Help! I live on the Information Dirt Road!

1. Comcast XFinity has been quite reliable for us. I know they have quite a large footprint in the US, but don’t know if they’re available in your locale. Good luck

   • Thanks but they don’t come here. Their lines stop about a mile away and they won’t come out here.

     • I lived outside of the areas serviced by Cable & AT&T a few years ago. We had a point-to-point radio based system (WiMax) that worked pretty well. No idea if anyone provides that technology in your area.

       I also installed a cell phone booster in the house and that worked pretty well. This is the one I installed. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AWGY57U/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 (This was 5 years ago so there may be newer ones available).

       Hope this helps!

     • If you can get good service to a friend within a mile, maybe the Comcast XFinity mentioned then bring it the rest of the way yourself. Should be deductible. Depending on sight line the rest of the way can be wireless with a really good antenna at your end or wired, at least for stretches, with in-line boosters that pretty much require line current. My experience has been that with a good sightline it works pretty well – not in snow storms. My experience has also been that cable available to me would degrade over one winter with water infiltration and freezing. This last mile by yourself was once fairly common but with lower standards for band width.

     • They’ve all heard you have guns!

2. Hey Evil Princess,

   I’d been in the same boat for years, using a Verizon hotspot with a Cradlepoint router to convert it to a wired+wireless signal. Just recently moved to an area with broadband.

   Once it’s available Starlink should be great. Until that time, you may look at a fixed wireless solution like this: https://www.att.com/internet/fixed-wireless/. Also just in case you have it available, sometimes there are smaller providers in rural areas which provide the same service, just need to find them, as it’s not always clear what their service areas are. Have you tried a mobile hotspot with a cell booster, like something from 5gstore.com? They’re pricey, but might be worth it. Lastly, there are some other good ideas and resources here: rvmobileinternet.com, they were often helpful for me.

   God bless.

   • Thanks but our house is on the fringe for AT&T, my cell phone is AT&T and the most I can get on it at home is one bar. I will check out the link, I have been looking at RV solutions for WiFi but hadn’t seen that one.

     • I second what Joe recommends to look into. I live in a rural area in central NY and suffered with Frontier DSL for years. In 2017 I stumbled upon a company that resold AT&T data service and the equipment they provided was able to utilize an external antenna. Although I barely got 1 bar of AT&T on a phone in my home, the modem they supplied was able to connect reliably indoors and with the external antenna I was able to do even better. I got speeds of 30 Mbps up and down for about what I was paying Frontier for the less than 1Mbps I usually got with them. I was a happy with that service until my area recently got fiber through a rural broadband initiative. The company was 4gantennashop.com – but it looks like they may have changed names (now infiniteic.com) so I don’t know how they are now (seems like their prices and service has changed quite a bit since I stopped using them).

3. I’m in rural NW Georgia and I too am waiting on Starlink. We have zero options other than cellular and traditional satellite. I’m using a Pepwave PepLink Mini-BR1 cellular modem on our AT&T mobile plan with decent success. I’ve also got a Proxicast cross polarized patch antenna mounted up high on the outside kinda aimed at a tower a few miles away. Configuring the PepLink modem requires some tinkering but there’s lots of info on the web on how to set it up.

   On a good day we can get 12-15Mbps up and down. On a great day I’ve seen it exceed 30Mbps. Some days it’s in the single digits. Right now I’m getting 14Mbps down and 20Mbps up, must be a good day.

4. Thanks but can’t get a good AT&T signal. oops, just realized that I’m posting as Mas.
   E.P

5. Have you tried a cell phone repeater that have an external antenna?

6. See if the company who provides landline copper phone service will put a dedicated fiber line in for you. They are generally designed for businesses. It would probably be expensive (I’m talking $500-1000 a month) but might be your best option in an area with no real consumer grade options. Even 100Mb by 100Mb will be fine for most things. Other than that, Starlink is probably your best hope.

7. Keep hanging in there on Starlink, I got in during the beta phase and am very happy with it. I also use my phone as a hotspot for my laptop via T-Mobile when I’m not at home and have had good speeds and reliability, although they do throttle after 50gb. They offer it as a home WiFi service also if there is coverage where you’re at.

8. No suggestions for alternate services, but I used to troubleshoot DSL for a living.

   1. Do you have a dedicated line from the Network Interface Device (on the side of your house) to your DSL modem? Or are using the previously existing house wiring? A fairly common problem is old wiring causing interference, and it’s worse if you have unfiltered phones on the lines, too.

   2. Do know how far you are from the DSLAM (the phone company device that provides DSL service)? If you’re several thousand feet out, there isn’t much they can do.

