Rural Internet Usability & Stability (1 Viewer)

[steveb]

Do we have anybody on here using cellular or satellite for internet?

The location we are moving to doesn’t currently have any cable/fiber or even DSL as an option for internet.

I would like to hear from those far enough in the boonies to only have cellular or satellite for internet.

what kind of up/down speeds are you getting?

stability? Reliability in inclement weather?

im asking as I am fully remote office but have to be able to do Skype/Teams/Zoom conferencing - audio only - and download/upload support files and ssh sessions open to remote data centers.

 

[Tenny]

Starlink?

My dad lives in a rural area (North East California) and he has DSL currently. Standard 1.5mbit dsl and it's shared among like five neighbors. It's so bad he rarely even tries going online. He just ordered starlink and I'm hopeful it'll work out. I've heard that starlink is pretty good, all the way up to 250mbit but it goes down fairly often throughout the day for 1-5 minutes. No personal exp though.

 

[Bigfishy]

I use AT&T hotspot at our place in the country. Works great. I get 50mb down and about 19 min up.


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[steveb]

I use AT&T hotspot at our place in the country. Works great. I get 50mb down and about 19 min up.


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I get 1 to 2 bars on Verizon. I’m not sure if AT&T is available.

Do you have to use any type of external antenna on your hotspot?

Do you have a data cap? I think Verizon hot spot plans max at 30gb/month data. I’m checking data usage on my laptop. 20gb last month.

 

[foos]

Do we habody on here using cellular or satellite for internet?

The location we are moving to doesn’t currently have any cable/fiber or even DSL as an option for internet.

I would like to hear from those far enough in the boonies to only have cellular or satellite for internet.

what kind of up/down speeds are you getting?

stability? Reliability in inclement weather?

im asking as I am fully remote office but have to be able to do Skype/Teams/Zoom conferencing - audio only - and download/upload support files and ssh sessions open to remote data centers.

If you get internet so bad that ssh does not work, you do not have internet.... I have unplugged ethernet to untangle stuff and plugged it back in without dropping ssh sessions. I have straced ssh to see what another user is doing and there is so little overhead you can basically read what they are doing. Just leave off -v if you are about to rsync a dir with a few million inodes...

My office is still all google so dunno about those, but there is usually a call in option that can be used so long as you have cell service.

One thing you can try if you already bought the place and have $$$$ is look for a cell tower with a lot of dishes on it. AT&T does hub and spoke where they run fiber to a tower and use microwave to link local ones to it. They usually have dark fiber and have been known to let people buy transit on it to the dc. Still need to work out internet links with the dc. Can usually offset this if you have a lot of people near by if you setup a wireless network to share with them. Biggest cost will be getting fiber from the tower to your house.

 

[steveb]

Starlink?

If you get internet so bad that ssh does not work, you do not have internet.... I have unplugged ethernet to untangle stuff and plugged it back in without dropping ssh sessions. I have straced ssh to see what another user is doing and there is so little overhead you can basically read what they are doing. Just leave off -v if you are about to rsync a dir with a few million inodes...

My office is still all google so dunno about those, but there is usually a call in option that can be used so long as you have cell service.

One thing you can try if you already bought the place and have $$$$ is look for a cell tower with a lot of dishes on it. AT&T does hub and spoke where they run fiber to a tower and use microwave to link local ones to it. They usually have dark fiber and have been known to let people buy transit on it to the dc. Still need to work out internet links with the dc. Can usually offset this if you have a lot of people near by if you setup a wireless network to share with them. Biggest cost will be getting fiber from the tower to your house.

Yeah I’m not messing with trying to lease dark fiber. I doubt there is any.

While there is internet in the town of 3000, this house is 20 miles out of town. There is not even enough copper wire for me to get DS

According to several internet providers I have checked with there is no ATT or TMobile coverage. Verizon does have service there, but not dedicated internet so I’m limited to their jet pack. although I am looking at some other cellular modems. I’m not worried about the SSH sessions re:bandwidth. I am concerned about stability and enough bandwidth for conference calling. Big part of that is screen sharing.

within the world of cellular I’m trying to figure out if I should just use an LTE booster (external antenna, booster, internal antenna) or just use external antennas with the jet pack or modem.

I guess I will have to get one and try it out.

 

[foos]

If you have line of sight to the town you could get a ptp link.

UISP airFiber HD 24 GHz Bridg - Ubiquiti Store United States

AF-24HD delivers up to 2 Gbps throughput at a range of up to 20+ km.

www.ui.com

airFiber 5XHD Radio - Ubiquiti Store United States

True 1+ Gbps spectrally efficient, noise resilient PTP technology specifically designed for WISP’s

www.ui.com

 

[steveb]

Wow that’s way more money than I was looking to spend.

I was more lookin at this:
Cel-Fi GO X

Or this
MIMO Log Periodic 4G/5G Hotspot/Router External Antenna Kit and jet pack or one of the other cellular modems.

