High Speed Internet w/out Phone Line in the Country?

[deerminator]

Can you do this in a rural area somehow without getting the raw end of the deal from your telecom provider? Keep in mind we can't get cable where we live. Dish, Direct TV or an antenna are the only options for television and we have the first. I called TDS Telecom, our phone provider to ask if we could switch to internet only (DSL) and they said sure, but it will cost you about $2 more than what you're paying for both so we recommend you stick with the package you have!

The reason we'd cancel our landline if we could is I recently was able to get great reception for our AT&T mobile phones by complaining and complaining and complaining to the customer service people there about how since the switch from Unicel to AT&T occurred, we are only getting one bar and lots of dropped calls at home. They credited our accoutn $200 and told me to go buy a Microcell tower for our house at the local AT&T store and since I hooked that thing up, we get 5 bars all the time. We'd love to use our mobile phones for our only phones, but that wont't work without a landline to hook up to the internet at present!

[upnorth]

Hughes net or Wild Blue.

[Jim Almquist]

Hughes net or Wild Blue.

From what I have found they are pretty spendy for what you get. We had the same problem with Century Link/Qwest. They wanted $44.00 for DSL and $46.00 for DSL and a land line. Cable came through and that when we dropped them. We pay about the same but get faster down/up load speeds. My guess is you are getting the best deal for your money even though you are stuck with a land line you don't use or care to have.

[deerminator]

Yeah, I looked into Satellite internet and found that to be true. We're paying about $60 even for high-speed DSL plus most basic phone service through TDS right now. Still, it's about as cheap as we could go if we want internet!

[delcecchi]

Can you do this in a rural area somehow without getting the raw end of the deal from your telecom provider? Keep in mind we can't get cable where we live. Dish, Direct TV or an antenna are the only options for television and we have the first. I called TDS Telecom, our phone provider to ask if we could switch to internet only (DSL) and they said sure, but it will cost you about $2 more than what you're paying for both so we recommend you stick with the package you have!

The reason we'd cancel our landline if we could is I recently was able to get great reception for our AT&T mobile phones by complaining and complaining and complaining to the customer service people there about how since the switch from Unicel to AT&T occurred, we are only getting one bar and lots of dropped calls at home. They credited our accoutn $200 and told me to go buy a Microcell tower for our house at the local AT&T store and since I hooked that thing up, we get 5 bars all the time. We'd love to use our mobile phones for our only phones, but that wont't work without a landline to hook up to the internet at present!

Have you considered getting a data plan from ATT and using that to provide a hotspot at your house. A buddy of mine does that. So the landline goes away completely.

The feasibility of that depends on the quality of the data service you can get, of course.

There are several ways to get a hotspot from a cellular provider.

[upnorth]

Any internet access that is out of the norm is going to be spendy. AT&T and Verizon I think both have solutions too, but again you are going to pay. You want cheap, stick with dial up.

Not sure if anyone has it down there there but there is a local company that has towers with wireless up here.

[deerminator]

Thanks guys. I will check with AT&T on the hotspot. I am thinking that won't work though, as the reception we get at home is minimal if any without the Microcell tower, which needs to connected to the Internet. Unless with a hotspot they can install some sort of device or receiver that would allow our signal to improve sans the Microcell? I will check.

[delcecchi]

Sorry, I misunderstood the antenna microcell thing. I thought it connected you to their tower. Instead it connects you via the internet in some fashion.

Never mind then.

Some places there are wireless ISP available, like accessmn in Cook. There is one around Rochester also the name of which I don't recall. sorry.

[deerminator]

Yes, we are in West Central Minnesota. We get great service until about 200 feet from our house and then it drops to one bar or nothing. With Unicel we always had 3-4 bars at the house before the switchover in April. They assured us it would change as they retrofitted the towers but it never did. Verizon managed to put up a huge tower less than a mile away from us, though, during this time. Our neighbor who had Alltel and now Verizon them immediately got full bars when that happened. Anyway, I had to call AT&T multiple times before they would give me the credit to buy this Microcell "tower," which basically is a device you plug into your wirless modem and allows you to receive 5 bars through that when at home. So problem solved on that front because I like AT&T otherwise but I wasn't about to pay $200 to get cell reception at home when I already have several accounts with them - business and personal.

[CAMAN]

What do you use the internet for mainly? Normal surfing? Or do you stream Netflix and such?

If it's just normal day to day use then I would go with Verizon and get a MiFi hotspot. They have a few different plans starting at $30/month for 2gb, $50/month for 5gb, and $80/month for 10gb. And I believe also they have a promotion still going on that doubles the GB for the same price, though that may be over right now. And if your lucky enough to have gotten a 4G tower nearby(Verizon will be able to tell you that) the speed will probably be faster than what you have now. This way you could drop the AT&T and go with Verizon all around and it will probably be cheaper than everything you are pay for now.

If you stream Netflix I don't know if you have anything better than what you have going now.