   3. You migt try logging into your modem and checking connection status. Depending on the brand, oit might be “Connection Status,” WAN Status,” “Network Status,” or something else like that. Some modems are set up to do a speed test directly from the modem itself; if that’s good, you likely have a local network issue.

   4. And it might sound silly, but have you tried different LAN ports on the modem? Individual ports have been known to go bad.

9. I would strongly consider Starlink satellite service. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s by SpaceX and offers speeds averaging 87Mbps down and 13Mbps up.

10. There is a thing called OneWeb. It’s not a consumer service, it’s geared toward government and business, but I’m throwing it out there in case of the slim chance it might work out?

    Unfortunately, I don’t think there are any other Starlink-like options available now. Maybe others can offer suggestions I don’t know about. Good luck.

11. Are you guys with an electrical co-op by chance? Several of those are running Fiber To The Home over the powerlines.

    DSL Reports (https://www.dslreports.com/) is a broadband review site that may have more info for you. Note that the management there is far more left than some of us might be comfortable with. 🙂

12. I can sympathize as, at times, our data stream frequently seems to be by oxcart. So long as there aren’t that many users on board, a Verizon hot spot seems to work OK. I’ll be curious to see what other suggest.

    A neighbor got a quote from one of the fiber optic outfits (there’s not enough user density down our road to entice them to do it themselves) thinking we could all club together to split the cost. Wasn’t feasible.

13. I recently moved to a rural area & the only “high speed” internet available is HughesNet & they are awful. Still waiting on activation of fiber optic system even though they laid the lines a year & a half ago. Only suggestion would be switching phones to Verizon.

14. C. Crane is an online cellular , radio supply store in California. The sell a super WiFi reception roof top antenna, “if” You have a somewhat nearby reliable wi fi signal these point & shoot dish type antennas will pull in any wifi signal from miles away. That’s my suggestion. You wanted to live for n the “backwoods” lol.

15. You can try a telco commercial T1 line, it’s pricey but dedicated speed for long distance runs.

16. Pretty rural as far as utilities in my area. I DO NOT recommend AT&T DSL. My $0.02.

17. If you’re not already on it, signup for Starlink and make the deposit. The backlog is huge. I recently switched to T-Mobile hotspot from Frontier DSL. Have you had a T-Mobile phone or device at your place to verify there is no service. T-Mobile site said it was not available in my area but my cousin brought out his gateway and we confirmed there was service. I called and told them that and they sent me a gateway in 2 days. It’s been great and unlimited data for $50 a month.

18. I live in the middle of the Blackwater Forest and I feel ya’lls pain! I have Excede/Viasat sat through my local electric coop. Too much latency to use my VOIP phone but upload/download speeds are as advertised. I have the premium plan I think it’s gold and I can stream hi-def vid no problem as long as the weather is clear. I’m waiting on Starlink too 🙁

19. “We started out with Hughesnet (Satellite) but they have usage limits and we found ourselves throttled down way before the end of the month.”

    Hughesnet sells “tokens” for those periods when your usage exceeds your monthly plan.
    Buy them when they are on sale and have them in reserve to use so you don’t get throttled down.

20. I’m a city dweller but have land in southeast (dirt road) Georgia. Most of the rural homes I see have some company’s sat dish for internet. The sat dish internet outfit advertises with bandit signs at (it seems) every crossroad intersection. I am an old, dirt road era, computer type guy. That’s the extent of my rural access knowledge.

21. If you approach Windstream as a business customer, maybe some “bonded DSL” is possible to get better performance but there is a max distance on the copper. Someone mentioned dedicated fiber from the telco, that may be the best option if the investment can be justified and Windstream is not making their residential Kinetic fiber available to you. Probably a multi-year contract. A decent IT person could set up WiFi for any close neighbors firewalled from your network to recoup the fiber cost.

22. From a satelliteinternet.com article regarding the current beta status of Starlink, their recommendation for rural internet service was viasat.com whose home-internet option wasvcrecommended over HughesNet.

23. Hello gang, not sure of the topology where you are, but maybe check into a Wireless ISP (WISP)? If you have line-of-sight to a water tower or radio antenna somewhere around, there may be a local company that offers a fairly decent solution, and they can get good performance even up to a couple miles away.

24. Honestly, your best bet is waiting for Starlink, but a web search will show it has its share of problems as well. I actually got through the waiting list about four or five months after I signed up, but I didn’t have the capital to take advantage of it.

25. NW Ohio here. Frontier landline used for always reliable phone service and carrying in our DSL. T-Mobile two over 50 plan, pair of cell phones, one apple one android. Back up trakfone to use on the remote road or as a loaner for guests.

