Internet in Rural Areas

Homesteading & Country Living Forum

Help Support Homesteading & Country Living Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

BBLife

Awesome Friend
Neighbor
Joined
Nov 29, 2022
Messages
428
Location
TN
I'm digging into a new Internet option that came to my attention via an email to join a community the owner of the company created. Waiting on answers to about a dozen question and will give more details on the company and it's solutions as I learn. If I feel like they may be a solution I'll try them out and also give that detail. For this post, I am curious how many people here would like a better / faster solution that you have and if so if you are paying more than $99 for unlimited data. If you are paying lower and you had to get creative to get internet I'd like to hear about your solution. I'm currently getting my internet for free from a nice neighbor a half mile away but he is selling his house and I may lose that one and only reliable option.
 
We were able to get a cable feed for $70/month. Had it for several years now and have had zero issues with it. Thats one thing I am happy with as far as utilities go.
I'm working on the cable feed option but so far I'm 200 feet past the 1500 foot limit that Spectrum will even come and look at doing anything even for a business account. I'll have to convince the person that lives in the first house to get it first which is probably the biggest problem. If they do, I'll be just inside the limit. Being the last house on the road and having zero neighbors limits the ISP's interest in expanding my way.
 
For the last 15 years we have used a hotspot or phone with hotspot through a Wilson signal booster. To make that work we had to get the outside antenna up 40 feet off the ground to get an incoming signal. Without it we have NO signal at all. Verizon is the only reliable cell phone service in our area, it works more places than all the others combined around here.
 
I'm working on the cable feed option but so far I'm 200 feet past the 1500 foot limit that Spectrum will even come and look at doing anything even for a business account.
There's amplifiers that can be installed along the way so that may be an option. You should only need one. I had to do this for a long run I had. The cable company installed it at no charge to me.
 
I have no cell service where I live and no cable. My only option is satellite, only 2 of those to chose from really. That means a metered account. I have hughes, reliable. It is what it is.

I could go thru my satellite tv, Dish network... but they use Hughes for interent, same company and packages I have already. It'd mean one bill. I prefer to keep tv and satellite separate so I can get rid of/change one if I need to without disrupting both.

I researched the new internet provider DoubleR wrote about last year. I think zanny has it too. Sort of a line of sight system, forget the name... No one in my area has it so it won't work here until that happens.
 
Last edited:
Cable TV never made it this far out, and we ditched the dish (Direct TV, Dish, tried them both ) almost a decade ago.
We tried Exceed satellite WiFi, but found that the allowable data is used up way before the end of the month and extra data was expensive.
As soon as the two year contract was up it went into the landfill.

We simply use our telephone land line with the phone company provided modem. I think it’s $80/month. We have a lower speed than those in town, but it’s worked for us for years, we’re used to it. We don’t stream TV or anything else so we get by just fine.
 
We have been running into the same issues that you folks have in terms of high speed internet access. Where our homestead is located, we have very little cellular coverage, as we are in a river valley surrounded with bluffs and hills. Even with a booster, the best I can get on my cell phone is 2 bars, if I stand in the right spot in the yard, it's one bar or non bars everywhere else.

There is no fiber or high speed data available in our area at all. We spoke with several of our neighbors and they have been either using a tower with a booster to get a cell signal, or using Hughesnet. Neither of which produce satisfactory results. We have found one neighbor who recently was able to get a starlink system and is very very happy with it. The only downside she found was the initial start up costs, which are around $600 and then the service each month is $100.

We are going that route as well. Although we are not at our homestead full time yet, internet access is more than a want for us at this point in time. My wife is working on finishing up her early childhood education degree and she is taking online classes for it. Even on weekends and longer holidays that we are there working, her homework assignments don't stop, so having the ability to get online and complete her course work is vital.
 
Last edited:
If any of you happen across Speedconnect as an ISP, run away, fast. They are absolutely awful. Too slow to even check emails and zero tech support. Had them for 20 years; at first they were great but then they got bought out by a Kalifornia firm and that ruined them. The last five years with them was hellish.
Was finally able to find a smaller start up company that is actually based locally. Made the switch and it's been great. 70/month, unlimited. It's wireless, broadcast from a tower to an antenna on the top of my house.
I did investigate Tmobile, ATT, and Starlink; Tmobile wanted to much money, ATT said they had to have my social security number before they would even come out and see if signal was available at the house (that was a big NO!), and Starlink seemed to be the best choice but had huge start up costs and won't be available here for another year. So I'm really happy I found the new company.
Good luck, it is crazy trying to get decent internet if you're not in the city.
 
It's a line of sight wireless: tekfiniity. Of this, I feel extremely lucky. Great service for over five years and only $40 monthly. Stream videos and everything.
 
Waiting on answers to about a dozen question and will give more details on the company and it's solutions as I learn.

I saw a tech show a while back About this guy that lives in a very rural community and he actually built his own network. I wonder if it's the same dude..
 
I'm working on the cable feed option but so far I'm 200 feet past the 1500 foot limit that Spectrum will even come and look at doing anything even for a business account. I'll have to convince the person that lives in the first house to get it first which is probably the biggest problem. If they do, I'll be just inside the limit. Being the last house on the road and having zero neighbors limits the ISP's interest in expanding my way.
Spectrum advertises heavily in Southern Oregon and over the years I've called them and ask if they have ever gotten a cable line down our way, nope, don't think they ever will, that's okay, we have Hughes satellite and it's been excellent, because I built the roof with a two foot overhang, snow never accumulates on the antenna, I've never had weather issues that some people say they have with satellite.
 
