No Internet Rant

[baymule]

So we have our patch of Paradise and we love it. Except the internet situation. There is one provider in this area, Excede, a satellite internet. Their service is horrible, it is vastly over priced, has different "up to" speeds, which it never gets up to, usage is metered and overage charges are astronomical. The few who bit the bullet and signed a 2 year contract absolutely HATES their service.

We live 7 miles from one town, 9 from another and 9 miles from yet another town. All have internet providers. None come to my house. We live behind The Pine Curtain. The trees effectively block wireless signal.

There is a hard wired AT&T phone line to the house, but they don't offer internet. I could get a hot spot, but that's rather iffy service, metered usage and overage charges apply.

There is a very good provider in a neighboring town, 9 miles away that I would love to have, but can't get a signal. There is a wireless provider in the other town 9 miles away, no signal for them either. But they offered to put up a 60' tower for us. It would only cost us $1550, installed, plus a 2 year contract.

So I tap on my ancient Droid, freezing up, losing signal, getting booted off, taking FOREVER to go from page to page. Can't see pictures or smileys. Can't post pictures or smileys. Have 8 updates for phone that won't update because they are outdated. HUH??

Threatening to get new I-phone and see if it's any better.

 

[seedcorn]

Would imagine any new smart phone would be better. One way to look at is if you live there 10 years, the tower is $160/year or $15/month plus monthly. Not saying do it, just helping justify. Anyone else there want Internet? Friends, family?

Feel your pain. Switching from Microsoft based to IPhone takes some adjusting. I have iPhone 6 but at times I mutter about it.

 

[digitS']

Would dial-up work for occasional use, Bay'?

I gave up on cable last month and went with DSL.

Mostly, I was at the end of my patience with the teevee service... If the signal wasn't strong enuf, and it wasn't half the time, the captioning was atrocious! Back to the antenna with very few channels but better picture quality and decent captioning.

DSL is better, too . Big gripe about price - it was about the same, with or without satellite teevee bundling. Difficult to tease the information outta people until the first bill arrives ...

Getting shed of Comcast has been a nightmare!

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

Would the tower belong to you Bay, or is that just an installation charge plus contract?
We are currently on satellite, but used a hot spot for a few years.
It had problems so you're probably wise to avoid it. There is no cable or DSL service out here, so our options are limited. We use the middle plan which costs us $70 a month and gives us limited data, but seems to be okay for the 3 of us. We get extra data from 2 a.m. to 8 .m. which Kid#2 likes because that's when he's not working. But I can't watch many you tubes without going over our usage limits. We don't get fined, they just cut us back to dial up speed.

I know how frustrating it must be to you. Plus we are missing seeing your pictures.
But I guess it's still better than sending post cards.

 

[buckabucka]

No DSL here either, but we have cable.
I guess that is one of the sacrifices of living in the country, but still, with all the world's technological advances, it seems so primitive!

 

[so lucky]

If you get the tower, what would be a possible monthly charge on top of that?
If there are enough neighbors interested, maybe the company would put up the cable and charge each household a hook-up charge of a couple of hundred. If there were 8 neighbors involved, maybe you could donate the land and get it for free.
Do you have at least 8 neighbors within a couple of miles?

 

[Smart Red]

I feel your pain, Bay. Literally I do. I have WildBlue which is a subdivision of Excede. Therefore, I have all the same conveniences and drawback as you have. I was able to get this service through money from the President's first big Trillion dollar stimulus plan. It costs me about $45 a month which is much cheaper than anything else I can get by nearly $30. Could you ask if you qualify for this program?

 

[Smart Red]

If you get the tower, what would be a possible monthly charge on top of that?
If there are enough neighbors interested, maybe the company would put up the cable and charge each household a hook-up charge of a couple of hundred. If there were 8 neighbors involved, maybe you could donate the land and get it for free.
Do you have at least 8 neighbors within a couple of miles?

It is almost a given that once the tower is up, others will get internet service through that tower. It is not a given that the income from those new customers will be used to defer the cost to Bay for the tower.

If the tower were on Bay's land I believe she would get a rent payment for the tower placement. A friend with a cable tower received both free cable TV and a yearly rent payment for the tower space on her land here in south-est, central-est Wisconsin.

 

[so lucky]

Well, there you go!

 

[baymule]

The tower would be ours. We could get 10 users on it and our monthly bill would be free. Only because of the trees, 10 users would have to be in our driveway. Or we could get ridiculous, put up a ginormous tower with Guy wires and a red blinking light on top and then could get our 10 users. NOT!!!

Gheesh.