Living in a rural area where internet service is hard to get because of trees and hills. I recently checked with rise broadband and was told I would need a 60 ft tower to get their service. I now see star link is in the area. I currently have Viasat, but hate the pricing. Any thoughts or advice. Also how hard is star link to hook up. Im an old school guy who gets upset when things dont go right. Thanks

Of those 3. Starlink. It is plug and play. Does need clear line of sight to the sky. No configuring. Just have to run your own wires.

Try TMobile home internet and see if they service your area.

Can you plug in a light? Can you connect a USBc cable?

If yes, you just configured Starlink.

It does need a clear view, and they have a variety of mounts to meet your needs.

Starlink at our summer place lets me do Zoom meetings while everyone else watches Netflix or plays online games all at the same time. This is your answer, friend.

Another vote for starlink.

I have T-Mobile, but I'm in a suburb. My T-Mo experience in rural areas is not good.

I have several coworkers with Starlink. For the RVers, it's hit or miss depending on the campground. The further south, the lower the angle of the dish and the further away the trees need to be.

Starlink

Starlink

Starlink in far west Texas and Mexico. Terrific.

Starlink and it's not even close.

IMPORTANT!

Download the Starlink App first and it has a "Visibility Tool" that uses your phone camera to see if you are going to have the required visibility. If you have trees or anything in the way, even a little, it can cause noticeable disruptions or even outtages.

We picked up Starlink on a recent roadtrip because the kids were burning through hotspot data and I was working from the road. Super easy to set up and get going. Two cables, point your phone at the sky to find obstructions, and you are up and running. Super fast and never experienced any throttling. The only time we noticed is slowing down was during a huge thunderstorm in Arkansas, but even that was minimal.

Been using Starlink for 6 weeks in Montana this summer and have not had a single issue and I've been on video calls for 3-4 hours most days while the rest of the family is streaming, working, etc.

Truly a game changer.

Starlink for us. We have it in Pagosa and it is fast and trouble free. Last week we had 8 guests at our home and 31 total devices including phones, laptops, tvs, alarms, cameras. Everyone was on the phone, iPads, watching tv, doing zoom calls and never an issue. We are very pleased with it.

I get sad hearing about all of these places that have Starlink capabilities and I don't. But I also don't have anything above old school land line either.

Hot spots suck, the WISP we tried at one point sucked, what I have now is marginal at best. One of the few drawbacks of being outside of town in an aread that doesn't meat the pop density metrics to make installing fiber for any company really worth it.

Someday starlink will work everywhere

I'm in the same boat as you are. We have Hughes Net but it is a POS. Constantly arguing with them over slow speeds.
We signed up with a Starlink 8 months ago and paid our deposit but have heard nothing. The downside is you are at their mercy and are kept in the dark because there is no way to communicate with them.
We have some neighbor ranches that have Starlink for over a year and there is four of us that have been waiting almost that.
I did finally get an email answer from Starlink that because so many people have lied to get the RV versions ( When they really are using it at their homes) that it is causing the fringe areas like ours to not get service.
Until then folks like you and I just live with it I guess.

So you got the RV version? It supposedly only gives you what they call " best effort" speeds. Is that correct.

I live outside of Atlanta in a rural, very hilly area. Out of the back of my house, it is a 100' drop over about a 50 yard distance. Very heavily wooded.

When I moved in, the prior owners had HughesNet. Terrible. Then I got an outdoor cellular antenna with a signal booster for OTR mobile (T-mobile). That was about 6 down, less than 1 up, but very spotty. Also got ATT broadband that was about the same speed since the GF and I needed it for work. I have one bar on my cell phone and my GF gets no cell signal inside the house.

I got Starlink about 6 months ago but I was warned that I would be "throttled." I figured it would be better throttled than anything else I have.

I have consistently been getting download speeds of over 100 and upload speeds of over 10. The antenna is still sitting in my front yard on the ground. My GF won't let me get on the roof to mount it, and I haven't hired anyone to do it yet. I'm sure the speed will get even better with fewer obstructions.

TL;DR: Starlink

Edit: I thought my antenna was broken when I tried to install because I couldn't adjust the angle. This thing has a motor! You plug it in, connect to it on the app and it motors around, scans the sky and finds the best angle for the signal. It's kind of amazing. Unlike DirecTv or HughesNet, you don't have to mess with aiming it yourself. Super easy.

We got what they are calling the Roam version. We were on a 3-week road trip in our RV across the Southeast. I was still working and on at least four Teams/Zoom calls per day. The kids and wife ate through the hotspot data pretty quickly. We figured out that in certain states you can order it through Best Buy and Home Depot. So while we were in Tennessee, I ordered it and picked it up in Nashville.

Every spot we were at was showing as expanding in 2023. We were consistently getting between 50-100 down and 10-20 up. That's with kids and wife streaming and me on a call. I've seen it higher than 150 down. Only once did we see it lower and that was in the evening. I don't remember it being other than a momentary hiccup. The other instance was during a huge thunderstorm at night where it slowed, but still worked.

Did not know you could get Starlink at Home Depot or Best Buy.
I will check that out. Thank you very much for the input sir.

It's only available through Home Depot and Best Buy in certain states. We were lucky enough to be near Nashville and they had them. It took about 3 days to fulfill the order.