Moto-Brian Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 So, I figure there's gotta be some pretty good folks on here that can chime in on what we should do for internet out in the rural area we live. We currently are using the Verizon 4G MiFi system. Good - it is 4G and is good on speed. Bad - costs about $200+/month and we blow through 20G allowance/month on a regular basis. Background: I work from home a lot and we have a lot of large files being shared across the world wide web and do a lot of downloading of files, etc. We DO NOT do any gaming, Netflix, etc. Simply surf and download. Options where we are: DSL. I guess we can somehow get DSL even though the phone company says it is not available. The neighbor claims there is a way and that they have it. I need to find info out on that if it is in fact the case. Dish Internet. They claim 4G speeds. Not sure if that is all the time. Plus, weather may cause issue if it is snowing or hard rain... Also has a cap like the MiFi. There's got to be some alternatives or a way to reduce my monthly costs. $200+ a month for internet is insane and coming from broadband cable internet, it has been a LOOOOOOOG 2 years out here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tonik Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 Dish will be Hughes Internet, it blows dead goats. So go for the DSL if you can get it. Tell your neighbor to show you the bill, so you know who to call. Does not surprise me that you can get DSL, phone companies are ahead of the game in the rural areas. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magley64 Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 With Tonik on the Dish blowing goats of various levels of death and decay. Hughesnet has a FAP (fair access policy) which basically says if you max out your speed for an hour (downloading things overnight for example) they throttle you down to 56k for 24 hours.They also don't mention that you have a 2 second ping (forget about online gaming). DSL is what i use, and what my parents have. They managed to get it a few years ago thanks to new "smart coil" technology which increases the range of DSL signals through the phone line. It's not fast (300-600k typ) but it works, and it's reasonable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tpoppa Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 Last I looked into satellite internet, it was not compatible with VPN which was a deal breaker. That was a several years ago, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anden Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 Excede. We build their ground antennas, and a few other items for the parent company Viasat. I have no experience with them. Just trying to stay employed. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redbarron77 Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 Tried the Hughesnet and found a gigantic lag when remoted into work machines. Lag was bad enough to make mixed case passwords impossible to enter. Go with DSL if it is available. Check with AT&T(and other providers) for unlimited WiFi, but good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZxHooligan Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 I have frontier dsl it works good and I live in the middle of nowhere Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magley64 Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 Tried the Hughesnet and found a gigantic lag when remoted into work machines. Lag was bad enough to make mixed case passwords impossible to enter.WOW... 2 second Ping was typical, didnt realize it would affect passwords and stuff... From your computer, it broadcasts to outer space, then the satellite takes your request and broadcasts it back down to earth, it bounces from their servers to the computer servers you're trying to access via high speed wired connections, then back to their servers, back into outer space, then from outer space back to your dish.... the fact that it only took 2 seconds was pretty amazing in retrospect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moto-Brian Posted October 21, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 It would be Frontier DSL also. Anyone know what I need to do in order to get it when the phone company says it is not available? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Casper Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 It would be Frontier DSL also. Anyone know what I need to do in order to get it when the phone company says it is not available? It could be that your neighbor is the furthest from the NOC allowed. Generally this is like 10-15k feet for ADSL. At that distance, it's pretty slow even. Best is within 5k feet from the NOC. Beyond that, IDSL I think is the only option which may or may not be available. It's very slow (like 144kbps). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magley64 Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 It would be Frontier DSL also. Anyone know what I need to do in order to get it when the phone company says it is not available? I'd call your phone company and ask a human person why your neighbor has it if you can't get it. Either they haven't switched out the smart coils for your side of the road yet, or you're just a little bit further away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moto-Brian Posted October 21, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 It could be that your neighbor is the furthest from the NOC allowed. Generally this is like 10-15k feet for ADSL. At that distance, it's pretty slow even. Best is within 5k feet from the NOC. Beyond that, IDSL I think is the only option which may or may not be available. It's very slow (like 144kbps). Actually, both neighbors on either side of us are on the same thing. One works for the Frontier folks and I am supposed to ask him how to, but he's never there and I am always gone... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moto-Brian Posted October 21, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 I'd call your phone company and ask a human person why your neighbor has it if you can't get it. Either they haven't switched out the smart coils for your side of the road yet, or you're just a little bit further away. Sorry I am not sure what Smart Coils are? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magley64 Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 http://www.charlesindustries.com/main/te_smart_coil.