I looked into this as well, but unless you have cellular service from At&t (if I remember correctly) it doesn't work.
That was up until December 2022 when they switched to Verizon. Still, based on my digging, I'd steer clear of them for a while and see if they fix their mess.
 
Nomad Internet has conceded to customer complaints/ demand. They offer unlimited data at $110 a month. Just need to be in range of a Verizon signal with either 4G or 5G service. Not bad but I'd wait a while if you need something and that might work as they are dealing with a ton of unhappy customer fallout having switches from a contract with AT&T to Verizon. They seem to be trying to be better but still a ways to go to be a good business to deal with. They are my last resort if my tests of a free option don't work out at the new build site. I simply won't pay the crazy prices for satalite.
 
I'm in the same situation as Peanut, but I thankfully got away from Hughesnet (absolute WORST company I've ever dealt with in my life). I'm interested in the option you are mentioning it. Is it only a local thing or is it broader?

I initially had DirecWay which sold out to Hughesnet. After suffering through Hughesnet for over a decade I switched to Exede (used to be called Wildblue and now called Viasat). Viasat had better CS at first but the data caps and speeds suck. I tried cellphone signal based ISPs but none worked in this area. Then starlink became available. I was already paying $110/mo for Viasat on a legacy plan that you can't get anymore to get less than 150Gb per month- throttled speeds if you went over the limit-- which was easy with windows updates). Could not stream stuff and latency in video games was awful.

I currently have Starlink. It costs the same per month as Viasat. Viasat makes you rent your modem for $10 a month and that is taxed. Starlink makes you buy your equipment outright and you don't have a longterm contract. You also have to install it yourself or find an installer yourself. We set it up ourselves and had to buy extra equipment to mount it. It's been pretty good. Right now the pole the dish is on is messed up but it still is way better than the other two companies and the unlimited data is great. I have been able to stream things, download games, download software updates, etc. Biggest negative is the customer service is nonexistent.
 
Nomad Internet is not local. You simply need a Verizon signal though. If you have that, the Nomad solution should work. If your signal is weak, get a WeBoost Home Room and then put the Nomad device right beside the WeBoost device. But again... I'd wait a few weeks. They started a community that if you read through it you will see why I say wait a bit. Nomad Internet Community
 
You are going to hate me....we have FREE internet for the next 10 years in exchange for having one of their antennes on our property. It's a local company not national. It's high speed and unlimited data , works great. Goes out in really bad weather sometimes, or if the sun doesn't shine for a week since it runs on solar.

Before that we had Hughes net which sucked. We always ran out of data after about a week and then it was too slow to even watch Netflix
 
You are going to hate me....we have FREE internet for the next 10 years in exchange for having one of their antennes on our property. It's a local company not national. It's high speed and unlimited data , works great. Goes out in really bad weather sometimes, or if the sun doesn't shine for a week since it runs on solar.

Before that we had Hughes net which sucked. We always ran out of data after about a week and then it was too slow to even watch Netflix
I put in a form with Verizon to consider a tower on a perfect location on my property. It overlooks 100 acre area that has zero coverage so they may be interested. Getting that would be a nice $1900 a month check. Tons of things to be aware of when dealing with them though. I did contact a church that I can see from up there that is 2 miles away. Testing a way to grab their WIFI from up there this weekend so I may have "free" too if it works.
 
Sonya, it makes me happy that you get free internet. The more people who can get away from Hughesnet the better. I hate that company with a fiery passion. I get enraged whenever they send me an advertisement in the mail or when I see their commercials on TV.

I'm wondering if there is a way I can request Starlink put a popup station in my yard. I've got 13 acres in the back. They might need to clear some trees, and I'd be willing to do maintenance on it if need be. LOL. Plenty of sun if they want to go solar.
 
Due to financial issues
I had to give up my
Internet, cable, land line
And am on on an I phone
My plan is a family plan our family has had for years. Unlimited everything for $30 a month per phone
So I am a 100% Wi-Fi user
With sometimes it works some times it doesn’t
The only real issues is buffering and waving the phone around like a crazy person looking for a signal
 
Starlink has added speed tiers to their service so now my speeds are slower since I have the base plan. I guess they are throttling it. The higher tiers have restrictions on bandwidth use at the faster speeds. However, its still way faster than my previous ISPs and more reliable. Strong rain storms still take it out, but it doesn't drop as easily or as quickly as previous stuff.
 
We got starlink 2 months ago and it's been a game changer. We have awful cell service out here, and the little verizon MiFi didn't do a great job and we would run out of data by mid billing cycle.
 
Backpacker, for the base plan its $110 per month- which is the same as we were paying for a legacy plan with Viasat. That same plan we had would now cost something like $250 on Viasat. We were allowed what they called $150gb per month but they counted gb by ever 1,000Mb so it was actually less than 150. Throttled for the rest of the month if we went over the limit. No streaming videos, downloading software updates etc unless the month was about to reset. Viasat while unthrottled was still slower than Starlink.

With Starlink they haven't introduced any sort of hard bandwidth limits to the base plan as far as I can tell. Clouds and such don't seem to trouble it but very heavy rains will interfere and block signal. However, the pipe my dish is mounted on fell horizontally and is not upright so it gets interference from a tree and we haven't had a chance to climb up & try to fix it and have it go back up straight. Sometimes it stops working because the pipe is not vertical enough. I think the pipe being horizontal also allows it to move more when it is raining hard so it doesn't quite lock on. That's a problem with our installation rather than the service itself. I don't know about snow as it doesn't snow here BUT it has a feature to melt snow/frost to keep itself clear.

Since it tracks roving satellites sometimes they get out of alignment but it also will move to keep up instead of being stationary like standard satellites.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top