What's the best internet options for rural areas?

Sylabicuma

Well, I'm not sure I can go into more detail than the title. DSL is available, but at only 3mbps down. I have seen satellite internet options at around 12mbps down. I've also threw around the idea of a hotspot through Tmobile, since they started their unlimited hotspots through their tablets in January. Ideas?

joelsfood

Depends completely on the area and the usage. Personally, satellite is painfully laggy, and msot remote places I go to cell coverage is spotty at best. ISPS in areas like Joshua Tree and others will often use point to poin wireless service. Not as fast as FIOS, but beats out 3MB DSL, mostly.

Sylabicuma

joelsfood wrote: »

Depends completely on the area and the usage. Personally, satellite is painfully laggy, and msot remote places I go to cell coverage is spotty at best. ISPS in areas like Joshua Tree and others will often use point to poin wireless service. Not as fast as FIOS, but beats out 3MB DSL, mostly.

How do I find out if an ISP offers point to point wireless?

joelsfood

There are a variety of sites that will search for ISPs based on your zip code. Here's one, and it shows the mentioned wireless provider

Joshua Tree, CA Internet: 9 Service Providers

Sylabicuma

It looks like all there is on a point to point wireless ISP is a 3mbps down. It looks like my best option is DSL 3mbps down...?

jeremywatts2005

I remember when I lived in rural Louisiana we had Eatel it was a 1 Gig real fiber connection straight to the house. You had a fiber jack inside that converted to CAT 5. So fiber from the pole to the house. It was the fastest internet I ever used. Then I moved to the big city of Dallas in the north burbs and I had U-Verse at 45M or Cable at 300M. I went with U-Verse since the cable is constantly out. Much slower and the same price.

kurosaki00

If it's for a business and there is nothing available, usually T1s are possible. Low speed*expensive though.
Satellite sucks.. BAD, don't do it. Would rather have a 5M DSL connection than a 10M satellite connection.
Best bet is fiber, cable/coax, maybe high speed DSL.
P2P wireless, mixed feelings but it's definitely better than slow DSL or satellite.
Check BroadbandNow: Internet Providers in Your Zip Code for possible alternatives in your area.
If you want more in dept solutions, you can always check with companies like Presidio or CDW, which sometimes provide quotes/data free if you plan to go through them for the order.

thomas_

I've seen businesses use cradlepoints for internet connections. Basically, you stick a sim card in from a phone carrier such as ATT, Verizon, whatever and you use the cellular signal for the connection to the internet. The ceadle point has a network connection that you can use to plug into your computer/router/whatever. This would require a plan with the provider and the cost of the cradlepoint. I'm not sure whether this would be cost-prohibitive for you or not.

Sylabicuma

thomas_ wrote: »

I've seen businesses use cradlepoints for internet connections. Basically, you stick a sim card in from a phone carrier such as ATT, Verizon, whatever and you use the cellular signal for the connection to the internet. The ceadle point has a network connection that you can use to plug into your computer/router/whatever. This would require a plan with the provider and the cost of the cradlepoint. I'm not sure whether this would be cost-prohibitive for you or not.

What would be the benefit of using that over a hotspot? Since they both use cellular signal.

Hammer80

Fixed Wireless, the companies that provide this are called WISP. It's essentially a tower which has a fiber hook up which beams the signal to the antenna on your house. If you are in a rural area and all you have is slow DSL and Satellite, this will be your only option. But let me warn you this is not cheap, you can easily pay $100-300 a month for decent internet access. I use Western Broadband and my cost is $250 a month for 20mbps down and 5mbps up with no data cap, the cost sucks but i have no choice. The only direct connection to my house is a 40 year old copper line that provides DSL at speeds of 1.5mbps.

By the way the latency on this sort of connection is super low i mean 10-25ms which is perfect for VPN and online gaming.

kurosaki00

Sylabicuma wrote: »

What would be the benefit of using that over a hotspot? Since they both use cellular signal.

A Cradlepoint is a much more complex and expensive tool than just a hot spot. It routes, mimo, load balances, content filtering and much more. You can also integrate more than one modem on it.

Sylabicuma

kurosaki00 wrote: »

A Cradlepoint is a much more complex and expensive tool than just a hot spot. It routes, mimo, load balances, content filtering and much more. You can also integrate more than one modem on it.

Okay so, I get around 15-20mbps down on my phone. But when I use a hotspot and connect my laptop to the hotspot, my laptop gets like 1mbps down. Will this be the same with the Cradlepoint? Or will my laptop get the full 15-20mbps down since it uses cellular signal?