you said no cell phone service in your area, but have you tried different carriers with data only in your area ? like sprint with blackberry? for 30 bucks a month, you can connect one pc to blackberry and get all the internet service you want. its a bit faster then dailup, but at least its consistant. I am currently using BB with data only myself so I know it works it most places. I do encounter a few areas where it doesnt work at all and feel lost without it.

I don't know what you else you have tried, but I went through several models of BB and found some have stronger signal then others, also it made a difference with which service provider it is. The newer BB seems to be all much better with signals then before. cingular/att used to work in my area but not anymore- now its sprint. verizon work ok. Luckily, I had freinds come over to my hose with thier phones and BB and several carriers and see how well it worked at my house. If you look at the map closeup for signals- I am right on the edge for connection. At one point I was about to buy my own station repeater to boost signal inside house until I found the right combination.

 

[forgeblast]

We were able to finally get dsl, much better for us now. I did hear that part of the stimulus money was to get cable/dsl to rural america. not sure how long that will take though.

 

[MossRoad]

We were able to finally get dsl, much better for us now. I did hear that part of the stimulus money was to get cable/dsl to rural america. not sure how long that will take though.

Great. Tax money spent to get high speed internet available to vacation homes in the woods. :confused2:

 

[MMagis]

Great. Tax money spent to get high speed internet available to vacation homes in the woods. :confused2:

I take it you don't live as rural as some of us do. This isn't a vacation house, this is my home. All was great when they spent the money on those of you near town, years ago, and left the rest of us with nothing but dial up. Now getting us access to something reasonably fast is a waste of money? Just because something doesn't apply to you directly doesn't mean it's a waste.

 

[brin]

I take it you don't live as rural as some of us do. This isn't a vacation house, this is my home. All was great when they spent the money on those of you near town, years ago, and left the rest of us with nothing but dial up. Now getting us access to something reasonably fast is a waste of money? Just because something doesn't apply to you directly doesn't mean it's a waste.

What you are going through is awful...we waited for 6 yrs. to get DSL and suffered with slow speed dial up but at least we had that ..If I understand right..you are saying you do not have even dial up.....I have heard the horror stories about satellite service..best thing to do is try for a high speed dial up service if you can get it and call your local officials to get you DSL service.

 

[MMagis]

If I understand right..you are saying you do not have even dial up.....

Sorry about that, I do have dial up. It is painfully slow, and we almost never use it. I have access to high speed at work and use that when needed. The stories about satellite access are the reason I don't bother with it. At this point, high speed Verizon (phone line) isn't even available out here. Very frustrating.

 

[mjarrels]

I like my dialup... I can click on something and go upstairs, have lunch, refill my coffee and go back to the basement just as the link opens!

mark

 

[brin]

Sorry about that, I do have dial up. It is painfully slow, and we almost never use it. I have access to high speed at work and use that when needed. The stories about satellite access are the reason I don't bother with it. At this point, high speed Verizon (phone line) isn't even available out here. Very frustrating.

I feel your pain...you know what always made me so mad about the 6 yr. wait for DSL is that neighbors only a mile away had it for all those years and other parts of our county but we were the last but we still paid the same property tax...I could go on and on..I sure hope you get DSL soon...it is a pain with dial up.

 

[MossRoad]

I take it you don't live as rural as some of us do. This isn't a vacation house, this is my home. All was great when they spent the money on those of you near town, years ago, and left the rest of us with nothing but dial up. Now getting us access to something reasonably fast is a waste of money? Just because something doesn't apply to you directly doesn't mean it's a waste.

It was tongue-in-cheek. I am fortunate to have DSL available where we live, but we have rural property that has nothing but dial-up or satellite available. If we ever build a house there, I will be in the right lane with my hazard lights on waiting for TBN to load. :laughing:

 

[keegs]

Too bad they don't have a broadband wireless service there. Sounds like an opportunity.

One thing I like about broadband is you can leverage it for one of those inexpensive VOIP phone services. The wife calls home twice a week now that her mom is getting on in years and they spend a good hour or more yacking away. Before switching to VOIP, the phone bills were pretty high. They don't go past forty bucks now.

 

[biggerten]

....200MB download limit in 24 hrs...............My wife ownes her own Real Estate Company, so she can hit the "limit" in one hour of searching properties for a client.

With dial-up at 44Kbaud she can now hit the 200MB limit in a day.

Wait, that's the same thing.

