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In this day and age, buying a property without essential service like cellular coverage and broadband is very shortsighted unless you have highly specific reasons for doing so.
I'll agree on cellular, but broadband is a whole 'nother animal. Some areas just don't have much in the way of coverage. In fact, for most rural, broadband is just a pipe dream. Very little rural has it. I'm only an hour from Houston, yet 90% of this county (Washington County, home of Blue Bell Ice Cream) has no broadband. The same is probably true of most rural counties.
I think I read where 30% of Americans have no access to broadband due to their rural location. No. Access.
So while it's easy to say it's shortsighted, the reality is far different.
In this day and age, buying a property without essential service like cellular coverage and broadband is very shortsighted unless you have highly specific reasons for doing so.
It’s not shortsighted as long as the buyer places higher priority on what the rural parcel offers as natural features. High-tech geewiz, MEH. I can find that in any suburb or city.
You can’t always “have it all” in one place. Rural has “amenities” that no tech wonder can match.
We'll be building a home rurally where satellite internet, a landline phone, and dish tv are what's available. A repeater may not help our cell phones work. Any of you using satellite internet or only a landline phone? My kid's gaming consoles will receive a latent signal, so some games won't work. We plan on hardwiring devices to cables/wall ports (instead of using wifi) for a more solid connection. We online school, use laptops, tablets, kindle, ipad for work....We'll use old fashioned phones for power outages. No cordless handset systems. I appreciate cable type suggestions to use for these ports. It's called "ethernet" or "cat" wiring? Thanks in advance.
I had to double check to make sure the post wasn't from ten years ago. Many who have responded missed that your cell phone signal is spotty.
Hughes has a newer bird, so it might be better than when I had it, but my experience was terrible.
Viasat (formerly Exede, formerly Wild Blue) has been better, but data caps will kill you. A family needs upwards of 60 gigs of fast data with any of the newer internet streaming or apps. As a single guy, I barely squeak by with ten gigs and no streaming. I have a midnight to 5 AM free data "window" when anything big has to download.
Rural landline phones being reliable???!? You are living in a dream world. They never were in the first place, and the telcos are not properly servicing copper anymore. Those battery banks that gave reliability for the ring/tip voltage are mostly gone or smaller or in poor shape. I dumped our landline after a service outage of over three days while my wife was sick. I was beyond furious, and got the Public Service Board and FCC involved before being able to drop them without penalty. Viasat has an over the satellite phone service add-on that is actually FAR more reliable than the landline was. A storm could knock out phone lines or internet fiber for miles around and I'd still have phone service once the rain fade went away.
I dumped Dish tv after trying them. The once a day reset was ridiculous and punitive to tivo users. Directv was a little better, but cost and the worsening offerings made me dump it as well. I now just get OTA (over the air) and watch very little of that.
Find a good company in your area that does installations for the various satellite companies and has experience with cell phone issues. They may be able to outfit you with a Yagi antenna and signal boost system to make cell a viable alternative.
Starlink will be the salvation of rural America IF Musk pulls it off. There are issues with switching between NOCs, but that is a bridge to be crossed.
Don't confuse ethernet with internet. Go and read and of the websites that explain the difference.
In all honesty, if you have never been off cable internet/tv/VOIP, you are in for a rough time. Stock up on the Tums and load the liquor cabinet. You'll need both as you deal with the problems and your kids try to kill you.
I had to double check to make sure the post wasn't from ten years ago. Many who have responded missed that your cell phone signal is spotty.
Hughes has a newer bird, so it might be better than when I had it, but my experience was terrible.
Viasat (formerly Exede, formerly Wild Blue) has been better, but data caps will kill you. A family needs upwards of 60 gigs of fast data with any of the newer internet streaming or apps. As a single guy, I barely squeak by with ten gigs and no streaming. I have a midnight to 5 AM free data "window" when anything big has to download.
