High speed Internet in rural areas

Quote from YanksIn2009 : I do not live in a rural area, but hughesnet supposedly can provide up to 15/2 Mbps via satellite for $100 a month (which is not terrible if you actually get 15/2). How good it is I have no idea. http://www.hughesnet.com/index.cf...ns-Pricing

Bonus of 2am-8am. What are they on crack.

Quote from redls1 : Bonus of 2am-8am. What are they on crack.

They seem to have some limit on the total amount downloaded a month and that 2-8 AM thing I think is saying you can download another 20 GB of data off hours during that timeframe. 20-40 GBs a month should be more than enough for most people unless you are downloading huge amount of videos or other media but it could be limiting to some. Like I said, not really familiar with them nor do I know how good they are. If they deliver 15/2 via satellite it is simply an option if the best alternate is phone line or DSL.

We live in a very rural area and just recently got DSL, but before we got that we used our Verizon cell phone as a hotspot for our home computer. I had to get a wireless router and ran our desktop and a laptop, streamed movies, youtube, hulu, etc with it.

I live in a rural area. I am about 15 miles from a village with a grocery store (the only retail store, no clothes/other supplies, those are 30 miles away, one way), population somewhere around 200. Population density is less than 1 per square mile in this zipcode and the neighboring ones.

Satellite is absolutely, positively for only when you either have no other choice at all, or your current provider does not work at all. I had satellite for about 7 years, got it in 2006 coming from unreliable, frequent disconnecting dialup at a max on a good day of 28.8. ALL of my neighbors have satellite. I have been using satellite internet of some form at my neighbors since about '96 or so (roughly, Direcway at the time, guessing on the date, but it's close). I worked on a few computers in the area, so I actually used their connections a fair amount.

I got sick of satellite years ago, but had no viable choice until Verizon put up a tower only 8 miles away within the last year or so, so I switched to Millenicom, which uses Verizon service on some plans. The tower is 3G only, and it blows what I had out of the water, night and day difference. It is no contract, 4G if you are in that area, 20GB monthly data cap (double what I used to have), $70 per month plus startup fee (roughly $150). Uses a Verizon branded Novatel 4620l hotspot (which has a sim that can be moved to other devices).

The upgraded/latest version of satellite offerings in my area is full, no new customers, so I couldn't get it. It is "up to" 5 meg in my area since this area isn't serviced by their new satellite. Service is poor here anyway. My 3G usually hangs close to 3 meg anyway. Double the daytime cap for what I got, but no freetime at night, but only $8 more a month

The WISP would be the best option, especially with the lack of data caps and latency. Satellite pings will be at a minimum of around 700ms. With the data caps, you aren't going to be doing things like Netflix either. Talk to people in the area, and see how good the WISP is. Dslreports is a good place for research (as mentioned, general info if yours isn't on there), if the WISP is doing it right, they are an excellent option if you are in range of one.

If their service stinks, the competition to Hughesnet is Exede, you can look them up too. Pricing is sort of similar, "bonus time" after midnight is unmetered, but it doesn't work for a lot of people, there are MANY issues with their latest service. As far as what they offer, if you are in an area where the service actually works, Exede would be the better choice I'd think. Exede has no trial period at all, once you get it installed, you pay a disconnect fee if you don't like it (hundreds), doesn't matter if it doesn't work either. If you are persistent you may get something back after a fight though. Hughesnet MIGHT have a trial period, thought I saw one, but after they launched their new service (which isn't available here), I didn't pay any attention, after I saw their plans. Both providers promised better than their old service. Both are faster. Hughesnet offers less data than their old plans. Exede initially offered less, but bumped it up to more, on their base plan.

exede official forum
wildblueworld.com/forum

hughesnet official forum
http://community.myhughesnet.com/...iew=recent

Exede Facebook page (viewable without account last I checked)
https://www.facebook.com/exedebroadband?filter=2

Again, highly recommend staying away from satellite if you can.... Internet in rural areas does stink. My only choice other than satellite is cellular (they even discontinued local dialup). 5GB per month is not enough, so my cheapest option that is available is more than $60 per month. I'd like cheaper....

Satellite internet stated speed is "up to". Very few see that max speed, especially at primetime. They aren't held to anything, if they are getting you 0.1 meg, they are still getting you service and they don't have to adjust the monthly fee. My old service on the old satellite was a 0.5 meg speed plan for $50 per month (would have been $60 if I had a lease fee and didn't own the equipment). Very often after the first few years I only saw 0.1 meg download speed, pages would time out, etc. This was with nothing wrong with my system either, only congestion of the service. It was pretty much unusable much of the time, but still had to pay and just deal with it.

And hopefully the final edit of this post. If you are in a Verizon 4G area, you could probably get Homefusion. Data caps are similar to satellite possibly, but no "bonus time". However, the service should be much better. Millenicom would be the better choice for cellular if you need more data from Verizon. Some cell companies like Sprint have better/cheaper cellular options, if their service is good in your area. You can tether/hotspot your phone as mentioned.

We have had a local WISP provider for about 3 years now. Small antenna is mounted on the roof. Latency does range from 40-80ms. No data caps or throttling. Couldn't be happier.

Quote from mantis3 : This is silly, but apparently Mercury Wireless is a WISP not satellite Internet. I had no idea such a thing existed, but apparently as long as they don't oversell the access points, latency is very reasonable (I'm hearing 70-100ms) which I'd be totally okay with. Anyone know more about WISPs?

Well, we settled on a house inside the city (hooray DSL!), but the house in the rural area we were considering is owned by my parents so I'm sure I can pass on all this useful info. Thanks guys!