 

[Cody]

Why not just not live away from civilization?

 

[Bigfishy]

I get 1 to 2 bars on Verizon. I’m not sure if AT&T is available.

Do you have to use any type of external antenna on your hotspot?

Do you have a data cap? I think Verizon hot spot plans max at 30gb/month data. I’m checking data usage on my laptop. 20gb last month.

No external Antenna, I am looking into adding one. There is a group called Nomad internet that claim they have no cap on the speed or the data which I’ve been waiting to get a Sim card from them but they’re out right now. I want to compare their service. AT&T is 75.00 for 15gb and them 10 dollars for every 2Gb after that. If I don’t do video and voice on zoom or Webex I go through about 5 GB a week, which I do a lot of conference calls.


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[steveb]

I checked with blazing hog internet but they use att/T-Mobile towers and said they they didn’t show any service. My buddy uses them on his rural property with a twin yagi antenna.

 

[Tenny]

If you have line of sight to the town you could get a ptp link.

UISP airFiber HD 24 GHz Bridg - Ubiquiti Store United States

AF-24HD delivers up to 2 Gbps throughput at a range of up to 20+ km.

www.ui.com

airFiber 5XHD Radio - Ubiquiti Store United States

True 1+ Gbps spectrally efficient, noise resilient PTP technology specifically designed for WISP’s

www.ui.com

I have done something similar bout 15 years ago. Ran a network that was 12.1 miles apart, but one was in the foothills (probably about 300-400 ft) so we had clear line of sight. We didn't run it long, only a few hours at a time for an experiment. It seemed pretty reliable, but I don't remember how much packet loss we had or anything.

 

[steveb]

I assume at one end you have to hop on somebody’s fiber?

Definitely not my area of expertise.

I would definitely have to put my end up on a tower to get line of sight with the one radio tower that I am aware of and I would be willing to bet they are using microwave beaming to it rather than fiber as it is out in the middle of nowhere kind of like the house.

 

[steveb]

Why not just not live away from civilization?

im sick of the city. Too many people too close together. Too much traffic. Too may jerks on the road. Harris county Taxes too high. Current home not energy efficient, two of everything (a/c, water heaters). Currently paying taxes, insurance, HOA, electricity and water for 2 homes. We want to retire there anyway, I’m 100% remote office and right now we can get more than what our house is worth here in Houston so seams like the right time.

IF I can figure out the internet part.

see no one near me... also shows location of radio tower - not sure who or what it is for

 

[Tenny]

I assume at one end you have to hop on somebody’s fiber?

Definitely not my area of expertise.

I would definitely have to put my end up on a tower to get line of sight with the one radio tower that I am aware of and I would be willing to bet they are using microwave beaming to it rather than fiber as it is out in the middle of nowhere kind of like the house.

You'd have to hop on someone's internet at least.

You really need some high ground (buidling, hill, etc) for one end of the connection. Going through trees is fine for a couple, but not many.

 

[steveb]

Going to give the verizon mifi 8800l a whirl this weekend. Here in Houston I am getting about 27MB/sec down and 10 MB/sec up pretty consistently with 2-3 bars at the house. Will be interesting to see what the speed tests are at the other house (1-2 bars lte).

 

[steveb]

Welp thus sucks


Inside

 

[steveb]

I use AT&T hotspot at our place in the country. Works great. I get 50mb down and about 19 min up.

Speed test off of Verizon Mifi I’m getting 8Mb/sec down about 1Mb/sec up

Sigh... The only positive news I got this week was from Windstream (dsl) saying they were pulling a county permit to pull new wire. But who knows how long that will take.

 

[steveb]

So the saga continues. After waiting for Windstream for months to get DSL they told me that the construction cost was too high to install additional capacity in our rural subdivision so I would have to foot the cost of anything over what they are willing to pay. I then asked if I would receive any revenue from additional subscribers on the lines I helped pay for.

NOPE. So I told them to stuff it.


I then purchased an external antenna for the Verizon Mifi. It actually works pretty good. 20-25 MB/sec average down and 10MB/sec up. So definitely an option. Problem is in two days of testing I used 3GB of the 15GB limit.

Talking to a couple of Cellular based ISP's at the moment. Should be able to use the external antenna with their router and they have "unlimited" GB download. They said to stay under 500G/month to stay off cellular carriers abuse radar.

I also found another microwave tower within 1/2 mile of the house and talked to that carrier. Should be able to get up to 50 mbps down / 10 mbps up with no ceiling on data. Antenna install is scheduled for 8/6.

I will probably go ahead an pull the trigger on one of the other cellular providers as well to compare against as the other microwave option is a little more price wise.

 

[foos]

I have not followed it closely, but starlink may be coming out of beta soon. I think they are waiting for the latest group of satalites to get in place so they can flip them on, then most places should have limited or no daily downtime. Dunno if they have or plan on having service near here any time soon though... They sorta need a base station near by, but that should not be a big issue in this area.