Rural cable vs. DSL vs. dial-up vs. Dish

Steamhead

would be to install two phone lines and bridge two 56k modems together. But it's not nearly as fast as DSL, and your ISP would have to support this method- I doubt more than a few national providers would since DSL and cable are the predominant methods now. Maybe a local one would.

The other method is the aforementioned satellite dish, but in a recent magazine review this was the least satisfactory method- the only thing rated worse was AOL.

Rodney Summers

On top of the mountain in VT...

I need your suggestions.

My retirement and move from NJ to VT is now imminent. My retirement from one job does not mean total retirement from other things. In order to run a business and stay in touch, an internet connected computer is a must.

As I spend more time at the site helping erect our retirement house, I realize there is no DSL service, and no cable provider. The A-frame we've owned for 20+ years has a simple high gain antennae so we barely have the three basic networks and a few from Canada. Being just a get-a-way house, that's all we needed.

The locals seem to have dishes for "real" TV. They are all shooting through a ton of atmostphere judging by the aim point just above the horizon. It is so close to the Canadian border, that would be logical.

I need an inexpensive high-speed internet server, and ultimately cable or a dish. Can anyone suffering from "extreme rural" TV and high-speed ISP depravation suggest options I know nothing of?

The local phone server, Verizon, has no DSL service in the area. There are NO local cable companies.

HELP !

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

SVDW

Dish Internet

We use Direct TV & they told me about $100/mo for the service & we had to buy the $400 box for our computer. We declined at the time but prices may have dropped. This was approximately 6 mos ago. They said the speed would approximate a DSL line. The satellite was at 204 deg W & 38 deg. up angle for most of North America so you should do a quick survey to make sure you have a clear shot. Maybe they've got another satellite by now. Call 1-800-directtv & they could give you the particulars. I don't know if dishnetwork would be an option but it's worth a call. Good luck.

Joe Brix

Look into ISDN connection

Basicaly it's 2 digital phone lines that can give you 128K.

Verizon might have a broad band/phone package deal since no DSL is available.

Wireless and fiber optic is in the future, but don't hold your breath.

Tony_23

You'll be lucky

If you get anything besides dial-up or a dish. My friends use direcway for about $ 60/mo. Dial-up is still better than nothing though.

DSL has distance restraints and cable is too expensive to run for a couple customers, so they don't usually do it.

You may just have to "slow down" all the way around when you retire

Vermonster_5

try wireless

Your options are probably as previously stated: satellite or ISDN from verizon. In the past satellite service has been limited to Direcway (DirecTV intenet offering, formerly DirecPC). Now there is a new provider: Wildblue, that I really know nothing about. http://www.wildblue.com/

Both satellite and ISDN have pluses and minuses and will probably cost around $100/month. Direcway has a plan that is $60/month but only after up front costs of $600 ($500 after rebate currently). You may have to call Verizon a few times to find somebody that knows about ISDN, it is not a common product but they do sell it.

Be certain you understand the bandwidth and latency limitations with satellite. In particular, if you move a lot of large files or are a gamer, this is probably not the service for you.

On the off chance you happen to be in the Connecticut River valley near White River JCT, there is a company selling wireless access: http://www.finowen.com

Good luck.

VT

Rodney Summers

Thanks,

My spot is in Enosburg/Montgomery area. The view id Jay Peak.

I have no clue as to who to call, or what website may lay out the options.

But I do appreciate all the responders.

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Tom_35

DirecWay

Ken,

I live in a rural area and discovered that choices were few and far between. After dragging with a dial-up speed of 24,000, I finally bit the bullet and went with DirecWay. It is not as fast as cable (the installer claimed it was) but it is much better than what I had. DSL was too far away to work also.

Uploading is fairly slow, but downloading is not too bad.

I'm betting you would go nuts waiting for if you have been using a fast connection before.

Tom Atchley

Bill_14

Internet Connectivity

I have the same problem in the Colorado high country. There is a new option available to us now with a wireless connection from a tower on a nearby mountain top...$29 per month.

Satellite is too expensive and can give you some strange download images. If you have enough neighbors in your area, start a petition drive for DSL. The telephone people like to see numbers...keep up the pressure.

Bill Russell

Joe Brix

satellite

internet usually uses the phone line for the uplink and the sat for downloading, so it still ties up your phone line.
ISDN used to be strictly a telco provided service but now some ISP's offer it. Checkout www.findaniSP.com to learn some ISDN facts and locate some ISP's in your area.

Glenn Harrison_2

One other possibility...

depending on your cell phone coverage at this house, is AT&T, Verizon, & Nextel all over wires internet service thru the cellular networks. Go to the websites for each company and check it out. I can't tell you how good it is, I just know it exists.

kk_2

Direcway is 2-way over the satellite - no phone line required. It's advertised as 500kbits/sec download, 50kbits/sec upload.

Bob Eh?_2

Read the fine print very carefully. It is typically idiotically expensive as they charge by the number of bytes transferred.

It is also typically slow and flaky.

Modem= Slow but Sure
Cell= ranges from slow to slightly faster/Flaky
ISDN= Faster than either of the above/Reliable
Satellite= Faster than the above but very flaky (read
very annoying!)
WiLAN= Faster than the above subject to how they are
connected to the internet (If it's Satellite you
won't typically be amused but often it is high
end DSL which is fine) Does bog down at peak
traffic times.
DSL= faster than the above to blindingly fast/reliability
depends on distance from Telco DSLAM.. About 4 Miles
as the wire flies is the limit
Cable= similar to the above for speed but gets really
bogs down by many users at peak times

I hope that helps get a perspective on what the options are like.....

