rural internet?

[GhostHawk]

Last Jan through March we were traveling, used our phones as hotspot.

For 5 weeks my daily forum browsing, email, etc was no problem on our very limited data plan.
Then my wife bought a new computer and downloaded 40 gigs of updates. That cost us 20$ for Data.
Still it does work pretty well.

We use Consumer Cellular as our cell carrier and you do need a phone capable of being a hotspot in order for it to work.
After that it is just a matter of going into settings, turning it on and off.

Connect computer (password) once and it remembers the way.

At home I'm paying for Cable internet. But I'm supporting 2 laptops and 2 amazon fire Tv sets. So its worth it for me to have decent speed. Slows a little on weekends but not that much.

My computer and the Amazon Fire TV in the Living room both have Lan connections. So only 2 devices to share wireless.

[JimB..]

Elon might be a bad at a lot of things, but his is amazing at finding ways to get money into his companies.

Also, at $100 a month, if he can keep the speeds up, I think the market for this is much bigger than expected. This thread is an example.

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Agree on both points. I’m also interested to see how well their “self install” process works.

Rough math on US residential market size. Assume US pop of 320mm, 10% rural, 2.3 ppl per hh, 10% penetration rate, $100/mo yields about $1.5b/yr gross revenue. Seems like a lot of money, wonder what it costs to maintain the satellites and the earth stations.

[farmbif]

this whole subject of rural internet sure has got stuck in my craw. when I was searching for a place to move having reliable internet was a criteria. the local electric coop here in the land of the TVA was gearing up and pre signing up people for super high speed fiber optic internet that they want to offer customers at a very fair cost since the power company is a coop and not a Wall Street or privately owned corporation. the proposal they came up with was fantastic and very realistic, the only hang up was getting over some sort of state legislative hurdles. well the state government here in Tennessee has stalled out their plans still to this day and now the phone company that provides service here is bankrupt and because of the way the mountains and valleys are here cell towers provide very poor coverage. I guess the politicians are getting paid off otherwise they would most likely have the area covered with fiber optic lines by now. problem is the politicians are professional politicians got the masses brainwashed into thinking they are the best option even though they have little to no interest in doing what is right or good for the bulk of the people who voted them in office. but they sure are great public speakers that can convince most people of just about anything.

[dverna]

Our Electric Co-op has been installing fiber optic but my area will never see it. There are only three of us using internet in a 2 mile radius.

So i am hoping StarLink works. $100/mo is not a deal killer for me but I hear the set up cost is $500 with no refund if it does not work. Hard to believe that. I have signed up for it and will try it if I know I will not lose $500 up front.

Currently using two Jet-Packs and Verizon. That gives us 30 GB which is not enough to support the laptop, two tablets and two cell phones. Might go with another 15 GB in the meantime. I would love to cut Dish TV but that would take more capacity.

[Wild Bill 7]

We had Comcast for a long time, then the price kept going up. So we switched to century link. What a mistake, starting price was good but with in two years it was up $120. Ended up being $280 per and the service was awful. TV was terrible and and internet would come and go. We would call them and they always our connection was faulty or something else was wrong. They would do a reset and things would be really good for maybe a week then back to crappy service. Got rid of them and went with Verizon. It’s frustrating as you all know that we have to pay outrageous prices for crappy internet. Must be the Chinese parts they are using. LOL

[oneofsix]

Copy and paste from another forum, hopefully I got all the typos out- if you have T-Mobile in your area...

Resurrecting this. Most of us will get a "Not available in your area yet" when we enter our info into TMobiles Home Internet web page. I did and others around me. Someone on the T Mobile Home Internet Facebook group posted a workaround to this. I did it Tuesday. Got my modem today. Have not had time to move it around the house to find the best location (letting the battery charge). But using the app on my phone it shows 2 bars (weak reception) in its current spot and it is averaging 16-19Mbps down around 3 up. Nothing fancy for most of you. But for people who have nothing or 10 or less it helps. Once the battery is charged I'll move it around to see if the speed gets better.
The workaround"
1. Go to the T Mobile website to check for availability here: https://www.t-mobile.com/isp/eligibility
2. For the telephone number on the first page enter: 999-999-9999. Use your CORRECT address. Hit Enter/Next or whatever the button says.
3. The next screen should say "Congratulations you qualify." On this screen you will enter in your CORRECT phone number (and correct address again).
4. Once you click submit (or whatever the button says) the next screen will say something like "Hold On. We're checking on things on our end. We will be in contact with you."
5. Instead of waiting I contacted T Mobile at 1-800-TMobile and told them I qualified and would like to get signed up today to have the router sent to me. You will be asked "Do you currently have T Mobile etc" I play along and say No but if this works I will consider switching Make sure to let them know you want to sign up for T Mobile Home Internet and it said you qualified. After a few minutes they will transfer you to that department to get an account set up. You will give the the CORRECT phone number you entered in step 3 when they ask. They run a credit check. $20 activation fee was waived for me. A friend had to call back twice to get set up. He said the first time the guy told him it would be up to 30 days before they contact him. Don't wait for them to contact you. Once you complete the above steps go ahead and call at 1-800-TMobile (unless it is after hours). Don't wait for them to contact you. Two friends also did this and have modems on the way,




