So we are building a house in VA....thread in oldschool.....and cant get dsl or fios or a good feed of the cell tower......

Satellite Internet is my only choice....

We use the web for social media, surfing, bills, youtube, when I work from home, and the oldest school work.....no gaming or netflix or hulu....altoughwe may get hulu....


So doing my digging and its looks like these 2 companies are the big players, evenly matched in offerings...but I cant find anything to say yes go with these folks..,


Help tww and any feedback, to include other companies is appreciated ....zip is 22553

7/28/2013 11:14:57 PM

Is there anyone near you with ground-based internet that will let you share their internet using cantennas?
http://www.cantenna.com

7/28/2013 11:20:11 PM

I'm out in the sticks and have Exede (newer version of Wildblue).

Pros:
- 2MB/s downloads from Steam. 500KB/s-600KB/s everywhere else.
- 12am-5am doesn't count against your bandwidth. Easy enough to schedule large downloads for that time.
- If you exceed your bandwidth limit, they don't cut you off or charge overage charges. They throttle you down to about 40KB/s, which is still very doable.

Cons:
- Expensive. No other real choice though, but still not something I like.
- Weather. Just like satellite TV, if its raining heavily, forget having internet. If you have a job where internet access is a must, make plans to have a backup. I use a tethered phone when needed.
- Ping times. 700ms on average. You learn to live with it but anything which has does a lot of small packets over the network (gaming, some work applications, putty, etc.) can be challenging


The only reason I'd give a nod to Exede over Hughesnet is the 12am-5am unlimited policy. You can rack up as much as you want during that time with Exede. Hughesnet does not allow unlimited during their 2am-8am period.

7/28/2013 11:26:52 PM

I dont know your address but what about Comcast or Centurylink? is it not available.

7/29/2013 11:30:26 AM

^ not available...looked into that....I am way in the country

7/29/2013 12:22:43 PM

Damn son. I would die.

7/29/2013 12:33:19 PM

mikey99cobra had a similar issue when he built his house. he ended up establishing an internet point and beaming it across the field to his house. I don't know if that's an option for you, but it's something to consider.

7/29/2013 1:07:06 PM

How close is the nearest cell tower? You can get an external cell antenna that can pick up weak signals and make them usable. Id rather have 3g cell service than satellite for Internet.

^and theres that. You can shot high speed wireless signal a few miles with a clear line of sight. Judging by the pictures in your house thread I didn't think that would be an option.

[Edited on July 29, 2013 at 1:18 PM. Reason : .]

7/29/2013 1:16:34 PM

Quote :

"Id rather have 3g cell service than satellite for Internet."

you're going to pay out your ass now for that if you actually plan on using it. Parents had a Verizon mifi and it was one giant POS. They recently switched to DishNet and while not great, it's a hell of a lot more stable than the mifi was. They have the 5GB (5Mb down/1Mb up) plan for $49/mo (incl $10 modem lease fee) which is about $10 less than they were paying for the legacy unlimited plan on the mifi. No overage charges but you'll get dialup speeds if you go over.

7/29/2013 1:40:25 PM

You can get unlimited data for $70 a month for sprint 3g and 4g or 20 gigs for $70 for verizon 3g and 4g. Much better performance and a better value than satellite IMHO. It all depends on your signal. I was getting around 20mb down and up with verizon 4g.

http://www.millenicom.com is who I purchased through. They resale data for sprint and verizon.

7/29/2013 4:02:26 PM

^
Definitely check on the cellular if you are CERTAIN you will not go over the bandwidth limit or are willing to pay if you do. You can plug one of the USB modems into the back of some routers (I had a Cradlepoint MBR 1000). Cellular was my first choice for awhile back when I was grandfathered in under the Alltel unlimited 3G plans. Then the iPhones hit the Verizon network and turned the network to absolute garbage. Note: Alltel-->Verizon may be the only network you can get out in the sticks. If you have more than Verizon, I'll be surprised.

Issues I encountered (to name a few):
- Web Accelerator Proxies incorrectly formatting xhtml. Blizzard forums would not render with an XML error every time. Put up a VPN tunnel with a default route, same web browser, worked fine.
- Dropped from 3G to 2G frequently ... 150ms to 2000ms ping times. 150KB/s to 16KB/s. Made working at home absolutely impossible.
- Intentional throttling of USB modems. Put an iPhone and USB modem right next to each other, the iPhone got better performance and signal every time. (And no it wasn't the modem, same issues with a newer modem).


It was good while it lasted, but the quality of service went down to the point where it was unusable. I understand Verizon has little incentive to keep their grandfathered unlimited customers happy, probably costs more than they are worth. Hence why I switched to satellite. The 4G does not reach where I'm at, otherwise their ugly buckets that offer 4G home internet may have been an option.


EDIT: I did try Millenicom at one point. They had some of the best customer service I can remember. They don't own any of the airspace, but instead negotiate with the big vendors for a small slice which they subdivide out. They only offered Sprint in my area, which unfortunately didn't reach my house.

[Edited on July 29, 2013 at 8:01 PM. Reason : .]

7/29/2013 7:57:48 PM

Quote :

"Usage Concerns Millenicom does not charge overage fees however we do reserve the right to suspend service if the client goes over the stated limit on their plan. It is also possible, though rare, the upstream carrier may place a “throttle” on the account for 30 days and slow the connection speed to 200 kps. If the overage is egregious or if the client consistently goes over the data limit, Millenicom will require the purchase of an additional account."

Wonder how much it'd take to make Verizon mad.

7/29/2013 8:43:04 PM