Bob

Bob Eh?_2

Read the fine print very carefully. It is typically idiotically expensive as they charge by the number of bytes transferred.

It is also typically slow and flaky.

Modem= Slow but Sure

Cell= ranges from slow to slightly faster/Flaky

ISDN= Faster than either of the above/Reliable

Satellite= Faster than the above but very flaky (read
very annoying!)and noticable delays at all times

WiLAN= Faster than the above subject to how they are
connected to the internet (If it's Satellite you
won't typically be amused but often it is high
end DSL which is fine) Does bog down at peak
traffic times.

DSL= faster than the above to blindingly fast/reliability
depends on distance from Telco DSLAM.. About 4 Miles
as the wire flies is the limit

Cable= similar to the above for speed but gets really
bogs down by many users at peak times

I hope that helps get a perspective on what the options are like.....

Bob

Dan_8

Rural broadband is a pain

Ken, I feel your pain. I've been living in a little black-hole of broadband coverage in SW New Hampshire for about 4.5 years. The options are relatively few and most have serious drawbacks.

You've gotten a bunch of answers but I figured I'd chime in since I've been attacking it from a slightly different angle than most folks (I'm a network consultant working out of my house).

If you need high speed downloads and you don't want to try to form some sort of neighborhood co-op and nothing else is available (Cable, DSL, ground based wireless) then satellite is probably your best bet. The download speeds range from pretty good to slightly better than a modem but from what I understand tend to average out at pretty good most of the time. I think it's your best bet but here are the drawbacks as I see them:

Single biggest issue is the gigantic latency (delay between sending out a packet and getting a response back). Every packet you send out has to travel up to a geosynchronous satellite, back to the ground station, do its business on the internet and then make the return trip. It's something like 100,000 miles of air travel and goodness knows what on the ground so ping times tend to be in the 600-1000ms range. That's super-long if you're doing stuff that's interactive like remote controlling computers. However, if you're writing e-mails and browsing the web it's not nearly as big an issue, perhaps not an issue at all.

Second reason I didn't want it is that the basic service is (was?) windows only. I didn't want to plug it into a windows box and that was all that they offered. Later they had a much more expensive box you could buy with an ethernet handoff (operating system independant) and now they might offer an ethernet handoff for everything but if you think that'll be a drawback I'd look into it first, it was a major sticking point for me.

Another potential problem is the cost. Not prohibitive necessarily but you need to buy fairly serious equipment and have it professionally installed. Depending on the deal running you can average that cost out over the first 12-15 months or pay it up front. Either way it's about $600-ish for the cheap option(s) and upwards of a grand for some of the better ones. Because it's a radio uplink the FCC mandates that a pro install the antenna to prevent interference so self-install isn't an option. It's $60/month for the most basic service and there will be some sort of term committment. (I just peeked and WildBlue is *way* cheaper than that. They weren't available when I was looking a couple years back)

Fourth biggest drawback to me is that you need a pretty large antenna. Considerably bigger than the normal DirecTV/DishNet one. My aesthetic committee (the Lovely Carolyn) thought that it looked pretty darn bad and would have given me some serious words to listen to if not an outright veto.

Number five on the list is the weather dependance. I make my living over the net so having T-storms and blizzards knock me out was a definite check in the minus column.

They also have a 'Fair Access Policy' (FAP) that will limit your usage if you use more than they deem fair. Last I knew they weren't saying exactly what amount that was but people were getting capped the day after they downloaded XP SP2 as an example.

If none of those sound too painful then I'd really recommend (along with others in this thread) that you give it a good long look. You can get it anywhere with a reasonable SW view and it's a regular consumer service so you'll have support for it. Check out DirecWay, StarBand and WildBlue (and maybe more but those are the ones that I know for sure).

If you go dial-up I've had great luck with SoVerNet (www.sover.net) so if they do business that far north you might want to check them out. They will do a dual line dialup (which gets expensive quickly with the need for two copper lines and the service itself...) and they'll support ISDN, single or dual channel.

Verizon currently hates ISDN and tries to discourage any buildout for it. They were looking to charge me several thousand dollars for a repeater and I understand that it's not unusual at all for them to do that. It's worth calling them to see if you can get your circuit qualified for it though. You'll still be into it for $50-75-ish/month for the circuit and paying an ISP over and above that but it's effectively two telephone lines as well as your gateway to internet service. Beware of the per-minute data charge that Verizon levies on 64k data calls. If you do go with ISDN look into data over voice to avoid that.

Also, not sure what the sight lines are like there but if you can't find a local wireless ISP you might consider trying to talk some of your neighbors into splitting a T1 with you. Line cost will be in the $500-700/month range but bandwidth is decent (1.544mbps up/down) and usually quite stable. If you can split it 10 or more ways you can distribute it via short hop wireless pretty reliably. It's a big step though and I'm only mentioning it as a possibility, not really recommending it unless you really want to get your hands dirty and be stuck maintaining it.

Hope that helps and sorry I was so long winded.

Dan

jerry scharf_3

another thought

Dan,

Great response, hit just about all the points. T1 prices can get pretty high, since they charge a milage charge for the distance between the local office and where the ISP is. With rural places, this can add up quick. I did a bunch of ISDN stuff in the early 90s, and finding people who even know what it is and how to order it correctly is a great pain.

If it's available, fixed wireless is by far the best way to go. Call around to local ISPs and see if they have it available. Even if they don't offer it today, perhaps one of them is thinking about deploying fixed wireless. If you can get a bunch of other people in the area interested, it might be enough to get them to try it out. You may have to live with learning pains, but possibly no worse than the other options.

Ken, is your phone service from a baby bell or is it a 'mom and pop" local phone service?

jerry