Want to visit Sheridan... but how? (Cheyenne, Gillette: rent, houses, to buy)

[swagger]

We drove up to Cheyenne over Labor Day weekend to check it out, as we're seriously considering Wyoming when we move in a year or two. We looked at Cheyenne initially because of it's size, figuring that the largest city would have the most reliable utilities and best options for Internet service.* I also figured that being in the southern part of the state, the winters would probably be less severe. (oops )

So now we're looking pretty hard at Sheridan. I've been reading what little I can find online about it, and so far, I haven't seen anything that would make me want to disqualify it. In fact, the more I read, the more I like it. Not sure about the Internet situation up there, but I'll save that for another post.

Now I'm wanting to visit to look around and see what it's like. We can't go during the week - the drawbacks of owning your own business... So we'd have to leave after 5pm on a Friday, and get home at a reasonable hour on the following Sunday. I don't want to drive this time, as it's considerably further than Cheyenne, and that was one heck of a drive for just a three day weekend. No, we'll be flying this time, but how?

Flying into Sheridan is possible, but expensive, and I'm finding some long layovers. The few flights I looked at included overnight layovers, and that's just not gonna happen. Flying into Billings is cheaper, but a 2-3 hour drive after the flight doesn't sound all that appealing, either. Landing in Gillette is looking like the best option - flight isn't too expensive, and it's only about 100 miles from there to Sheridan.

Is that the way to go? Does anyone have any advice for finding a cheap way into the city, other than checking all the regular find-a-flight websites such as Orbitz?

TIA,
St-


* Our business is home based and our phones are 'net based, and all our business is done via phone and fax. If we lose power or Internet connectivity, we lose customers, so reliable utilities & Internet are essential and pretty much the only un-bendable requirement we have for whatever city we choose.

[ElkHunter]

Internet is not a problem. I live about 20 miles out of Sheridan. I have no phone, I have no cable, but I have Broadband Cell Modem plugged into the USB port. Works great. There are times that heavy storms cause it to slow down some, but not stop.

Flying into Sheridan. I haven't looked at ticket prices lately, and I haven't flown from your area to here. Many times, Billings sells tickets cheap to Vegas and back. Wonder why they won't do it the other say.

Gillette isn't a bad drive from Sheridan. Course, it's only about 30 miles further to Billings. So not a real significant difference there. Some, but not much. I guess, the cheapest ticket would win out for me.

Sheridan is expensive. But you can live a few miles out and enjoy a lot better prices and commuting, you said, is not a problem. But if you were 15 miles out, getting groceries and things would not be too bad.

Most all the small towns around Sheridan have their own grocery store. Granted they are not stocked like a Wal-Mart, but milk, eggs, bread, and things are available. Then a person shops in Sheridan every now and then, but in between, you can always grab a gallon of milk without running all the way into Sheridan.

What kind of property are you looking for?

[Count David]

I don't think one weekend will give you enough to time decide whether or not Sheridan is the place for you. You need at least a week, and at best multiple visits in different seasons.

I don't know what all this talk is about internet/power. I have an aircard and I get service in Cheyenne and Sheridan. I wasn't aware WY suffered from frequent power/internet outages.

I would fly into Billings and rent a car. It's not that terrible of a drive.

Sheridan is a nice town, however IMO it doesn't deserve the hype. But it is much prettier than Cheyenne.

[swagger]

Originally Posted by ElkHunter

Internet is not a problem. I live about 20 miles out of Sheridan. I have no phone, I have no cable, but I have Broadband Cell Modem plugged into the USB port. Works great. There are times that heavy storms cause it to slow down some, but not stop.

Originally Posted by David Aguilar

I don't know what all this talk is about internet/power. I have an aircard and I get service in Cheyenne and Sheridan. I wasn't aware WY suffered from frequent power/internet outages.

Since our phones are Internet based, we'll need something faster and more robust than cellular based networking. I think I saw that there's a point-to-point fixed wireless provider out there - it's something I'll be checking into more. If absolutely necessary, we can switch to traditional switched phone lines, but they're so much more expensive, plus there'd be more hardware to buy for our phone system, we'd have to change our phone numbers, etc.

