Rural internet for those that use Mare Stare

[txminipinto]

I'm in a pickle. After checking online to see if my phone company offers DSL to my area, and ordering a new home computer and cameras, I called to order the DSL to learn that it's not yet offered in my area.

I am not happy. So, I need recommendations on other rural carriers that offer DSL or statelite and your opinions. Thanks!

 

[Erica]

Carin

I use Hughes net as its the only "fast" service we can get in the boonies up here....other than ole dialup which I refuse to use.

It is pretty fast actually, of course if it gets really stormy it will go out......and Hughesnet limits your bandwidth (GRRRR!!)

which is why from about 7:30-9 at night it drops the stream of my cameras to marestare as I guess it's "prime time" or something like that.....

But it seems to work for what I have to work with.

 

[txminipinto]

Thanks Erica. I've looked at HughesNet but gosh they are expensive!

 

[Erica]

Yes, it's the devils adovacte I guess as it's the only thing we can get and they know it.....

I did try "Wild Blue" or something like that, think it was from AT&T and it was about as slow as dialup so it got shut off...

 

[txminipinto]

Good to know as I was looking at Wild Blue.

 

[Billy G]

I use hughes net also. There fastest is supposed to be one and a half megabite, not sure it is though. I use skype with it , which works only fair. It varies from good to fair.

 

[Charlotte]

You might ask around your neighbors and see what they are using. We have the same problem and we are in Oklahoma City city limits for Pete's sake! But OkC has a huge geographical area with a lot of it rural.

For 12 years DSL was not available for us and the phone company told us it never would be. We just lucked on to a small 'home owned' company that could supply high speed service to us by radio wave. There was a radio receiver placed on our roof and we had high speed service! It was great. Storms or a lot of rain during the summer could knock us out, but the company owner was just a couple of miles from us and fixed it asap any time we had a problem.

Then, suddenly, DSL became available! YEA!!! Of course, once we got all transfered over to ATT and our advertising changed and everything the service went south. It's taken us a year but now we are improved to only dropping connection once or twice per day.

Good luck!

Charlotte

 

[bonloubri]

Hi Carin,

We have Wildblue and are happy with it. I know Erica tried it and I don't know why they had a problem unless it was the difference in location. Wildblue did have three different speeds you could choose from depending on your usage and pocket book. Satellite does go out sometimes during storms as does our TV who we have with DirectV. I think Charlotte gave good advice, check around with your neighbors and find out what they have.

 

[afoulk]

Carin,

Might try Verizon if you have it down there or ATT for their wireless remote. I have Verizon wireless which plugs into my USB port. It is portable so I can unplug from the desktop and take it with my lap top. We cannot get dsl or anything else and Hughesnet was too expensive and the folks in our area were not impressed with it. I can view all streaming video good and clear with mine. I have had it for 3 years now and the down time on it has been minimal. Customer service has been great. It does run me for unlimited access at 60.14 per month but well worth it. They have specials all the time so I got the portable device for nothing on one of their specials. You do still have to be in a service area as it is satellite based.

Arlene

 

[txminipinto]

Thanks everyone!

 

[choclat dreams]

I dont know if they are in your area, but we could not us DSL either and we went with Skybeam with is a satelite internet. It was inexpensive and works great really fast internet