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scruit Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 Agree with satellite/goats. I have proof. :-) Anyways, 2-second lag = no gaming, no netbios type, no remote desktop/RDP (ssh should be ok). It's great for browsing IF you user THEIR proxy. Skip their proxy and your 4 or 5 d/l threads each take at least 2 seconds to return any data. Go to a page with 60 or 70 subgets (images/stylesheets/javascripts, ads etc) like CNN and your page will take 30 seconds to load. If you use their proxy then your request is sent up to a server n your provider's side of the sat link, the webpage is quickly assembled using their fat pipes, then the fully assembled page is sent back to you in a single packet-o-crap. Much faster and smoother. Basically, anything interactive is futile, anything downloading is great, and uploading is like a sick joke. I have 7Mb dsl through frontier. Love it. I tried fixed wireless. Twice. One I tried (Bright.net) was on the far end of their service area (cut my house in half!) and it was iffy. Sometimes is worked, sometimes not. I tried NexGenAccess and they gave good service but it's a crowd-signalled setup (my signal came from a couple ham tower uplinks. Power blip = guaranteed outage until I called the ham guy and had him reboot the router on his end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blue-yamaR6s Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 It's a long shot, but write letters to the cable company and get hold of a regional manager to listen to your request for service. This worked for me but we had cable internet running all around us but the cable company to service us thought we were Amish and they would not reap the benefits of spending 250K on running fiber optic to the Township to light it up. They were wrong. We had people stopping the installers in the field to get hooked up when they finally ran the lines and couldn't keep up with the installations. Grant it to them, there are Amish neighbors (communities) to our north that they spent a lot of money to install the infrastructure and they did loose money on that one but we don't have hardly any Amish in our Township. ideally, they want so many houses to recoup the cost for installation. Until then, I used a Virgin Mobile hotspot and paid $40 per month but it finally got really slow and frustrating to use that service since they were upgrading the network hardware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buxnut Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 I currently have Frontier's 3 meg DSL. It works for us. The kids play Xbox, I can stream HD Netflix. Working from home isn't the best setup, but I can get by with it. Not sure where your located but their is a new service in my area, www.skywirez.com they are a fixed wireless setup and are promising speeds up to 10 meg. Its a mirrored service so you get the same upload as you do download. Also a little pricey in my opinion. I am thinking about giving the 6 meg plan a try just to see how well it works. They tell me that they are in the process of expanding and growing their coverage. they haven't updated their coverage map yet, and right now I am on the edge of what their map shows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBBaron Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 Excede. We build their ground antennas, and a few other items for the parent company Viasat. I have no experience with them. Just trying to stay employed. I worked on the main chip in the modems for that service. We are part of Viasat now. Should be similar to Hughes internet service though I think speeds are a little better with Exceed.With satellite internet you can get good bandwidth for web browsing, video or audio streaming and other bandwidth intensive applications like file downloads.But there is a latency due to the distance the signal has to travel. The satellite is about the 26,000 miles high. A signal has to bounce off the satellite ad back to earth for a 52000 mile one way trip. Which adds about 1/4 sec to the link. This will make online gaming and interactive VPN service laggy compared to ground services. Craig Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magley64 Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 With satellite internet you can get good bandwidth for web browsing, video or audio streaming and other bandwidth intensive applications like file downloads. Until you hit their "fair access policy" limit and they slap you in the face with a 56K connection. also, mine wasn't 1/4 second, it was 2 seconds roundtrip... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scruit Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 I worked on the main chip in the modems for that service. We are part of Viasat now. Should be similar to Hughes internet service though I think speeds are a little better with Exceed.With satellite internet you can get good bandwidth for web browsing, video or audio streaming and other bandwidth intensive applications like file downloads.But there is a latency due to the distance the signal has to travel. The satellite is about the 26,000 miles high. A signal has to bounce off the satellite ad back to earth for a 52000 mile one way trip. Which adds about 1/4 sec to the link. This will make online gaming and interactive VPN service laggy compared to ground services. Craig My experience was that total lag is about 2 seconds in practice, as seen from the customer end. 2100-2400ms ping time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBBaron Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 Until you hit their "fair access policy" limit and they slap you in the face with a 56K connection. also, mine wasn't 1/4 second, it was 2 seconds roundtrip...Different services have different policies. I believe Exceed is using a policy similar to a cell phone (with larger limits) where you buy a plan based on total download. Not sure what happens when you exceed.1/4 second is the one way best case based on the speed of light. A ping takes a round trip plus latencies through the modem and the internet. So I would expect best case ping times to be over a second. Sorry did not mean to imply that satellite service would only add 1/4 sec. That was just the physics of the link.Craig Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBBaron Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 (edited) Sorry did not mean to imply that satellite service would only add 1/4 sec. That was just the physics of the link.I dont have the sevice as I cannot easily get a clear view of the southern sky due to a small lot and numerous tall trees. So I cant comment on service. However I do know they have won awards for customer satisfaction and actual user rates match or exceed published rates a much higher percentage of the time than cable or dsl services. At least that is the industry news articles higher ups pass around. Craig Edited October 21, 2013 by CBBaron Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magley64 Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 I wasn't trying to snap at you, I was just adding my $.02 of personal experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron505 Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 If the line really doesn't exist by your house, they will sometimes offer to bring it to you for whatever it costs to get it to you, or maybe you could have contractor do it if Frontier would agree to serve you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serpentracer Posted October 21, 2013 Report Share Posted October 21, 2013 (edited) why is the USA failing again???? we are so far behind other countries its pitiful. Edited October 21, 2013 by serpentracer 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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