As for the outages question, I don't know how it is, but the weather is more severe, and a smaller population usually translates into infrastructure that's less built up and has fewer redundancies built in. As I said, if we're not reachable, we lose customers, and I can't let that happen. I just need to make sure that wherever we go, we have fast, rock solid Internet service (minimum of 768k upstream) available. Our business depends on it. I can use batteries and a generator to keep the power going, but if the 'net goes out, we're screwed. And not in the good way. I wasn't trying to imply that Wyoming has substandard ISPs or anything - it's just really, really important for us.

Originally Posted by ElkHunter

Flying into Sheridan. I haven't looked at ticket prices lately, and I haven't flown from your area to here. Many times, Billings sells tickets cheap to Vegas and back. Wonder why they won't do it the other say.

Gillette isn't a bad drive from Sheridan. Course, it's only about 30 miles further to Billings. So not a real significant difference there. Some, but not much. I guess, the cheapest ticket would win out for me.

Billings wasn't too bad price wise. I thought it was further than it is, though. I mapped out both and for some reason, I was thinking it was like 200 miles between Billings and Sheridan, not 130. Just double-checked and realized that my short term memory is failing.

I was basically hoping that someone would enter the thread and say "oh, call Joe at Sheridan Air and tell him that Wally sent you" or something like that. I knew it was a long shot, but you never know - these forums are full of surprises. Ideally, I'd like to fly into Sheridan so we can maximize our time and energy, but I doubt we'll be able to do that.

Originally Posted by ElkHunter

Sheridan is expensive. But you can live a few miles out and enjoy a lot better prices and commuting, you said, is not a problem. But if you were 15 miles out, getting groceries and things would not be too bad.

Most all the small towns around Sheridan have their own grocery store. Granted they are not stocked like a Wal-Mart, but milk, eggs, bread, and things are available. Then a person shops in Sheridan every now and then, but in between, you can always grab a gallon of milk without running all the way into Sheridan.

What kind of property are you looking for?

We'll be renting a house. Either a 4br, or a 3br with a space suitable for an office (two full size desks, file cabinets, storage cabinets, etc). It doesn't need to be in the city itself - close enough to head into town two or three times a week is fine.

Originally Posted by David Aguilar

I don't think one weekend will give you enough to time decide whether or not Sheridan is the place for you. You need at least a week, and at best multiple visits in different seasons.

I completely agree, but the reality is that we can't do that. We're open 12 hours per day, five days per week, and if we're not available, our customers will find another company like ours to fill their needs at that time, and we risk losing them permanently. Regardless of where we end up, we're going to have limited time during the "research" phase of our planning to visit, unfortunately.

[swagger]

I just tried some different dates/times, and we can fly into Sheridan for Memorial Day weekend for under $400/person out the door - not bad! What was killing me was trying to leave on a Friday night, I guess. Being able to leave in the morning a Saturday made a huge difference in available options.

[ElkHunter]

I'm not sure what kind of speeds Cable provides. Maybe Kristynwy can chime in, I believe she is running Cable modem.

I have cable available here. Well, it's out there at the pole. I just choose not to use cable for my computer. I went with the Broadband Cell Modem because of traveling. But you won't get the speeds you need from a cell modem. Works for me, but not for everybody. Certainly faster then a lot of systems.

Bresnan is the provider in most of the area and can probably give you the data you need answered for a cable modem. Qwest for phone connections and DSL. Several providers in town with lots of Ideas. Quick check on the Chamber of Commerce site should let you know who they are.

[Dinowy]

I have no doubt if you do some checking around you'll be able to find what you need to fill your needs. As for flying in, sounds like you might have found a flight in to Sheridan but if it doesn't work out for you Billings isn't that much of a drive away. As long as the roads are good its usually only a little over a hour and a half drive each way. Montana doesn't like to plow their roads as much as Wydot, as soon as you hit the Wyoming line though you're home free . Scheduling to get into Sheridan is a little tricky because I believe (somebody can correct me on this) there are only 2 flights daily. Ah...I was wrong. Looking at their schedule looks like 3 SHR-DEN departures daily and 4 DEN-SHR flights daily.