Rural landline phones being reliable???!? You are living in a dream world. They never were in the first place, and the telcos are not properly servicing copper anymore. Those battery banks that gave reliability for the ring/tip voltage are mostly gone or smaller or in poor shape. I dumped our landline after a service outage of over three days while my wife was sick. I was beyond furious, and got the Public Service Board and FCC involved before being able to drop them without penalty. Viasat has an over the satellite phone service add-on that is actually FAR more reliable than the landline was. A storm could knock out phone lines or internet fiber for miles around and I'd still have phone service once the rain fade went away.
I dumped Dish tv after trying them. The once a day reset was ridiculous and punitive to tivo users. Directv was a little better, but cost and the worsening offerings made me dump it as well. I now just get OTA (over the air) and watch very little of that.
Find a good company in your area that does installations for the various satellite companies and has experience with cell phone issues. They may be able to outfit you with a Yagi antenna and signal boost system to make cell a viable alternative.
Starlink will be the salvation of rural America IF Musk pulls it off. There are issues with switching between NOCs, but that is a bridge to be crossed.
Don't confuse ethernet with internet. Go and read and of the websites that explain the difference.
In all honesty, if you have never been off cable internet/tv/VOIP, you are in for a rough time. Stock up on the Tums and load the liquor cabinet. You'll need both as you deal with the problems and your kids try to kill you.
Ours is Viasat. As I said, it’s OK, not great. We got the cheapest level of service, so I guess it might improve with a more expensive level. Subject to short outages during electrical storms.
Cell service is less reliable here than any land lines I ever had. Can’t compare to what it would be here if we had a land line, but those are still fairly common here.
My msg is similar, though. Adjust your Internet expectations down from that in most metro areas.
I had to double check to make sure the post wasn't from ten years ago. Many who have responded missed that your cell phone signal is spotty.
Hughes has a newer bird, so it might be better than when I had it, but my experience was terrible.
Viasat (formerly Exede, formerly Wild Blue) has been better, but data caps will kill you. A family needs upwards of 60 gigs of fast data with any of the newer internet streaming or apps. As a single guy, I barely squeak by with ten gigs and no streaming. I have a midnight to 5 AM free data "window" when anything big has to download.
Rural landline phones being reliable???!? You are living in a dream world. They never were in the first place, and the telcos are not properly servicing copper anymore. Those battery banks that gave reliability for the ring/tip voltage are mostly gone or smaller or in poor shape. I dumped our landline after a service outage of over three days while my wife was sick. I was beyond furious, and got the Public Service Board and FCC involved before being able to drop them without penalty. Viasat has an over the satellite phone service add-on that is actually FAR more reliable than the landline was. A storm could knock out phone lines or internet fiber for miles around and I'd still have phone service once the rain fade went away.
I dumped Dish tv after trying them. The once a day reset was ridiculous and punitive to tivo users. Directv was a little better, but cost and the worsening offerings made me dump it as well. I now just get OTA (over the air) and watch very little of that.
Find a good company in your area that does installations for the various satellite companies and has experience with cell phone issues. They may be able to outfit you with a Yagi antenna and signal boost system to make cell a viable alternative.
Starlink will be the salvation of rural America IF Musk pulls it off. There are issues with switching between NOCs, but that is a bridge to be crossed.
Don't confuse ethernet with internet. Go and read and of the websites that explain the difference.
In all honesty, if you have never been off cable internet/tv/VOIP, you are in for a rough time. Stock up on the Tums and load the liquor cabinet. You'll need both as you deal with the problems and your kids try to kill you.
Harry:
Your comments about rural landline phones is right on target. I just had to use the online chat feature to get a tech out to fix my service. There was a hum on the phone line that made it hard to hold a conversation, and the DSL modem was cutting out with increasing frequency. I spent a half hour online before I was able to schedule the tech; literally sweating in my comfortable home as I worried that I would be cut off and have to start all over. This has been a recurring problem, as I pointed out to each new person during the chat. And then I got an Email later that day saying they had identified the problem and asked if I wanted to cancel the service call. The problem was not fixed, of course, and yes, I want the service call. Things are once again fine after the service call. And then, in order to fill out one of their surveys, I had to download and install the Symbola font in order to display the black and white stars.
