Cell Phones, Satelites and High Speed...HELP! (Tulsa, Ramona: real estate, live in)

[ectanner]

First of all...Happy Holidays to all of you kind folks. I hope it is safe and full of wonderful, fun times.

Now...down to my questionsssssssss.
We will be moving to Oklahoma soon. It is actually a Ramona address.
(W. 3200 Rd. Ramona, OK, 74061)
We are wondering what cell phone service would be best considering this is rather rural area, outside Ramona. It is impossible to determine by looking at websites for the different carriers. We plan to travel OK a lot and see it all so would like to have one carrier that could provide for our needs.

Also TV service. I guess it would be Satelite service as opposed to cable.

But then how do I get high speed internet service? Does such an animal exist through satelite companies?

These are critical issues we need to start looking at.
Thanks in advance for your help.

[Goodpasture]

I like Ramona. I LOVE the Osage hills west of there.

I get pretty good cell service in most areas around there with AT&T.

I also live away from cable access. Our telephone does not have DSL, so I dropped it, opting for cell service as primary phone service. We are on Directv for TV, and we are on Hughes Net for satellite ISP. I would look closely at Wild Blue if I was doing it again, instead of Hughes. Both are competitive with each other. I am on the $59.95 a month ISP program from Hughes, and I run my business (I am a real estate appraiser) off it and there is frequently three computers accessing it at once. If all you have is a notebook and one user, you might consider the cell/air cards offered by the cell companies. Both Sprint and AT&T offer pretty good service at reasonable prices. As I have to access the internet from the road a lot, I also have an AT&T cell card, and it is almost as much for that as the Hughes Net is.

[ectanner]

Thank you Goodpasture. Your input gives me somewhere to start.
Cell phones can be a pain if you live in multiple locations. Someday maybe we'll have a cell phone service that has decent coverage across the country. If there is one, I sure haven't found it. I am currently with Verizon but I have fulfilled my contract with them. I may just wait until I get there and see how it does. According to there service map, it may be so-so. I will also check into ATT and Sprint.
Direct TV would work fine.
Wild Blue is next on my list to check in to. I need the fastest server I can get as I put out 100's of photos sometimes. Downloading can bring everything to a screeching halt if its slow or has interruptions.
Interesting, I saw the cell/air card used for the first time last week by my Realtor. Said he couldn't live without it.
Once again, thanks for your help.
Anyone else have any suggestions?

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

[Goodpasture]

Originally Posted by ectanner

Downloading can bring everything to a screeching halt if its slow or has interruptions.

Sat like Hughes or Wild Blue can be interrupted by rain or snow. But the download speeds are excellent. The upload speeds are not so good.

[scirocco22]

I also endorse the use of cellular air cards. I have had Sprint data service for almost a year and love it. It's not as fast as a fast DSL or cable internet but the advantage is that it lets you connect to the internet just about anywhere ...anywhere where there's a cell signal. And it's "fairly" reliable. My main reason for having it is that I travel a lot in an RV so it really comes in handy.

I've never had Wild Blue but most I know who have had it and have then gone to EVDO (cellular data) have much better things to say about EVDO than they have about satellite internet. Just like you say, if the satellite internet is not reliable, I'd rather have just a bit slower speed than to put up with outages and interruptions in throughput.

Download speeds are comparable when comparing the basic satellite package and the upload speeds are probably twice as fast. The problems with EVDO is that the latency is not as good as DSL or cable but I hear that satellite's pings aren't that good either.

Check out EVDO. If you have any questions, I can probably come up with some links to help you.

Merry Christmas.

[cruisecontrol__]

Does Tulsa have any Cable Internet Providers?

[Goodpasture]

Tulsa's cable provider is Cox Cable, and is extremely reliable. You can get good speeds with their $10.00 ISP when you bundle (cable tv, telephone, isp) and as much as 15 mbps for about $35 with bundled service. If I had it in my area I would jump on it. Also AT&T is marketing aggressively and is offering high speed isp as well as hdtv and phone service as a bundle.

[Synopsis]

Tulsa is also a huge hub for fiber optics so they probably will have things like U-Verse (AT&T) or Verizon FIOS. Those use fiber optics and can have fantastic speeds.

[ectanner]

Thank you. This is all very helpful information and gives me something to research while hibernating.
Happy New Year!

[Synopsis]

Originally Posted by ectanner

Thank you. This is all very helpful information and gives me something to research while hibernating.
Happy New Year!

See ya in four months depending on when the groundhog sees his shadow!