Looking for rural internet in Milam County near Gause/Rockdale... Any experience with providers? Anyone I should avoid? I need 30MB or more with unlimited data and no throttling.

How's your cell service?

I use AT&T hotspot. Unlimited data. About 35mbps down a bit of the time.

I have Verizon, and it's really good out there on the property. Any experience with Unlimitedville?

https://unlimitedville.com/

It's just that price is nuts at $249 a month...

This has been a sore subject at my parents' house now for years. AT&T come within about a mile of their house but will not come any closer. I was told that a neighbor had "DirectTV" internet at their house. Does anybody know if this is actually internet supplied by a DirectTV dish or did they really have an AT&T cable run to their house and just oblivious to the fact?

http://www.wispa.org/Directories/Find-a-WISP

See if there is a WISP in the area

Rufnek said:

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This has been a sore subject at my parents' house now for years. AT&T come within about a mile of their house but will not come any closer. I was told that a neighbor had "DirectTV" internet at their house. Does anybody know if this is actually internet supplied by a DirectTV dish or did they really have an AT&T cable run to their house and just oblivious to the fact?

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I think DirectTV satellite internet uses HughesNet, ViaSat, or WindStream. They sub it out depending on your location.

https://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/content/packages/internet?lpos=Footer:2&lpos=Header:5

I considered ViaSat, but they still throttle your speed after you've gone through 20-100GB (depending on plan) of data.

Rufnek said:

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This has been a sore subject at my parents' house now for years. AT&T come within about a mile of their house but will not come any closer. I was told that a neighbor had "DirectTV" internet at their house. Does anybody know if this is actually internet supplied by a DirectTV dish or did they really have an AT&T cable run to their house and just oblivious to the fact?

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Probably Hughsnet

Mom parents and sister have it and it sucks in general

nonameag99 said:

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Rufnek said:

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This has been a sore subject at my parents' house now for years. AT&T come within about a mile of their house but will not come any closer. I was told that a neighbor had "DirectTV" internet at their house. Does anybody know if this is actually internet supplied by a DirectTV dish or did they really have an AT&T cable run to their house and just oblivious to the fact?

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Probably Hughsnet

Mom parents and sister have it and it sucks in general

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That's what I hear, and I'm sure ViaSat isn't much better. Plus, what happens when it rains...

I use a wisp. Check with Zochnet. They MIGHT serve that area near Rockdale. Their HQ is off 21 near 77.

What about BrazosWiFi?, any experience with them?

https://www.facebook.com/BrazosWiFi

All satellite internet sucks. The latency is terrible and they don't have very high data caps, stay away from that.

Using a cell hotspot is better as you won't have a true data cap and are unlimited, but get severely throttled after a set point. Most new data plans cap the high speed data after 15-25 GB. It will be 20-50 mb down until your cap, then 3g like speeds (1 mb down) after that.

WISP is what you need. It's like being on a big router for a bigger company and depending on the provider you might be able to get the speed you need and they are usually unlimited on data. Downside is their range isn't great so you have to hope you are in an area where there is enough demand and provider is available. Lots of times you'll need a tower to get a clear line of sight as well.


Edit: in response to question above, see the aggieland board on it. They will have a lot more experience/comments on them.
https://texags.com/forums/35/topics/2980273

MouthBQ98 said:

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I use a wisp. Check with Zochnet. They MIGHT serve that area near Rockdale. Their HQ is off 21 near 77.

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Zochnet looks promising! I'll give them a call.

WISP is awesome for rural internet.

We did satellite internet, but they will even tell you they are the last resort. It will work, but you will hit the data limit fast. We dropped ours as soon as our county Coop got our region online.

agfan2013 said:

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All satellite internet sucks. The latency is terrible and they don't have very high data caps, stay away from that.

Using a cell hotspot is better as you won't have a true data cap and are unlimited, but get severely throttled after a set point. Most new data plans cap the high speed data after 15-25 GB. It will be 20-50 mb down until your cap, then 3g like speeds (1 mb down) after that.

WISP is what you need. It's like being on a big router for a bigger company and depending on the provider you might be able to get the speed you need and they are usually unlimited on data. Downside is their range isn't great so you have to hope you are in an area where there is enough demand and provider is available. Lots of times you'll need a tower to get a clear line of sight as well.


Edit: in response to question above, see the aggieland board on it. They will have a lot more experience/comments on them.
https://texags.com/forums/35/topics/2980273

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For what it's worth, the capping of hotspot data and speeds is completely dependent on network congestion with AT&T. I burn up 60-75gb a month and have never noticed any throttling. The service IS variable in terms of speed though, but I have had my service for over 10 years and it has been usable for fun and business. Two days ago, I reconfigured my network and ran a speed test and it was at 37mbps down. It is expensive though, but it's also unlimited.

The WISP in my area is not only weak, if you want faster than 10mbps, you have to sign up for their 'large business' plan. Pass.

nonameag99 said:

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http://www.wispa.org/Directories/Find-a-WISP

See if there is a WISP in the area

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Just checked them out... Buddy that owns BrazosWiFi isn't listed...

Local WISP for my area is not listed either.

I assume they have to be members of the wisp org to be listed

Alright, so called a few people yesterday. Here's the update:

• Brazos WiFi can do it, but it'll run me $1500-$2100 for a pole to get service, and speeds probably not fast enough for my needs.
• Farm to Market Broadband can do it, but speeds only 3MB max, and he said I'd be lucky to get that.
• ZochNet, speeds too slow

Best bet right now is UnlimitedVille using 4G LTE since we have a tower fairly close. They offer a 14-day free trial and told me they've seen speeds up to 80MB for people right under a tower. It's expensive, but I do a lot of Skype meetings during the day, so it's a requirement for me. Anyway, worth a try!

If you're far from town, you're most likely looking at the Blue or Red plan, probably Red (Verizon).

https://unlimitedville.com/support

"Each membership includes 14 days from the date of RECEIPT OF HOTSPOT to test out the device and service at no risk. If the device or service does not meet your expectations and you would like a full refund for both the One-Time Membership Fee and the First Month's Membership Pre-Payment, the device must be shipped back within 14 days from the date at which you received it. Devices returned after this period will not be entitled to a refund for either the One-Time Membership Fee or any Monthly Membership Prepayments."

txcajun said:

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I have Verizon, and it's really good out there on the property. Any experience with Unlimitedville?

https://unlimitedville.com/

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We use Unlimitedville. All the restrictions Verizon has on their regular unlimited plans will apply. The router was a bit fiddly to set up, but otherwise zero issues.

You can pick which carrier to use with Unlimitedville. Check T-Mobile's coverage map in that area before you jump on board. They've built out a lot of rural LTE and no one uses it. Ours runs on T-Mobile service and is 4X as fast as Verizon - but that's a function of being the only person that uses T-Mobile while everyone else uses Verizon and gets throttled.

I had a Verizon MiFi card when we first moved out to our house, but it sucked. Wasn't dependable, would randomly shut off and the design of the damned equipment made it near impossible for me to tell WTF was going on with it.

We were on a local WISP for a while, but they got to the point where it was down or had issues as much as it actually worked. I went on a drunken tirade one night after it quit working for the 4th or 5th time and sent them an email telling them exactly what I thought. They dropped me as a customer 2 days later.

I'm on satellite internet now. It's meh. Nothing that will blow your skirt up, but it's relatively dependable, we have no issue streaming movies on Amazon or Netflix, the girls watch the hell out of youtube on their ipads, etc. Cost sucks, but so far its been the best of the choices available. Exceed is the company (Viastat).