26. As a ham radio guy it really is about antennas. Get one up high and a quality booster. I’ve heard starlink. is out of beta and they’ve upgraded to a rectangular dish. You might try namad internet that lots of RV folks are using.

27. EVDODEPOTUSA, operates off of cell towers. If you have good line of sight. ABOUT $100/month, unlimited, even throttled down we still stream. NETFLIX, HBOMAX, Disney Plus, etc. Not perfect but, best we’ve found available in rural central Illinois.

28. We are using T-Mobile Internet. 5G service (just on the edge of coverage) this morning we had a 52ms ping, 73 down and 11 up. @ $50 per month it’s the best deal going. I do have friends that are using starlink and before T-mobile upgraded to 5G in our area I was seriously considering that but for the monthly savings I’m content with T-mobile. It lets me telecommute 100% as well as supports HD streaming.

29. Our gun club is in the county and broadband internet access is non-existing. I looked at starlink, windstream and others but nothing worked well. We ended up going with an electronics company that resold wireless data using any of the common cellular wireless carriers. They installed a modem that used the closet cellular tower that used a two channel aggregate solution. The modem and wireless hub is installed in the RSO shack with an external antenna. They used Ubiquiti wireless access points and remote antennas to transmit the internet into the classroom building. We are getting 120mbps download and 15mbps upload speeds. We are very happy.

30. I live in rural Washington state. If you find a solution that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, let us all know. My son has the same problem in the Oregon coast mountain range.

31. EP, my farmer friend and his neighbors were in the same boat as you. He worked with the company that came the closest (in your case it sounds like Xfinity) and ran one wire up a silo to an antennae. He pays the bill and all the neighbors chip in making the cost reasonable for everyone to have a decent wifi connection. PM me and I can give you his contact info if you wish to learn more.

32. Mas, I know that Alachua County Schools use point to point wireless to provide network access to some of its more remote schools in our district. (I am pretty certain Hawthorne and Micanopy, maybe others) Good speed, and high traffic. You have to have line of sight which typically requires towers(s) to mount the dishes on at both ends. It would require someone in town who is able to get a fast connection. They get the DSL/fiber, and you become part of their network. More complex than just getting decent DSL service from the telephone guys, but maybe an option. Here’s the general idea. https://www.gnswireless.com/info/point-to-point-wireless-ptp. I have zero idea what it takes to set this sort of thing up (hardware, agreements, permits, etc.) or maintain it. it might be more trouble than it’s worth. But I do know that it works.

33. We (my parents & friends) struggled with Windstream in McAlpin (about 30 minutes south of you). Essentially useless for internet an even land line phone. At one point I bought my apparent cell phones (one ATT & one Verizon) hoping that would work. Zero to 1 bar with occasional 2 to 3 if went outside & got lucky. I added a high quality coax cable and good directional antenna on a 30 foot pole aimed at cell tower. That helped a bit but still not reliable for phone & not usable for cell hot spot.

    Last year, I helped the friend who bought the house select a cell repeater and antenna on a pole. We were getting 5 bars in the hangar. I will get an update from him and get back to you. I suspect it will be your best chance in the near term.

34. We ended up with Frontier fiber, but that’s still iffy and we had to wait a long time in our neighborhood. Right before it became available the Comcast service became much more reliable and upgraded its service here. We looked at rural options last year, in East Texas, and there wasn’t much there. We had a radio-based service here that was line of sight to a tower about 3 miles away – they operate in some of the rural areas south of Houston. It worked pretty well, and it was the only alternative for miles around. Some of the barrier islands here had it.

35. Mas and EP,
    We have HughesNet and have an option to buy extra gigs but that could get expensive depending on your use. HughesNet was far better than our previous provider. We too live in a hole when it comes to Internet service. Rural Wisconsin must be in a similar predicament.
    I know you’re not going to like this, but Uncle Joe, the guy occupying the White House, has promised better service through his infrastructure package. I’ll believe it when I see completion, but Spectrum, a local provider, is currently laying fiber optic cable in our area and by this Fall, we should be hooked up. I think you should petition the White House to provided a dedicated 200 MB FO cable direct to your house, with no data limits. Mas, you are a National Asset,a Treasure and well worth it.

36. EP and Mas’,
    full time RV’ers have the same issue. This is a good place to start.

    https://mobilemusthave.com/

37. Hi folks, here’s a possible solution with your landline provider. First, make sure your line(s) are signed up with a package that includes caller ID. This service transmits the ID packet between the first and second ring. Your complaint should be that it doesn’t work with every call. I believe many landline providers are required to provide this service. Your phone line should go from your residence to the telco central office. Over the years an individual phone line can be cut and spliced many times. It can also pop up in other buildings on it’s way to the switch at the central office. All these little cuts and splices can add up to a line that’s not conditioned for data. To get caller ID working in these instances, they’ve got to look at all the drawings and records, physically going to each location along the way and remove any taps or splices. When they complete this time consuming and “picky” process, you wind up with a conditioned line for data without paying for it. If they are unwilling or unable to provide the service you’ve subscribed to, a call to the Public Service Commission may be necessary to put things right. Best wishes for a better connection.

