What are the options for rural internet access?

[243rem700]

I am moving to a rural area that does not have cable anything running to it. What are my options for internet access? Wireless is preferred for my laptop, but not absolutely necesarry. What are your experiences? I do have a Verizon cell phone that gets a pretty good signal if that helps.

[lawrra]

OnlyInternet.Net

My parents have this in northern Huntington county. Call the number on the site to see if you can get service in your area. Specify that you are asking about the wireless service. Installation/setup is either $250 or $300, depending on what is between you and the antenna.

[femurphy77]

Good Luck! I'm just outside Mooresville and apparently there are at least 3 providers that use some type of line of sight technology. Apparently business is so good they aren't too concerned about new customers. After several calls to each over a period of 4 months I gave up and went to a dial-up service for $12/mo. Of course at this point my only real internet usage occurs while I'm at work. Trying to sign on at home results in McAfee basically taking over and updating everytime I sign on and the result is 5-10 minutes just to open up my yahoo account. Dial up sucks so bad!!! Hughesnet is available but expensive and I've heard not worth the money because it's a lot slower than they let on. I love living in the country and don't really miss the internet much anymore.

[hoosiertriangle]

I've set my parents up with Verizon Wireless Broadband internet. The speed is quite good and reliable. The major downsides are cost ($60/month) and there is a download limit of 5Gb which isn't much if you do a lot online. For them, it works great as they aren't heavy downloaders, but they can still browse quite fast. I think the wireless modem was about $100.

I'd stay away from satellite services, but that is based only on opinion. I've not ever used any of them. I've just read a bunch of bad reviews. The wireless line-of-sight works alright if you can get where you're at. My parents were just out of range.

I think in the near future the best bet for broadband will be through your electric company. The technology is available for broadband over electric lines, its just that the hardware must be installed throughout the power grid which will take several years. I do think we'll likely see it come online though in the next couple of years.

[DestructionDan]

This was written in 04 hmmm will it ever make it.
Broadband over power line vendor rolls out service | Networking - InfoWorld

Just found this too
I.B.M. Delivers Rural Broadband Over Power Lines - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

[OneBadV8]

I'd stay away from Satellite. Uploading is slower than dial-up. Some of the Wireless Line of sight technology is pretty fast, another option is cellular broadband through your cell service. It's getting pretty fast, I'm not sure what limitations other companies have but I noticed it was mentioned above Verizon has a 5gb limit.

[Indecision]

Originally Posted by OneBadV8

I'd stay away from Satellite. Uploading is slower than dial-up. Some of the Wireless Line of sight technology is pretty fast, another option is cellular broadband through your cell service. It's getting pretty fast, I'm not sure what limitations other companies have but I noticed it was mentioned above Verizon has a 5gb limit.

The people I know that used satellite had the upload over a phone line, they just recieved through the satellite. I can't remember who it was through though.

[OneBadV8]

Originally Posted by Indecision

The people I know that used satellite had the upload over a phone line, they just recieved through the satellite. I can't remember who it was through though.

yep, that's actually faster. Some satellite providers say they can do upload but its slow. The main reason being with all other forms of access your computer/modem can send and receive at the same time. and with satellite you can only do one at a time.

This leads to some slow speeds at times. I only know of a few of the satellite providers. Hughes, and Starlink. but the names could have changed by now. Either way, I'd stay away.

[Fletch]

Your best options are, in order:

Cable
DSL
Broadband wireless
Cellular/Satellite
Dial-up

Cellular and satellite are on the same level in my mind due to the restrictions of the technology or business model. Cellular typically has low bandwidth limits, while Satellite has horrible latency. If you're down to these two choices, you need to carefully consider your intended usage.

I have had everything on the list except satellite, and 2-way satellite transceivers are in fact the standard nowadays. The upstream pipe is typically very limited, but better than the dialup patch that they've been using. Satellite will not be good for online gaming or real-time communications such as Skype calls or VOIP.

Wireless broadband is amazing technology, and typically provides great service. Get it if it's available. The only downside is that, like satellite, it will tend to suffer decreased performance or outages during stormy weather. I've never been sufficiently satisfied with cellular service to keep it past the trial window; it tends to be slow and laggy, and drops connections a lot.

Anyway, there's my take on it, from about 10 years of searching for the best setup.

[243rem700]

Would the wireless internet through verizon be with a new wireless card in my laptop or do they offer other options to allow more than one computer access at a time?

Who offers the line of sight wireless?