Forgot to mention. Anyone trying to locate their local tower (or one with the most bands near them) this site helps with that.

https://www.cellmapper.net/map

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[oneofsix]

For the record, I tried the process I just posted above and 3 different reps told me they'd have to call me, they couldn't set up my account. Others were able to get it done, so YMMV.

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[WebMonkey]

so what's the difference between starlink and all the other satellite internet systems?

i had one way satellite (direcPC) when it first came out. then i got the two way direcPC sytem.
22,000 miles up to the satellite, 22,000 miles back down (to where you were going) AND THEN the return trip.

latency is terrible so i'm wondering how can you defeat the speed of light (radio waves move that fast more or less) and get 20ms to 40ms latency times?

[dverna]

so what's the difference between starlink and all the other satellite internet systems?

i had one way satellite (direcPC) when it first came out. then i got the two way direcPC sytem.
22,000 miles up to the satellite, 22,000 miles back down (to where you were going) AND THEN the return trip.

latency is terrible so i'm wondering how can you defeat the speed of light (radio waves move that fast more or less) and get 20ms to 40ms latency times?

Low orbit satellites

[WebMonkey]

Low orbit satellites

thanks!

that explains it but i didn't consider it as almost all geosynchronous sats are in the clarke belt.

i spend a lot of time on amateur radio sats (only 1 is NOT low earth orbit, go ao-7!) and am always feel i'm 'rushing' to get the pc fired up to run doppler corrections on frequency and az/el the antennae.



never occured to me that a geo-leo would be in the works for commercial comms.

my household is currently on fixed wireless internet.
(no stable cell signal and we are the last landline customer on the 'leg' so dsl is less than 1mbit)
a 5ghz parabolic antenna on one of my ham radio towers 'points' to another tower about 15 miles away.
(so on and so on)

it was ok but with the shutdown/quarrantine, the provider can't keep up with demand.
my 2mbit plan averages about 1mbit these days.

[Mk42gunner]

Man I wish my local elec co-op would sponsor broadband, they have very good service.

Not real wild about having to upgrade my cellphone to provide a hotspot. I've said many times I won't have a phone smarter than I am; I'm currently using an old flipphone that barely texts.

My cousin (seventy miles away) has Hughes net via satellite, maybe I'll go visit to see just how it works.

Thanks for the ideas, I'll keep watching this thread as I can.

Robert

[Mal Paso]

thanks!

that explains it but i didn't consider it as almost all geosynchronous sats are in the clarke belt.

i spend a lot of time on amateur radio sats (only 1 is NOT low earth orbit, go ao-7!) and am always feel i'm 'rushing' to get the pc fired up to run doppler corrections on frequency and az/el the antennae.



never occured to me that a geo-leo would be in the works for commercial comms.

my household is currently on fixed wireless internet.
(no stable cell signal and we are the last landline customer on the 'leg' so dsl is less than 1mbit)
a 5ghz parabolic antenna on one of my ham radio towers 'points' to another tower about 15 miles away.
(so on and so on)

it was ok but with the shutdown/quarrantine, the provider can't keep up with demand.
my 2mbit plan averages about 1mbit these days.

Starlink satellites are supposed to hand off your connection as they pass. I can't wait. I'm on Hughes and I couldn't work today for several hours, the connections were so slow they timed out. Just the added bandwidth will take the pressure off existing satellites.

$100 a month was for less than perfect service. I read that as a price increase once the bugs are out.