Seriously, if you indeed have no cable, cell or DSL, Wild Blue and Hughes are not the only game in town, there's Starband and Skyway. Skyway uses your phone for uplink. All of these providers have Fair Access Policies.

Fair use is not such a bad thing. If everyone started unlimited downloads (video, audio) all the bandwidth would get used up, pronto. It's a limited resource. There's only so much info you can squirt down at once, it's physics. It's not like ground based systems where there's more than enough optical fiber bandwidth to go around. So they're trying to be 'fair' to everybody by discouraging bandwidth hogs.

And the cellular plans? Same thing can happen, remember folks trying to use cell phones in Manhattan afetr 9/11? Too many at once and the system fails. Again, a bandwidth issue.

Perhaps you didn't understand the fair use policy when subscribing. I did before I sunscribed to Wild Blue, the information is certainly out there.When researching these plans it's hard not to come across it, it's the number one complaint, and a simple google will have it in front of you in seconds. Perhaps they should have it in bold letters in red ink. It can be a rude shock to find out the hard way. But it's easy to see why people who think they are at the all you can eat buffet get told there's only three helpings.

And sorry, but asking me to pay for subsidizing rural high speed internet? Especially when there are alternatives? Even though you don't like them much? I'm not inclined to do so.

 

[forester2]

You are correct that there is supposed to be money in the stimulus package for internet access however none of the cable suppliers are extending lines because they don't trust that they'll get paid. As to the comment about service for vaction homes, the majority of our school district does not have high speed internet access for students at home- what position do you think that puts our students in to compete. By the way, I don't live in the middle of nowhere- can see downtown Buffalo NY from our hilltops.

 

[orezok]

And sorry, but asking me to pay for subsidizing rural high speed internet? Especially when there are alternatives? Even though you don't like them much? I'm not inclined to do so.

I suppose the years that I paid the phone company excess fees so that they could install DSL to high density areas to maximize their profits while I waited on dial up don't seem equitable either - now does it?

 

[keegs]

Mortorseven are you sure there's no wireless broadband in your area? I just did a quick look see and there may be something out there for you in Hancock county, TN.

Wireless service is common in rural areas where running cable is cost prohibitive. If you're no familiar with it, it's like your wireless base station in the house only the service area is much larger, usually line of sight. Cost is usually in the $50. per mo. range.

http://wireless--broadband.com/tn/hancock-county.html

 

[biggerten]

I suppose the years that I paid the phone company excess fees so that they could install DSL to high density areas to maximize their profits while I waited on dial up don't seem equitable either - now does it?

You paid the phone company what you thought phone service was worth, you could have opted for other alternatives. The fact that they used some of the revenue to invest in infrastructure in the hopes of future business seems like plain old capitalism to me. You chose to do business with the phone company because it provided something of value to you. They chose to invest because they saw future monies. Choosing is the key word.

Taking tax revenue (or borrowed money from future generartions) that I have no choice but to pay for someone to have a finer internet experience is different.

I'm sorry if this seems blunt. But the government has no business taking money from folks who have earned it so that others can download movies, trade baby pictures, etc. And it's only my opinion, others are free to differ, and I respect the fact that they may.

 

[Chuck52]

Dsl follows the profits, just like everything. I couldn't get it until the areas to my north and west started getting built up, and then the phone company put in the needed upgrades darn quick. My daughter is in a similar situation to where we were a couple years ago. Her area just doesn't have quite enough customers to entice her phone company to invest, but it probably won't be long. If she was one road over, she'd already have it. In some areas, the situation might be like the time when rural electrification started. Maybe we need phone cooperatives like the rural electric cooperatives.

Good timing on this thread. I think it was on Morning Joe this morning where it was noted that the U.S. is down around 18th so far as extent of high speed internet service is concerned.....behind the Czech Republic, for instance.

Chuck

 

[Abe460]

I've been going through your issue for five years now. The local phone company puts us on a "waiting list" for dsl, but everyone knows they'll never come our way.

It's a cost issue, why would they spend millions to run a new co closer just to get $50 a month from a few houses. Don't even dream of fiber.

I'm with hughesnet and knew about the fair access policy before hand, but this beats the **** out of dial-up. I used to have 8-10 meg speeds when I lived in town. I was part of a software development team so it was required.

Fast forward to our move...dial-up. Pure misery. Still wouldn't trade the speeds for the comforts of living out here.

P.S. Try dslreports.com lots of info on options and non options in most areas.