Internet (taxes, live in, moving to)

[kadylady]

I'm moving to the North Valley area (Merlin). I think I've decided to go with Dish-network, but not sure what the best choice is for internet. Quest is available in my area as well as Hughes and Wild Blue. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Hawk J]

Howdy kadylady,

We live in the mountains west of Wolf Creek.
We've had DirecTV since 1995. It's worked good fer us.

For 3 lustrums i had dialup internet, just recently got high speed internet with,
Frontier

They recently had a promotion by the phone & mail where i now pay $24.99 per month plus taxes, first year.
free installation, but pay for parts.

Best of Luck with your choice.

[kadylady]

Is Frontier a satellite service?

[kadylady]

It looks like Frontier is another DSL service, which is what Quest is.

[Leisesturm]

AFAIK the sattelite services use phone line up-link, there is no completely wireless broadband.... oops.. there is mobile wireless. I get unlimited 3G network wireless with my cellphone plan but I use Verizon FIOS (fiber). I'd just go DSL since it's available. Come to think of it... Frontier is what the internet portion of Verizon is now called.

H

[kadylady]

It looks like Hughes and Wild Blue don't have any higher speed than Quest, 1.5 mbps. DSL is probably more dependable anyway. Thanks.

[SGiegler]

Hughesnet is AWFUL! And expensive. And unreliable. Go with Qwest.

[kadylady]

Thanks for the input. BTW, when I talked to the guy at Dish today, he said that they were hoping to have a new satellite within a year that will give them 4 - 6 mbps (can't remember which). That would be GREAT if it ever happens. Can't get that now outside of town.

[Hawk J]

Originally Posted by kadylady

Is Frontier a satellite service?

Frontier is also the landline phone company. They used to be called Citizens Communication Co.

[simplygib]

There is another option, and I hesitate to mention them because their customer service is almost non-existent, and they have recently made my blood pressure boil by yet another support request having fallen on deaf ears.

Outreach Internet

It is wireless in the sense that they install a modem on your property that transmits and receives signals via cell towers. No phone line needed. We are in an area (near Murphy) where we have no choice for broadband but Outreach or Satellite (phone lines won't support DSL). We went with Outreach.

I am happy with the reliability overall, but as I already said, their support is horrendous. Despite claims on their website (24-hour support, 30-minute call return times, etc.) most of the time phone messages and e-mails are not returned AT ALL. In about a year and a half of using their service, I've contacted them maybe 5 or 6 times to check status (connection problems or slow responses), and I always get voicemail, and only twice did anyone bother to return my call. It's really maddening. But problems with their actual system are infrequent.

They advertise 1.5 Mbps up and down for $29.99/month, but the speed varies. At the moment I'm getting 2.3 Mbps down and about 1 Mbps up. At times it is much slower, but not frequently.

If we had the choice of DSL we would have gone with that. Outreach charges an installation fee which was $300 for us ($250 plus another $50 because they had to hire a tree climber to get the modem about 75 feet up one of our trees for decent reception).

Glad to hear Dish Network might be offering internet here soon. We are using them for TV and would consider switching internet to them as well.