[bmortell]

starlink is interesting, not even sure how many satellites they want to have anymore, ive heard from 12,000 to 42,000. once starship is flying should be able to launch about 400 at a time. as they say if brute force isnt working your not using enough of it lol

[farmbif]

from what I can gather this starlink system is just in beta testing phase right now, my hughesnet connection works right now to send this message. i can't see shelling out $500 plus $100 a month to be a test subject.

[JimB..]

this whole subject of rural internet sure has got stuck in my craw. when I was searching for a place to move having reliable internet was a criteria. the local electric coop here in the land of the TVA was gearing up and pre signing up people for super high speed fiber optic internet that they want to offer customers at a very fair cost since the power company is a coop and not a Wall Street or privately owned corporation. the proposal they came up with was fantastic and very realistic, the only hang up was getting over some sort of state legislative hurdles. well the state government here in Tennessee has stalled out their plans still to this day and now the phone company that provides service here is bankrupt and because of the way the mountains and valleys are here cell towers provide very poor coverage. I guess the politicians are getting paid off otherwise they would most likely have the area covered with fiber optic lines by now. problem is the politicians are professional politicians got the masses brainwashed into thinking they are the best option even though they have little to no interest in doing what is right or good for the bulk of the people who voted them in office. but they sure are great public speakers that can convince most people of just about anything.

Just a guess, but what happens in a lot of places is that the state guarantees the rate of return for the local phone company, usually 9% to 13%. If they allow, or in some cases encourage, a new carrier they end up paying the telephone company more and more as they lose customers. It’s a downward spiral that the PUC has no good way out of without legislative changes and legislatures are hard to move and slow when they do.

One other possibility is that some states watched municipalities spend taxpayer dollars to build networks to compete with private telephone companies and they didn’t like it, so outlawed the practice. Some got overzealous and locked out competition, no idea about TN specifically.

Call it what you will, but everyone on every side of this issue in every state is making significant political contributions.

[Hardcast]

Out here in the boonies, satellite is our only option for internet service. We have Hughsnet, which is the best available here, but it is expensive and it still sucks
compared to other internet connections. Goes out often when it rains, and snow on the dish stops the signal too, and I am too old to get up on the roof to
clean the snow off. Sometimes the connection slows down to near zero speed. On top of all this, I am limited to 30 GB per month of prime time service (8 AM to 2 AM). With this limitation, I cannot watch much youtube video or do streaming. So, I am of course wondering, will the new Starlink service be any better? It is still satellite signal, which is blocked by rain and snow, right?

[JimB..]

Out here in the boonies, satellite is our only option for internet service. We have Hughsnet, which is the best available here, but it is expensive and it still sucks
compared to other internet connections. Goes out often when it rains, and snow on the dish stops the signal too, and I am too old to get up on the roof to
clean the snow off. Sometimes the connection slows down to near zero speed. On top of all this, I am limited to 30 GB per month of prime time service (8 AM to 2 AM). With this limitation, I cannot watch much youtube video or do streaming. So, I am of course wondering, will the new Starlink service be any better? It is still satellite signal, which is blocked by rain and snow, right?

First let me suggest that you ask Hughesnet to come reinstall your dish, put it on a 6’ tall pole in the back yard so you can get to it to knock the snow off.

The LEO sats should suffer far less from weather related issues.

[Joe504]

Starlink will require a dish.

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[MrWolf]

Out here in the boonies, satellite is our only option for internet service. We have Hughsnet, which is the best available here, but it is expensive and it still sucks
compared to other internet connections. Goes out often when it rains, and snow on the dish stops the signal too, and I am too old to get up on the roof to
clean the snow off. Sometimes the connection slows down to near zero speed. On top of all this, I am limited to 30 GB per month of prime time service (8 AM to 2 AM). With this limitation, I cannot watch much youtube video or do streaming. So, I am of course wondering, will the new Starlink service be any better? It is still satellite signal, which is blocked by rain and snow, right?

I use a long extendable lightweight pole and put a car snow brush head on it. Mine just screwed in. Works great for brushing snow off my satellite dish.

[Hardcast]

First let me suggest that you ask Hughesnet to come reinstall your dish, put it on a 6’ tall pole in the back yard so you can get to it to knock the snow off.

The LEO sats should suffer far less from weather related issues.

I have 2 posts in my yard from the previous satellite TV providers. I thought about that, but the post
is not as solid mounting system as the roof mount. If Starlink is available soon, mybe it will be a moot
point as I will likely be changing internet providers.