Internet in the Country

[Tractorrr]

How are people in rural/country areas getting internet or are you just having to go without? I'm assuming most people who post here have internet at home though. I would like to hear some options from anyone that knows. Currently I have a wireless internet through Verizon and the prices are just ridiculous. For cell phone and internet I am currently paying $180 a month. I pay that much and don't even get Cable TV, just have local channels through antenna. The wireless internet which allows for 30 Gb of data is a large portion of this price. The wireless internet is a 4G jetpack and it does ok, but not like high speed internet. I am unable to get cable internet such as Comcast and pretty much it seems like Verizon was my only option. I could possibly get satellite TV and internet together through DirecTV. I think they only offer TV and internet bundled together. Just curious if other people have this problem and what kind of options you have discovered that have worked for you. Ultimately I would like to be able to lower the monthly price, but still be able to have access to the internet and not be real limited by the amount of data per month.

 

[RalphVa]

Can you get DSL over your phone line. That's what we have. Ours isn't good enough to get streaming TV or higher resolution movies, but is fine otherwise.

Ralph

 

[deerseeker001]

I had Hughesnet for 6/8 years and was paying around 70.00 a month then Frontier came around and i got them for 34.00 for unlimited download.It is faster than Satellite,I love it.

 

[SirReal63]

I am currently on wireless 4g from Verizon though I stream it from my phone with a wifi router I downloaded (android). I have an unlimited data plan and regularly get speds from 5-10mb's. It isn't ideal for us by any means but for now it works. If getting cable broadband will be half the issue just getting electricity was I have no idea what we will do for Internet. It is one of he issues with being out in the country.

 

[rekees4300]

What's available depends on location. Consider yourself lucky that you can get 4G. Your other options are dialup and satellite and they both suck. There may be local ISPs that offer line-of-sight service, check your yellow pages. Broadband high speed like the city dwells have is only a distant dream for rural areas. If you don't need mobile then talk to Verizon and see if you qualify for LTE Internet (formerly known as Home Fusion).

https://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/lte-internet-installed/

 

[300UGUY]

I have a dsl line here. Not really high speed, but it only costs $30 per month.

 

[Johnnymossville]

I had no options, No DSL, No Cable, No Fiber, other than satellite internet until very recently. Now I have a super fast 4G LTE connection since T-Mobile put up a tower not far from my home. The speed is incredible and the pricing for unlimited with tethering isn't bad.

So much of what I do is based on the internet and it was a major drawback to living out in the woods. Now I couldn't be happier.

 

[paulharvey]

I went from a very slow, very unreliable Windstream DSL, that on a good day would hit 150-200 kbs; now I have DishNET, satellite internet. Price is about same, $69. I'm limited to 10 gigs, after that it still works but much slower. It's screaming fast, and pretty good realiable. Got to reset the modem quite a bit though. We have to really avoid pirat...free movies, and all. 10 gigs seems like a lot, but it's not when it comes to Netflix or piratebay.

 

[sleepybozo]

On dial-up here. Had fixed wireless "broadband" (Maybe 30 KB/s) for a couple of years but, so they could serve me better, the company upgraded all their equipment and doubled the monthly rate. I'm on a fixed income and just couldn't scrape it up, so I canceled it. Satellite costs as much or more, and I'm too far out for cable or DSL. Don't have a cell phone. Dial-up sucks, but it's better than nothing.

 

[paulharvey]

On dial-up here. Had fixed wireless "broadband" (Maybe 30 KB/s) for a couple of years but, so they could serve me better, the company upgraded all their equipment and doubled the monthly rate. I'm on a fixed income and just couldn't scrape it up, so I canceled it. Satellite costs as much or more, and I'm too far out for cable or DSL. Don't have a cell phone. Dial-up sucks, but it's better than nothing.

I actually considered dial up, but even a basic phone line costs $50, plus cost of internet.

 

[JRobyn]

DSL, but it's pretty fast (4MBs) and price is ok. It's fast enough to handle Netflix. Phone and DSL together are about $75/mo IIRC. The same phone coop has recently started offering cable TV at a much lower rate than our DirecTV satellite, but they say they can't get it us yet, despite my B-I-L having it, and he's farther away from any DSLMs than I am. I think they are running the TV as a digital feed over their copper telephone pairs, so if I can get DSL, I should be able to also get TV, right?

- Jay

 

[truckdiagnostics]

Our internet comes via a radio on the water tower in town. It is directional line of sight and is supplied by a wireless internet company. It is cost effective and works well. Depending on your location and how tech savvy I looked into doing what they are doing myself. The farmer in town had internet through cable company, I was going to come off that, mount the radio on his silo, send the signal to us. He was happy as I was going to pay his internet and just increase his GB usage per month. Depending on the radio you can get 15 miles. Also, bounce from one silo to the next. Done the satellite dish and 4g cell thing, gb usage will kill you every time. Only reason we didn't do it, wife didn't want me climbing the silo. Cost for the wireless via the radio tower $80 a month, but we use close to 100gb.