I don't think you'll have too much trouble finding internet to fit your needs. Most/all the ISPs offer business class connections. This is ACT's business connections page, ACT is a local phone/ISP although not the one I personally use.

ACT : Voice + Wireless + Internet : You’re Connected : Residential & Businesss Services : Sheridan, WY

Bresnan handles the cable side of things (again, they're not my ISP so can't speak for their uptime reliability). Just from my experience as a home user though it seems what few outages there are, are massive hardware failures down the line from the ISP. Somebody digging up a line (this has happened once or twice in the past few years, knocked everything out including 911 services), line breaking, massive early fall storms knocking power out to the area. Things you wouldn't be able to avoid no matter what ISP you went with .

[Kristynwy]

I have a Cable modem through Bresnan, the fastest service available right now I think? It's a bit faster than DSL. I get the package deal of internet and digital phone. Unlimited long distance ect. Cheapest way with Bresnan is to combine it with phone and/or cable or both... you really do save money. If I bought each service individually I would pay significantly more than I do now... Plus they have deals for the first year sometimes, where you get an automatic $10 off each month for 12 months.

There are many internet options here, a handful of companies to choose from ACT, Bresnan, Fiberpipe, and another one I forget the name. Then in the country you can try what Elkhunter has, or there is Wild Blue Satellite (pretty reasonable price I think as well) and one other Satellite company I forget the name...

Lots of internet options to choose from though, not hard at all to get internet around here...

Flying into Sheridan, it's all about the day and time... I got super cheap tickets once flying to see my family in Oregon for both me and my daughter... An hour later the ticket price changed $160 more each! So sometimes you gotta watch the price, it can change daily or in a week or two...

[NVDave]

a) there is Fiberpipe in Sheridan, and we have point-to-point wireless. That said, there are times that the WISP goes down, due to lightening strikes on the tower(s), or equipment failures. There's been two failures this year that have amounted to about four days total downtime. Some of the failures are NOT the fault of Fiberpipe - they're the fault of Quest. Quest has only so much long-haul infrastructure coming into NE Wyoming, and when someone cuts through the right fiber bundle, or Quest has an internal network problem, there's little to no redundancy to route around the problem, as there is in more urban areas.

b) if you really need a high level of reliability, maybe you should stop looking at consumer-grade 'net service and step up to a Frame Relay link for commercial service. The dirty little secret of DSL in most locations is that the DSLAM's (etc) are wildly over-committed, and they're relying on usage patterns to not overwhelm the switches/routers/etc. When you go to a commercial service, there are now parameters that you can often set whereby your contract guarantees X% uptime, or the ISP/telco has to respond lickety-split. Also, with commercial services, you can contract for a "CIR" - committed information rate - a bandwidth that is guaranteed to you. Non-commercial user services are provided on a "best effort" basis which is OK most of the time, but when it isn't, you can't really say "Hey, this is killing our business! Fix it!" With a commercial provisioned link, you can.

c) Utilities in Sheridan have outages too. MDU has semi-frequent power bumps in the summer when we get lightening strikes, and at some points (esp. in the winter after freezing rain), depending on where you're located, there can be outages lasting hours. For your electronic equipment, I strongly recommend a UPS that will keep you up at least 15 minutes at full load.

d) if your business depends on fast shipping times, you might want to inquire about those issues too.... once you start getting outside the major shipping+trucking points for some shipping services, you start finding that you're adding a day or days onto your shipping times. For example, you can't achieve "overnight" service with the USPS to the left coast or even the midwest (east of the Mississippi) from here in Sheridan. I know that UPS can achieve overnight from Reno, NV to here (as I've ordered stuff from Amazon, MSC and other suppliers with warehouses in the Sparks/Fernley area and it made it overnight), but I don't know whether you can achieve the same service in reverse.