The phone problem was especially aggravating this time, as mom died in May, and I have been making and receiving more phone calls than usual as I go about settling the estate.
My rural electric company is just as bad. As much as I would like to let someone else report an outage, I have found I cannot depend on that. The sooner I report the problem, the faster service is restored. They always want to know if I have checked my circuit breakers, and if the neighbors have power. Number of times a power outage has been my fault: zero. I get the feeling the public utilities are trying to discourage service call requests rather than to fix the problems.
And then there was the garbage company. The local location was flooded out last year. It had been built in a flood plain, so this should not have been a surprise to them, but I guess it was. They are not going to rebuild, so the trucks come from out of the county, now. A few weeks ago, I went online to report a missed pickup. It was not easy. I had to setup an online account first. I never did find the dashboard, but was eventually able to leave a message. No extra pickup for me; I had to wait until 6:00 PM the following week. At least they finally showed up. Since they just lost the City of Wooster account, I wonder if they will still bother to service the rural parts of the county. The other company uses wheeled containers. I'm not sure that would work on my sloping land, unless I put in a concrete base by the road.
It’s not shortsighted as long as the buyer places higher priority on what the rural parcel offers as natural features. High-tech geewiz, MEH. I can find that in any suburb or city.
You can’t always “have it all” in one place. Rural has “amenities” that no tech wonder can match.
I disagree. Just pick a spot that has both as we do in the Sierra of CA. Wonders mountain scenery, wild country, great cell service and cable internet up to 150mps.
I disagree. Just pick a spot that has both as we do in the Sierra of CA. Wonders mountain scenery, wild country, great cell service and cable internet up to 150mps.
Again, it depends on what you expect for “rural.” I have no doubt my demands are very, very different from yours.
Thanks, I appreciate all this input. Which is better for a family; DSL or cell phone internet? We grew up and currently live rurally, understanding sacrifice. We work from home and homeschool. So having the best internet available for our location is a priority. Viasat tells us low earth orbit may be available when the home is complete.
Dish TV here is better than DirectTV. I’ve had both and the cost and crappy CS from DirectTV was enough for me to ditch it.
Fortunately we live on the outskirts of town, and we have Line of Sight broadband with a fantastic company. $80 a month with download speeds of 20mbps, which is enough to work from home and stream TV.
We’ve ditched DishTV, the landline and just have AT&T and Montana Internet.
Thanks, I appreciate all this input. Which is better for a family; DSL or cell phone internet? We grew up and currently live rurally, understanding sacrifice. We work from home and homeschool. So having the best internet available for our location is a priority. Viasat tells us low earth orbit may be available when the home is complete.
Do you know any people in the area you’re moving to? They would know better than random C-D posters what is adequate in that area.
At our old home—the one where we had dial-up modem—a couple of neighbors sprang for some new ways of getting Internet there. I don’t remember what they were and that must’ve been more than 10 years ago, but they all said it was very expensive for not much improvement.
As for Viasat, after building and moving into this house, we had to wait months before their new satellite was ready. While waiting we went to the library for Internet use. If you also have a wait, scope out the places you can use in the meantime.
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You are living in a dream world. They never were in the first place, and the telcos are not properly servicing copper anymore. Those battery banks that gave reliability for the ring/tip voltage are mostly gone or smaller or in poor shape. I dumped our landline after a service outage of over three days while my wife was sick. I was beyond furious, and got the Public Service Board and FCC involved before being able to drop them without penalty. Viasat has an over the satellite phone service add-on that is actually FAR more reliable than the landline was. A storm could knock out phone lines or internet fiber for miles around and I'd still have phone service once the rain fade went away.