 

[Ted Summey]

Wildblue Satellite service here. It is reliable and satisfactory but it isn't cable or fiber speeds. Had HughesNet but the equipment wasn't reliable. Probably was just isolated to my equipment but Hughsnet wouldn't work with me at all.

 

[Tractorrr]

Can you get DSL over your phone line. That's what we have. Ours isn't good enough to get streaming TV or higher resolution movies, but is fine otherwise.

Ralph

Not sure about that, but I may look into it so thanks. I'm assuming you need a home phone to get DSL. I don't currently have a home phone, just a cell phone. If it would be cheaper to have a home phone and DSL internet then that could be a viable option.

 

[KiotiKowboy]

I'll be facing this decision in the near future as we are building on our acreage. I've been pretty happy with Dish for TV and it looks like they have a pretty good package for Internet. 50Gb anytime, 50Gb off-peak hours, 15Mbs download ... for $69.99. If you bundle with TV, it may save you $10 off that price.

 

[Tractorrr]

Wildblue Satellite service here. It is reliable and satisfactory but it isn't cable or fiber speeds. Had HughesNet but the equipment wasn't reliable. Probably was just isolated to my equipment but Hughsnet wouldn't work with me at all.

Wildblue might be something I could go to as well. Looked at their website for a little bit and their prices seem to be similar to what I have for internet right now. They might be faster than 4G though so that would be good. Anyways, thank you all for the information, gives me some options. Unfortunately I think I may be stuck with Verizon through contract until October of next year. I may be able to change my plan such as lowering data to decrease the monthly cost until then though.

 

[mariner1]

How are people in rural/country areas getting internet or are you just having to go without? I'm assuming most people who post here have internet at home though. I would like to hear some options from anyone that knows. Currently I have a wireless internet through Verizon and the prices are just ridiculous. For cell phone and internet I am currently paying $180 a month. I pay that much and don't even get Cable TV, just have local channels through antenna. The wireless internet which allows for 30 Gb of data is a large portion of this price. The wireless internet is a 4G jetpack and it does ok, but not like high speed internet. I am unable to get cable internet such as Comcast and pretty much it seems like Verizon was my only option. I could possibly get satellite TV and internet together through DirecTV. I think they only offer TV and internet bundled together. Just curious if other people have this problem and what kind of options you have discovered that have worked for you. Ultimately I would like to be able to lower the monthly price, but still be able to have access to the internet and not be real limited by the amount of data per month.

The last information I had with Satellite Internet some years ago was that it only provides a download speed of up to 250 kilobytes per second at a price of about $60 to $70 per month. That speed is with ideal conditions and subject to obstructions to the signal. Such as; tree blockage, hills, buildings, and significant snow or rain fall. DSL internet signals only travel about three miles out from the main hub before it has to be amplified again. The most economical of all is the accelerated dial-up system that Netzero offers over the phone line for under $20 per month. It is not a true "High Speed", but is boosted with their software for faster surfing from site to site. Most secure sites such as Banks and Credit Card companies are not boosted by Netzero within the sites to go to other pages once you have signed in. Overall, it is better than just plain dial-up and it is worth the extra expense for faster browsing.

 

[DFB]

Not sure about that, but I may look into it so thanks. I'm assuming you need a home phone to get DSL. I don't currently have a home phone, just a cell phone. If it would be cheaper to have a home phone and DSL internet then that could be a viable option.

I recently got DSL service usually you can get a discount rate being a first time subscriber. Then you get socked

They played the bundle game with me. Stand alone internet was going to be almost as much as their combined phone and internet bundle start up offer. After that expired and the rate went up I cut my landline phone service back down to the bare minimum (having a cell I really don't need it) so my bill is still similar anyhow

 

[grsthegreat]

i use a microwave repeater system thru line of sight to top of mountain 10 miles away. the company has its antenna station on top of mountain. It costs $69/mo, but unlimited bandwidth, about 6 gig down and 4 up, very very fast.

can and do stream movies all the time.

Very very happy. also since its such a low angle on the sat dish, i get no drop of signal in snow or rain like i did with hughesnet

we will never have dsl in our area. too far between houses. Never have cable tv either. both companies said were not even on their 10 year plan.

 

[k0ua]

Not sure about that, but I may look into it so thanks. I'm assuming you need a home phone to get DSL. I don't currently have a home phone, just a cell phone. If it would be cheaper to have a home phone and DSL internet then that could be a viable option.

That "depends". some phone companies will let you have "dry DSL".. Just the pair and no dial tone on it.. Not all though.