38. We are out in the country and previously used a DSL line. We now use a T-Mobile modem that takes advantage of the Sprint / T-Mobile phone service. I only get two bars but it is plenty for streaming video and use by several devices.

    It’s $50 a month for unlimited use.

39. It’s going to cost the telco something north of $100,000 to get you that extra mile. Get the neighbors OK with the idea of spending $50 to $75 a month for cable or optical internet. And get a lot of ’em so the telco will see a market. Failing that, get plain old telephone service and they can push ADSL through the twisted pair. Maybe.

40. Gail, that sucks! I use Xfinity, but you said they don’t go out to you guys. How much better does the booster they installed make your performance? I would escalate this issue to the Chairman’s office at Windstream. The suggestion to get their business service is a good one, as business customers seem to have more pull in support situations.

41. Sorry to hearyou are having trouble getting reliable internet. My wife & I live in a rural area & we just started using Viasat satellite internet in November 2021 & loving it so far! Just go to Viasat.com to get started. They will send a tech out to do a site survey on your property. It’s $120/mo approx & we are on the 50GB Gold Unlimited plan

42. Starlink will be worth your wait … Make the down payment as your place holder then hurry up and wait. Your wait will be based on where you are located in the country. We are in Texas and our wait is currently slated for mid 2022. We have been on the waiting list since April of 2021. Our daughter, also in Texas, got theirs in February of 2021 and they are currently getting 130 – 300 Mbp down and 20 – 30 Mbp up … only down hard twice for shot period during that time. North of the Mason-Dixon some people are getting their system within 4 weeks of placing their deposit. Haven’t heard of anyone, gamers, streamers, You Tubers who live out in the sticks who would trade it for anything. And as an added bonus the new system is also supposed to be mobile in the not to distant future.

43. I second starlink. As long as you have a good Northern view, you will get speeds that will make cable seem slow. In my solar powered neck of the woods in the Idaho mountains I usually get downloads over 100mbps and uploads in the 20s, with about 30ms latency. The peak speeds beat 300…
    http://www.Starlink.com

44. Sorry if this was discussed earlier, I got lost in the conversation. Service provider aside, what does it look like in your home? Running speed tests is a good way to judge you performance but, keep in mind, your service is only half the equation and how you connect the other half. Judging by Gail’s repetitive calls I’m guessing you’re not seeing the speed your paying for. The first step is to determine where the bottleneck is. Plug a laptop directly into the modem (referring to the DSL service here) with an Ethernet cable, then test your speed. Typically your provider is responsible for the modem and their connection to it. You are responsible for what is between the modem and your laptop/device. DSL and satellite are typically slow but you have to work with what’s available. If your speed is okay at the modem there are things you can do to get better performance.

45. Try going to https://www.radiolabs.com. They have a number of wireless wifi solutions and long-range antennas that might help you out. I got on the Beta of Starlink and it’s well worth your time and deposit-in fact, it’s pretty amazing for my Idaho rural area.

46. I use Excede/Viasat by satellite. It is fast and reliable except in heavy rain and thunderstorms. You would need the “Unlimited” tier of service. I pay $119.74/month. Works great except in storms. There is a latency common to satellite services but for uploads and streaming it’s not a problem. They are an American Based company who hire mostly native English speaking people so there is little problem understanding the agents when you call them. (In am an ALABAMA COUNTRY REDNECK so I even have trouble with fast talking Yankees) Give them a call you may be pleasantly surprised. They really try to give good customer service.

47. Keep trying your local land line phone company. I had Hughesnet. I kept calling my local land line phone company and then one day they said I could get DSL. You never know? the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Good Luck!

48. I’d suggest that you keep an eye on T-Mobile. They are continuing to roll out their wireless internet service, adding towers and upgrading others. Their business model includes serving the un/under served and their technology offers longer range coverage than others (lower frequency). When they came to my neck of the woods (literally) it was a godsend.

49. If you have a poor mobile signal it can be substantially improved using a passive reapeater which can be made DIY using two mobile antenna and a short piece of cable.

    Alternatively, a poor fixed line service might be improved through ‘bonding’ over two lines or fixed line and mobile.

    Drop me a message for moree information – I would be glad to help

50. Check out Starlink.

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