Oh, and I know you're not trying to slam Wyoming ISP's as being inferior. You're right, they're not. They simply don't have a spot in the national backbone topology the way that major urban areas do now, with tremendous high-bandwidth redundancy. For example, if you needed the best possible ISP uptime in the country, I'd recommend that you locate your business in downtown San Jose, CA. Why? MAE-West is there, a point where four+ major backbone carriers converge into one building. There's a tremendous amount of rack-space provisioning in the same building so that various web services based on the servers in those racks are on the same LAN's as the backbone routers, ie, not a provisioned link away, but just one floor up/down from the backbone nodes through gigabit ethernet. If one backbone provider goes down, you can route your traffic through one of the others - instantly. Your customers would never even see (or hear) a blip on the phone.

Wyoming has nothing like that level of bandwidth and redundancy, and the closest you'd ever be to a development like that will be in Cheyenne, not Sheridan. There are people who would like to set up a high[er]-tech business environment here in Sheridan, but without finding a way to bring in a wholly redundant backbone carrier to Quest (ie, a carrier who is going to bring in a OC-12 or fatter pipe to Sheridan), people are going to come in with requirements like yours (which are not absurd requirements at all these days) and find they're walking a much thinner line than in big urban areas.

One more bit of info for you. Here's a traceroute off my machine to "www.yahoo.com" - which is located in the Bay Area of CA (ie, on the major backbone carriers):

2 conctr.ap7.shr.fiberpipe.net (209.161.52.138) 6.515 ms 7.396 ms 6.209 ms
3 r1-f0-0-12.ap7.shr.fiberpipe.net (209.161.52.137) 98.345 ms 150.867 ms 57.624 ms
4 r2-g0-0.shr.fiberpipe.net (209.161.52.217) 8.330 ms 6.810 ms 9.712 ms
5 chy-edge-03.inet.qwest.net (65.127.4.5) 14.067 ms 14.418 ms 14.735 ms
6 chy-core-02.inet.qwest.net (205.171.158.65) 16.360 ms 14.347 ms 14.786 ms
7 dap-brdr-03.inet.qwest.net (67.14.2.89) 38.101 ms 41.975 ms 41.967 ms
8 if-2-4.icore2.dtx-dallas.as6453.net (206.82.142.1) 43.648 ms 41.614 ms 41.431 ms
9 if-5-0-0-31.core2.dtx-dallas.as6453.net (66.198.2.37) 39.020 ms
if-1-0-0-32.core2.dtx-dallas.as6453.net (206.82.142.10) 40.883 ms
vlan1136.icore2.laa-losangeles.as6453.net (216.6.12.17) 64.366 ms
10 if-14-0-0-902.mcore5.laa-losangeles.as6453.net (66.198.2.30) 214.153 ms 100.225 ms
if-14-0-0-1128.mcore5.laa-losangeles.as6453.net (209.58.33.13) 63.851 ms
11 if-5-0.mcore4.pdi-paloalto.as6453.net (216.6.86.9) 68.181 ms 66.722 ms 66.731 ms
12 ix-11-0-4.mcore4.pdi-paloalto.as6453.net (207.45.213.130) 66.874 ms 66.342 ms 66.637 ms
13 ae1-p151.msr2.sp1.yahoo.com (216.115.107.79) 66.903 ms 66.862 ms
ae1-p141.msr1.sp1.yahoo.com (216.115.107.55) 67.562 ms
14 te-8-1.bas-a2.sp1.yahoo.com (209.131.32.19) 68.601 ms
te-9-1.bas-a1.sp1.yahoo.com (209.131.32.21) 67.397 ms
te-8-1.bas-a2.sp1.yahoo.com (209.131.32.19) 67.001 ms
15 *

See how Quest takes my traffic from here to Dallas, then LA, then up to SJ? If you were near a more urban area, that would probably to "your office->your local ISP->major urban center->SJ" and you'd lose the two extra hops.