DSL Providers

[Flowers]

I'll be moving into a rural area in about a month. There is no hard line cable and no DSL service through the telephone company at the new digs. What are my options for broadband? Is it satellite only? If satellite is my only option, can anyone recommend a company?

 

[XJeacdabnow]

I think there is only one satellte broadband provider. Starlink or something. I think they are a part of the company the does TV also. My girlfriends mom was in the same boat in Colorado. Just remember that there is like a milasecond delay with satellite, so no online gaming.

 

[Matthew Currie]

My local telco just started up DSL service, and they claim that with new technology, there's no distance limitation any more. They use a rather pricey Paradyne modem, but it means that even out here in the boonies, with enough inductive hum on the line to stifle the art of conversation, I can now get broadband. There might be an ISP in your new area that can do this as well, even if it isn't the phone co.

I just got it up and running today, along with a network hub, and it's very cool. We can have 3 computers on line at once.

 

[RichP]

The two main sat providers are starband for the private setup and skycasters for the commercial side. Starband receivers are USB and require their special software that more or less limits you to 1 pc, they don't support networking. Figure about $800 if you buy but then you own it. Skycasters is a commercial one, their transceiver/router is win2k based, can be connected to a switch and they don't really care how many boxes you have. $2500 for the hardware, $200 for the install, ~$99 a month for a t1 equivilent. As mentioned above, time lag for gaming is no good. Upside is the skycasters is commerical and commercial packets take precedence on the sat transponders during the working day. I know of an alternative that you can do but will involve some work on your part, if you are interested hit me backchannel, main question is how many houses can you see from your house.

 

[pair8hd]

I have a friend that lives out in the boonies and is a 1/4 mile away from where DSL stops. He went with Starband satalite internet and it sucked, just about as fast as dial-up and worked only half the time. Their tech people said this was the norm. He bit the bullet and got a T-1 connection installed now.