Best Rural Internet Service Provider?

[Collier]

If you are in the Valley Telehphone Coop. area you may give them a shout. I know they have been installing fiber optic cable along the roads and even up to a few ranches for their triple play service

[rtread]

I have "Wild Blue" internet service. It is $50 a month and sloooooow! I'm trying to figure out now if I would be better with a mobile broadband card. Hopefully your thread will uncover a better option for me as well. I'll be watching this one.

We had Wild Blue for three years. I could spend hours on the crappy service we got. Not only was it slow....but the tech support people were morons. The day we got cable internet, I insisted on calling WB myself to disconnect. I asked the lady if she would forward my call to the top....which she didn't. When I was done, she wished she had.

[Peyton]

I have HughesNet at the ranch and I agree that it sux, but your options are limited. It's better than dialup

[Bilbo]

Wild Blue is a joke. Their customer service is **** poor. If you can get a land line phone, maybe you can get DSL. That's what I have. It's costly, but I gotta have it for school.

[JS4]

I'm wanting to setup internet at the ranch in South Texas and know I'm limited on who or what I can use. Can any of you point me in the right direction? I looked at Hughe's net, and by the way, holy moly they are expensive!

Did you ever get Internet at the ranch? Have you tried www.ranchwireless.com? I have had it about 2 years now and no problems. It is wireless internet (line of sight). They have different packages from $29 to over $300 a month. I have the $49.95 package and running 3 laptops on it plus 3 iPhones (from time to time) through WiFi with no problems.

Jeff

[TxAg21]

We had Wild Blue for three years. I could spend hours on the crappy service we got. Not only was it slow....but the tech support people were morons. The day we got cable internet, I insisted on calling WB myself to disconnect. I asked the lady if she would forward my call to the top....which she didn't. When I was done, she wished she had.

I'll second the WildBlue being terrible!! I feel like the old dial up would be faster!!

[Pin Oak DXT]

I have Wild Blue at my ranch as well. Its not as slow as some of you make it out to be, but I dont do much uploading and downloading. Its just a means for me to handle some light business from time to time.

[Snakelover]

Check if there are any "line of sight" providers in the area. You have to be within 35 miles tho. I live 10 miles out and have used one for 4 years, works great and reasonable.

It looks like this is what we'll have when we build our new house in Poetry. Someone we know has it and likes it a lot. In our area, it's called Wi-Five. They have to install an antenna on your roof or, depending on where you are, perhaps even a tower antenna. So the initial outlay may be a little high, depending on your specific location to their tower, trees, terrain, etc. I did a little research yesterday and it says speeds are 2-6 Mb/s. Probably about as good as we can reasonably expect for the location. $50/month (plus taxes).

[azle]

Another vote for Verizon MiFi we traveled to Florida with it in the car and it was awesome. We live in a valley of sorts and get no cell service except Verizon, we use the MiFi without any problems. It will drive 5 users also. Good stuff!

Azle

[Speedgoat]

Carrier pigeon would be better than AT&T

[Horitexan]

We have Wild Blue at the ranch and it's slow but WAY better than HughesNet. I get AT&T DSL (way faster) at my house, close by, but the phone line to the ranch is just too old. I guess you already ruled out getting DSL?

Tethering would certain be a viable option but the usage charges might be a bank-breaker.

Even though satellite is slow, it's better than none. You kinda get used to it.

[black42]

There is hope for you sat internet users:

http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/6/268...lars-per-month

[froghunter]

DONT GET SKY BEAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! those D.B's couldnt provide service to me for a MONTH, told me i was sol on service that had worked fine for a year. Then charged me for the moth i was without service. i called and threw a B.F. and got nowhere.

[Seabee99]

AT&T Uverse works great at my house for $20/month. Just something else to check.

[Deerfeeder]

Check with tengointernet.com They provide service for a lot of the RV parks. Works pretty good.