Need fast/reliable internet for work: is country living in North Idaho out of the question for me? (Post Falls: homes, buying)

[ruralcda]

Here's my situation:


* Currently living in-town in CDA
* I work from home 100% of the time. Most of my time is spent on video calls/meetings, so reliable internet at a decent speed. It doesn't need to be blazing (not downloading large files), but no data caps either.
* My family would like to live on 5 or 10 acres within 25 minutes from town, and I don't want to commute into town to work.


I've tried to do some research on my own - it looks like Intermax microwave is the most promising out of the options (no data caps).


Questions:


* Given my criteria, is rural living in North Idaho out of the question for us?
* Does anyone have personal experience with Intermax and can say whether video conferencing is viable on it?
* How fast exactly is their "$139 Internet Package" ? https://intermaxnetworks.com/139-internet-package/

[Cnynrat]

There are some older threads here that I think still accurately describe the Internet situation in North Idaho.

Be aware that whether you can receive the microwave services (Intermax, Air Pipe) depends on whether you have line of sight to a nearby tower. This can become almost a property by property question. Even a few trees in the wrong place can block the signal enough to be a problem.

My wife is in a similar situation, and she rents a small office in town (Sandpoint) since we have no other option than satellite where we live. It's a workable solution for us, and we're 30 minutes from town.

Dave

[nm9stheham]

Have you looked at the Intermax site and their 'coverage' maps, with wht I presume are tower locations?

Is it possible to try their service for a few months if you can do so without a hug commitment, and see if it works for your needs? Unless you can find someone who can give a direct experience, it would be a good investment IMHO.


FWIW, a good microwave link can support hundred's of Megs of bandwidth. So being microwave per se is not an issue. Weather (like cloudiness and heavy rain rates in the path) can have an effect on a link however. They do say this about bandwidth: "Most packages support video streaming....".

[509]

I lived in North Idaho for several years. It is NOT a high tech hub, nor will it be.

You need to move across the state line to eastern Washington. There are many counties in eastern Washington to offer fiber internet to residents. Fortunately, for you one is just across the state line from north Idaho.

https://cnsfiber.net/ServiceMap

Idaho is a great state, Washington is a corporate state, but some eastern Washington residents still have the benefits of municipal broadband, even though the corporate interests in western Washington tried to stop its deployment.

Pend Orille County is your closes site to rural, high speed fiber internet.

My county offers 1Gbps service...I am not sure, but I know you can get at least 100 Mbps up and down.

[Mister Torgue]

This is a great topic as I also work from home and need to know how I'm going to be able to get some sort of internet service fast enough for my job. Don't really care if it is "fast" as long as I can at least do skype/audio calls I'll be fine. Is using (we're switching to Verizon soon) cell service via a hotspot going to be a viable option if the satellite providers don't provide enough monthly bandwidth and the Intermax microwave thing doesn't reach the property we end up buying?

Originally Posted by 509

Idaho is a great state, Washington is a corporate state, but some eastern Washington residents still have the benefits of municipal broadband, even though the corporate interests in western Washington tried to stop its deployment.

As awesome as WA is on a lot of things, and it is on the central and eastern side, the state is still run by the far left King county that ruins the whole state if you like the Bill of Rights.

[Cavalry_Chief]

Reviving this topic with relevant updates:

In case you haven't heard; SpaceX is about to launch their second rocket carrying Starlink satellites. Why is this relevant?

Starlink will be a constellation of 12,000 satellites over North America (42,000 worldwide) providing faster and more reliable internet. These satellites will be in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) at approximately 340 miles above Earth. This altitude is significantly lower than previous internet satellites and will lower pings from 650ms to around 35ms. The speeds, both in response and bandwidth will be better than what is available with Hughes and ViaSat.

Once Starlink has enough satellites in orbit, residential customers will be able to have broadband internet regardless of traditional limiting factors. The first 60 satellites have been launched and tested, another 60 next week, then they expect 24 more launches in 2020. SpaceX is planning to have the Northern United States covered by mid-2020.

Cost is unknown at this time, but expected to be around $80 a month for service comparable to cable internet. No information is available on data caps, speed throttling or package tiers, but I am sure they will be leaking that out as the program progresses. As of now, the receiver/transmitter (commonly referred to as a "pizza box") will be all the hardware that is required for the homeowner.

Is this the answer for North Idaho internet woes? I say, eventually. Probably late 2020 is more realistic, but the thought of having broadband internet, regardless of how remote your property is, this is the dream many of us have been waiting for. One other thing that gives some hope to our situation; the Starlink program is ran from Washington state. I believe this will benefit North Idaho with coverage before other areas.

Also, OneWeb and Amazon's Kuiper systems are very similar and are being launched in 2020 as well, so competition will hopefully keep the prices down.

Let's keep are fingers crossed and hopefully have cheap, reliable and fast internet for all of us rural homesteaders.

[mistyriver]

We lived there for 14 years and suffered with only satellite.
When my husband started working from home, we ponied up for a T1 line.
Expensive, but it’s what we needed.

[Cnynrat]

We've talked about OneWeb and other potential LEO providers in other threads about Internet in north Idaho. Yes, these services have the potential to revolutionize Internet access in remote locations around the world.

I've been following OneWeb because the company I worked for before I retired is building the antenna for the ground stations. OneWeb has some satellites in operation on a test basis. They are the first to launch and use the Ku spectrum for this purpose, which does give then some advantages over others who want to use those frequencies. They are now saying service will be available in 2021, which I think is a more reasonable estimate for all the systems.

What remains to be seen is whether these systems can be successful from a business perspective. There is a long history of these types of ventures failing to make a profit, entering bankruptcy, writing off the costs of building and putting satellites in orbit, and then revising their business model accordingly. Time will tell either any of these companies follow that path.

Dave

[so_cal_mike]

Originally Posted by Cavalry_Chief

Reviving this topic with relevant updates:

In case you haven't heard; SpaceX is about to launch their second rocket carrying Starlink satellites. Why is this relevant?

Is this the answer for North Idaho internet woes? I say, eventually. Probably late 2020 is more realistic, but the thought of having broadband internet, regardless of how remote your property is, this is the dream many of us have been waiting for. One other thing that gives some hope to our situation; the Starlink program is ran from Washington state. I believe this will benefit North Idaho with coverage before other areas.

Also, OneWeb and Amazon's Kuiper systems are very similar and are being launched in 2020 as well, so competition will hopefully keep the prices down.

Let's keep are fingers crossed and hopefully have cheap, reliable and fast internet for all of us rural homesteaders.

Reminds me of the early 80 when you would see rich people in the rural areas with hugs satellite dishes before cable even took off. The cool thing about this is that with the combined global implication, the economics of scale and broad consumer base, this is likely to be reasonably affordable and a lot easier than those old sat dishes. It definitely removes access to physical internet lines as a serious consideration when balancing the pros and cons of rural properties. A huge propane tank and a pizza box is all you need right? No need for municipal utilities.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

5 acres within 25 minutes (minutes. not miles) of downtown CDA is not out in the wilderness. I've got 5 acres within 25 miles of CDA and I get Spectrum cable and internet. It's not like OP is asking about moving to the far reaches of Alaska where the only way to get there is to fly in on one of those little bush planes on skies.


There are nice 5 acre parcels north of CDA and there are also some very nice little ranchettes south of the river from Post Falls. Most likely all of them get internet.