Rural Area Internet

[ksurfer2]

My wife and I are considering moving to a rural area that is not serviced by cable tv/internet, so satellite seems to be the only option. My wife works from some so reliable fast internet is a requirement. For those that live in rural settings and are using satellite internet, what are your thoughts/comments/recommendations. Any help in greatly appreciated. I really want out of the suburban life and into the country, but my wife has this one concern!

 

[slimt]

Have you considered smoke signals?

 

[69 Sleeper Bee]

I use a WiFi hotspot at my friends beach house and when my internet at home goes down.

 

[Budnicks]

good luck with that
most I know that have sat. Internet,
say it slow dialup speed slow

Viasat & HughesNet are the 2 I know of
& both aren't very fast, they are rated 3.25 out of a 5 point rating
not too good

sometimes you don't have a good option/choice
it's better than living in the shitty, hands down
even with all, it's faults or lack of services/conveniences

luckily, I have Xfinity/Comcast tv phone/s & internet/1+gig
a min. of 279mb
all good, when it doesn't crash, fast as I ever have had
no wait on loading ever, handles big files fast
other than the extortion rates for the bundles
BUT;
there's lots of outside stuff in rural areas
that take the **** out, falling trees, auto wrecks
even power outages, fires, wind etc. ( PG&E )

cellular service is probably spotty if you're that far out too

I wonder if they have AT&T, I hated them personally
it wasn't anywhere near as fast or as dependable as Xfinity/Comcast
has been even, it marginal at best, crashes a lot
every big wind event & every snow or fire dangers
but sometimes you gotta do what ya' gotta do

good luck

 

[QuickBpBp]

If they have phone lines then you can get DSL which we have it was either that or satellite where we live.. It works ok but will never be upgraded because the lines are buried. No telephone poles in our development..

 

[70chall440]

I live in a rural area and get my internet via a phone (land line), no its not dial up... LOL It is DSL but I admit its not blistering fast but it is adequate. A number of years ago I decided to try out Hughes Net and I can tell you it SUCKED!! Horrible service, anytime it rained it didn't work, too windy it didn't work, etc. Finally I **** canned it and went back to the phone line.

 

[Potts]

On a side note.
I would also have a satellite phone handy for emergencies.

 

[1 Wild R/T]

Talk to neighbors in the area your considering.... I know allot of people who live out of range of normal service but there are better options than Hughes (Hughes sucks) Look into line of sight service... An antenna can be five miles away & as long as theres no mountain in the way chances are you get a decent signal.... It's half the cost of Hughes & easily ten times faster...

 

[Pikser]

Starlink would be my first choice and as a backup I would suggest a wireless company modem and a whole home cell phone booster system from Wilson Amplifiers. I use the above in the middle of no where in South Texas. (Viasat is also good and priced ok)
If cost is no object then the commercial equipment from Viasat or Iridium.

 

[twecomm]

Have a friend that lives in a rural area. He signed up for this... "https://www.starlink.com/satellite It's internet service by Tesla. They have been launching and putting into low orbit , hundreds perhaps thousands of small satellites monthly, forming a wide coverage network. His Starlink service was spotty and not reliable at first but has had continuously improved and now he reports extremely reliable and fast. He's big into RV ing, so that's his main reason he was interested in this this service. It's not available in large cities though.. at least not right now. He, myself and a few others Zoom every Friday night. His latency is very low..

 

[hemihotrodca]

I just got Starlink, average downloads speeds are 220 and uploads are 17-22. way better than the old 20/4 I had.

 

[#41]

Huges Net is awful. Don't believe a word of what they say. Comcast is the only other provider where I'm at and they are totally overloaded and won't service us, so Hughes Net is our only choice.... for now.

We have deposited for Starlink and were supposed to have it last year, but they are delayed due to chip shortages.

There are fiber hubs near major highways and other locations in some rural areas. Look for those areas when searching for your new place.

Good luck getting out of the City. You won't regret it!

 

[69Bee]

I use my cell as a personal hotspot, and only via USB so it can't be used by anyone else. Now that I don't game anymore, I don't run out of un-throttled data!!

 

[Sam69sat]

Talk to neighbors in the area your considering.... I know allot of people who live out of range of normal service but there are better options than Hughes (Hughes sucks) Look into line of sight service... An antenna can be five miles away & as long as theres no mountain in the way chances are you get a decent signal.... It's half the cost of Hughes & easily ten times faster...

Look into this option if available. A lot of rural towns/areas have this. The provider will have a tower/towers and they'll install a dish at your house aimed toward the towers. It's probably called Wireless Internet or Wireless Broadband. The range can even be 20 to 30 miles (maybe more) if you have a line of sight to the tower. It will be cheaper and more reliable than satellite. Probably faster too.

 

[hunt2elk]

We live in a rural area that is a dead spot for internet and phone signal. We have went from dial up to dsl, to Verizon Fusion, and now Viasat satellite. Viasat has been the only thing that kind of works most of the time. It still doesn't provide enough power for my wife to do zoom meetings or for my son to work at home.

 

[1 Wild R/T]

Look into this option if available. A lot of rural towns/areas have this. The provider will have a tower/towers and they'll install a dish at your house aimed toward the towers. It's probably called Wireless Internet or Wireless Broadband. The range can even be 20 to 30 miles (maybe more) if you have a line of sight to the tower. It will be cheaper and more reliable than satellite. Probably faster too.

My understanding is you need line of sight.... At about 20 miles the curvature of the earth will block a 250' tower..

While in the Navy with the upper deck of the ship I was on at about 140' above the water you would see ships at about 20 miles but that ship s likely a similar height above the water....

 

[Sam69sat]

My understanding is you need line of sight.... At about 20 miles the curvature of the earth will block a 250' tower..

While in the Navy with the upper deck of the ship I was on at about 140' above the water you would see ships at about 20 miles but that ship s likely a similar height above the water....

You're probably right. My provider has a tower up on the mountain probably 4000' above the valley so we're likely to get maximum distance but it's definitely not the norm.

 

[1 Wild R/T]

You're probably right. My provider has a tower up on the mountain probably 4000' above the valley so we're likely to get maximum distance but it's definitely not the norm.

Yup, tower at 4000 ft is huge!! 75 + miles!!

 

[Sam69sat]

Yup, tower at 4000 ft is huge!! 75 + miles!!

View attachment 1214374

Guess i can move even further out in the boondocks!

 

[1 Wild R/T]

Guess i can move even further out in the boondocks!

Well, line of sight should be fine... Now it becomes a matter of signal strength... Plus if there's a 4000' mountain there's probably other terrain... You want to keep that out of your line sight.... If your up high great, as long as your not high on the back side of a mountain/foothill/ridge...
Other than that have fun in the boonies...