Phone/Internet/TV Service in Boones Mill VA (Roanoke, Franklin: lease, loan)

[mkochend]

My wife and I are moving to a new house on Bethlehem Road in Boones Mill VA this month. We are currently living in NC and were wondering if anyone could make any suggestions for phone/internet/tv service in the Boones Mill area. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you, MK

[j1n]

when we were in Franklin County, we bundled a cable tv/cable internet through Jetbroadband. The service was pretty great (especially the internet...very fast and reliable).

[sregorat3]

Where is Sean when you need him???

[seanpecor]

Yesterday, Sean was driving a F-350 from Vermont to Boones Mill. How does 13.5mpg sound, woo hoo! We would have driven our Prius had my mother in-law agreed to being strapped in on top of the roof for the trip back here. Sadly, she declined.

I don't think cable reaches out and touches Bethlehem Road. On the bright side, Dish Network offers local channels, more channels, more HD, and has a better overall picture than cable. We have the HD-DVR which is a real time saver. We don't watch much TV, but when we do, we watch it commercial free thanks to automatic DVR recording and the F-FWD button

We have B2X fixed-wireless broadband (B2X Online). You need to be line of sight with the top of Grassy Hill to get it. I'm thinking that most of Bethlehem Rd will not have line of sight, but I could be wrong. On the bright side, you may be close enough to EMBARQ's Boones Mill point-of-presence, which is behind BB&T on Route 220. Failing both of those options (DSL or B2X), you can get broadband through Verizon Wireless EVDO cellular broadband service. I'm up on the hills above Green Level Road not far from the Bethlehem intersection and I've had B2X for years. I love B2X. My love for B2X borders on the diagnosable. It's bulletproof and 1.5Mbps bidirectional with very low latency timings (insert Tim Allen grunt here). I'll tell you a funny story. For the first six months we lived here, I was paying $800/month for a dedicated T1 line so I could run my dotcom company from my home office. Well, it turned out that I didn't HAVE to get a T1 line because I could have gotten B2X on day one! Actually, it's not a funny story. There is nothing funny about pouring $7000 down the toilet, unless you're Cheech or Chong

For local land line phone service, you can have any provider you want as long as it is EMBARQ. Luckily they're a great company and the area service technicians are very friendly. If you qualify for DSL, then you can likely benefit from the cost savings of bundling.

Email me (sean AT digitalspinner.com) and stop by sometime. We've lived here since 2005 (Oak Hill Stables of Virginia, a Roanoke Area Horse Farm) and love getting to know our neighbors!

Sean

[mkochend]

Thanks for the information. I got the phone and TV set up and am looking into satellite high speed internet service. Embarq dsl does not cover that area and BX2 line of site internet is not available at my new house.
does anyone have any experience with WildBlue?

[sandykatan]

We live off Green Level and do not have a clear line of site to the B2X Grassy Hill Tower, yet. I think about 6 trees on my neighbors property may go missing soon.

Our options have been a Verizon Air Card EVDO and HughesNet Satellite. Satellite speeds are okay for $80/month, but the high latency times render it completely useless when using a VPN, which I was using while working from home. The EVDO for $50/month worked better for the VPN, but was still slow - I think speeds generally are in the range of 200kbps down and 50kbps up. If I really need a high speed connection I can go to the Bojangles/DQ just south on US 220, or just stop by Sean's.

I would have to say that the lack of internet options have been the only negative thing I can think of since we moved to the area in April. But the views of Cahas Mountain and things like seeing Santa's 8 deer in my driveway (no red nose), or 2 bucks grappling over a doe in my front yard more than make up for it.

[seanpecor]

Assuming I'm guessing correctly on which home mkochend bought, I think I can see both of your houses from the 1,430' top of our 54 acre parcel Maybe B2X can loan me a solar powered repeater

mkochend, if you decide you want to try out HughesNet, HAVE I GOT A DEAL FOR YOU! I've got the router hardware and the entire lnb/dish. In between my T1 line and finally getting B2X, I tried out the HughesNet service. I think the hardware cost was $1,000. You can take it off my hands for $250. It should work fine; the equipment is less than 3 years old and was only in service for about 6 months.

Sean

[mkochend]

Thanks again for the input. I signed up with wildblue since they have a package deal with direct TV, free installation and you lease the equipment. I would have to imagine with the houses being built in the area at some point dsl or high speed cable will be available in the future. If you can see a house with a stone front and blue wood siding from your land then you can see my house!

[seanpecor]

That was the house I was thinking of I can see it along with the neighboring homes. If you look West Southwest from your home you'll see a hilltop crown with trees a little thinned out relative to other hilltops. It's a 40 acre block of our forestland that was recently selectively harvested.

You bought a nice house - welcome to the neighborhood!

Sean

[rabrand]

Hi all! Though I am in Illinois mostly,I have rented a house on the corner of Antioch rd and Retreat rd. Bob