Phone/Internet/TV Service in Boones Mill VA

[vafiddler]

Hi- I'm looking at some property in Endicott and was wondering if there was any hope of high speed internet out there, other than by satellite or Verizon Air Card. According to B2Xs website Endicott is out of range but they say there's a new tower proposed in the Ferrum area. Any idea how long it takes for a proposed tower to become a reality? Also, for what its worth, there's a clear view to Bull Mountain (near Stuart), but I haven't been able to find out if there are any point-to-point wireless service providers with towers there. Would Citizens in Floyd or Kimanet in Martinsville be an option? I know, I should call them up, but figured I would ask here first. I apologize if this is wasting your time.
Thanks,
Matt

[Paladin6]

I have owned a little 36 acre chunk on the Henry side of Ferrum for 11 yrs. Thanks to a divorce, I'm gonna be perm. in a week. I gotta say that being on Road Runner living in Raleigh has spoiled me. There is squat for options on fast internet up here, I can get power, but, a phone is probable, dsl isn't. As for sat. systems, they are good for TV, but, suck for internet. No streaming video, voip, etc. The B2X I have played with doesn't reach down to me, too many trees and down the wrong side of the hill. I can't belive a cable company hasn't gone ape kazing and started laying cable lines down. Going from a total net based digital lifestyle back to good ol' down home living will be uncomfortable. can't wait for the first bill I used to pay online goes bump. I heard that there is going to be a B2X tower installed in the monestary above Callaway. That should open alot of area's up. I'll probably still have to take the laptop over by Ferrum Col. and try and snag a signal. Anyone tried ATT wireless for internet? Does Sprint work up here? BTW, what is the best cell reception up here?

A

[seanpecor]

If you have a neighbor within line of sight of a B2X tower, and their house is in line of sight with your house, then you can bounce it off them. This is a common solution that B2X employs.

One of the guys at B2X told me a couple weeks ago that they were lighting up a new tower in two weeks, but I'm not sure where it is located.

We're over in Boones Mill and we have VZW, which I have no issues with. In fact I get full bars of EVDO broadband at my house on my LG Voyager. But it seems that U.S. cellular has loads of towers in these parts (they own the tower on Cahas Mountain, the only tower on Cahas), so they might be worth a try.

Cable companies don't have the margin nowadays for massive roll-outs. The local gov't would have to get involved and foot the bill. B2X is a better solution IMHO, and Franklin County helped B2X put a bunch of towers up, but they could really use more.

Sean

[Paladin6]

Thanks for the info. When I started learning about B2X I had to shake my head. Line of sight only in the mountains. Don't make a whole lot of sense. be great a little east of here going to the flat landers. Anyway, I have to make sure I can afford everything i get. so I need to be sure what works and what doesn't. Don't want to buy a bunch of equipment and find out there is a better mouse trap. I take it Embarq is the phone go to people?

A

[swagger]

Our next move will be to somewhere in the Eastern time zone. While our move won't be for at least another year, we're starting to look at our options and narrow down our choices now. The more we look at different cities, the more we're liking Roanoke.

I read through this thread and am interested in the level of service that B2X provides. Our home-based business is transacted entirely via phone and fax, and we use a couple of different VoIP providers for our phone service. Because of this, our Internet connection must be ROCK SOLID.

So I guess my question is, does anyone have any complaints about B2X, or otherwise think that it wouldn't perform well enough to support business class phone service? One of the few requirements we have for whatever city we settle on is that it has a reasonably priced, high-speed (at least 512k upstream) and reliable Internet option available.

Thanks for any feedback you can give.

[seanpecor]

By 512k upstream, I'm assuming you mean 512 kilobits upstream, or, in other words, +/- 50 Kilobytes per second upstream? If that's the case, then B2X will be fine. I just ran a test by pulling a 30MB file from my in-house development server in Boones Mill to my production web server in Illinois and it averaged 145 Kilobytes a second or about 1.5Mbits upstream. Downstream rates are comparable to upstream, perhaps a bit faster. Pinging Yahoo.com, I get an average of 33ms, which is pretty low latency and well within the operable range for VOIP.

I'm a self employed dotcom business developer and downtimes are very, very rare. Maybe once a year there will be a 1-3 hour downtime. It's as good or better than DSL on clean copper. It's much better than satellite or cable internet with respect to reliability. Weather doesn't affect the signal.

Of course, if you plan on operating your home based business from the city of Roanoke, then you'd likely have additional broadband options including DSL and Cable Internet. We're country mice who like to visit the city, instead of the other way around. So we're out in Boones Mill, about 20 minutes door to door from South Roanoke. But if you're looking into semi-rural living, Boones Mill might be your best bet, thanks to B2X. I'm not sure the rural northern fringes of the Roanoke Valley have B2X or a non-satellite broadband alternative?

Actually Paladin, line of sight fixed wireless is a great service for semi-rural mountainous locations because you can sight on a prominent hill/mountain top and cover large areas. I get B2X from Grassy Hill which is 5 miles away. If you're down in a holler you might still be able to bounce off a neighbor. B2X is apparently looking at new technology that is near-line-of-sight, which might work well for folks in the shadow of a ridge.

Sean

[Paladin6]

I'm def. down in the shadow. I am going to try an omni ant. and see if the Sprint card will work.

A

[Paladin6]

The little usb card/modem rocks. It's a Compass 597 and I get very good service. Still haven't down loaded a monster file, but watch streaming video well enough. So far I am impressed.

A