High speed internet in a rural area?

[JE78]

My brother is moving home and wants to get high speed internet at my parents house. They live in a rural are, about 8 miles from town. There aren't any cable or DSL lines ran. Although there are people down the road less than a mile that have DSL. I'm just trying to figure out if they have any options other than dial-up? I know satellite internet isn't worth the time or money so i'm just wondering if there are any other options?

 

[imported_rod]

Nope. I live in semi-rural Australia, and I've looked at all the options. If I lived at the other end of my road (3km away) I could get ADSL, but where I am, the only options are dial-up or satelite(way too expensive). Until Reach Extended DSL comes out (RE-ADSL2), you don't really have any more options.

RoD

 

[JE78]

I didn't think so but I thought I would ask.

 

[Ike0069]

Cell phone companies offer Internet. It's not cheap, usually around $60-$80/month for unlimited usuage, but they have limited time plans for less (same exact set up as a cell phone plan). But if you get a good cell phone signal in your house, then you will have a good internet connection.

And the only upfront purchase it requires is a wireless air card that are often free AR with a 1 or 2 yr. commitent.

You probaly won't get the speed that Sattelite offers, but it doesn't cost as much either.

 

[JE78]

Verizon and Cingular just put up new towers less than 5 miles from my parents house so we always have 4 bars on our cell phones. Is the upload speed as slow as Sattelite as well?

 

[cubby1223]

Link

 

[JE78]

My parents live near a small town so I don't think wireless internet is possible

 

[Ike0069]

Originally posted by: JE78
Verizon and Cingular just put up new towers less than 5 miles from my parents house so we always have 4 bars on our cell phones. Is the upload speed as slow as Sattelite as well?

Haven't tried it myself, but I have two co-workers that have gone from dial-up to Cingular wireless, and they are very happy with the speed. Several other Co-workers are still on dial-up, but I know of no one personally that uses Sattelite internet.

Now if you're going from cable/DSL down to this, it might be somewhat disappointing.

 

[JE78]

my brother is moving from cable to 56k unless we they can get this. He'll be happy with anything other than dial-up. Thanks for the info.

 

[dalearyous]

have you looked into the broadband over the power lines. its becoming quite popular in certain areas. if you are really desperate, how far away is the closest person with dsl? with a clear line of sight you could setup a wireless signal.

 

[JE78]

I read about broadband over powerlines last year and I think at the time it was benig tested in OH or somplace but haven't heard anything else about it. Unfortunatly there isn't a clear line of sight for wireless DSL, my parents live in a wooded area.

 

[jjsbasmt]

Check out www.wildblue.com. A friend of mine has this in rural Penna and gets great svc. He has the $49 a month plan. He paid a little less than $400 for the equipment and installation. Note: installation must be done by a FCC certified tech since it involves transmitting to a sat. Speakeasy. net says that he gets between 760 - 1000 kbs on the download and about 128 on the upside.

 

[JE78]

Thanks, i'll give it a look now.


**EDIT**
Says they are not currently performing installations in your area.

 

[LED]

After 8 yrs of dialup, I finally got DSL last week but during that time I used 2 Modems and strapped them together to get 102K speeds...of course you need 2 phone lines and an ISP that can provide it...also theres a few cache proggies out there that cost a few bucks and help out the Browsing by way of Internet Accelerating (ie.Propel, Proxyconn)

 

[EndGame]

Depends upon your providers. I live 60 miles from Saint Louis now and about 25 miles from the largest town which has about 25,000 people. I have choices of 512 DSL from 2 companies and cable from Charter.....

 

[imported_rod]

Originally posted by: LED
After 8 yrs of dialup, I finally got DSL last week but during that time I used 2 Modems and strapped them together to get 102K speeds...of course you need 2 phone lines and an ISP that can provide it...also theres a few cache proggies out there that cost a few bucks and help out the Browsing by way of Internet Accelerating (ie.Propel, Proxyconn)

Propel Web Accelerator is awesome if your ISP supports it. It's made my dial-up web browsing SO MUCH faster. Too bad it doesn't do anything for gaming.

FiSSion

 

[JimPhelpsMI]

Hi, It's over 30 yrs since I used DSL, so this may not be very accurate. A DSL line was originally a standard Phone Line with audio compensation. Call your Tel co. and ask about it. Luck, Jim