OT: Internet provider RANT

I live in northeast Nebraska with only one DSL provider and they are pitiful. The problems have been going on for close to 8 years. I call and complain 2-12 times a year. Its amazing how the internet speed will magically increase over night. The techs come out and work on it but are never able to get advertised speed. I even let them move the tower into my front yard cause the tech thought it would help. I have ran a separate power supply to the modem cause the tech thought power was causing issues. So I call Tuesday about bad service. Monday I switched from an old modem to a new all in one they sent out a while back. It is wifi capable, so I set up a network. Download speed is .21mbps. Amazingly when I get home Wednesday the speed is 1.98mbps. Tech shows up today and first thing he says is this modem is not registered to our server and thats the problem. I told him that they sent it to me and it is acting the same as my old modem. Than I ask him if thats the case how did my speed magically increase since I called and complained. He did not say anything. Then he asks if I am going to use there modem to provide wifi cause if I do thats an extra $2 a month. I told him to hook my old system back up and take the new one with him. He replies he can't do that. So we use there new modem but hook my router up to it and guess what, he still can't get the speed. I went to BBB and they only have 2 complaints filed amazingly. One of there settlements was dropping the service to the customer. I am frustrated to say the least. It looks like my only options is satelite and there reviews are not that good. Pick the worst of 2 evils

Complaints to the company sometimes works. But I use Speedtest.net and check my speed at regular intervals. If it is not near the promised maximum I complain and ask for $$ back and typically can get a day here or there. Now I knew their wiring was terrible and they did also. My old speed was typically 85K to 135k. Yes, I am talking kilo

So in they come with the new system and I just checked and I'm 18M down and .85M up. Much better and a better price.

What do they promise is the minimum speed?

See if anyone in your area is doing microwave.

They are promising 2mbps I believe up to 5mbps. I cannot get a dime out of the company. The last tech I got to know pretty well, even had his cell number, he said he was going to try and get me a discount or rebate. He had no luck either. I have talked to the neighbors and it seems the company has bad connections they rotate people through. I have a download speed history logged.

(quoted from post at 15:36:41 07/14/16) Complaints to the company sometimes works. But I use Speedtest.net and check my speed at regular intervals. If it is not near the promised maximum I complain and ask for $$ back and typically can get a day here or there. Now I knew their wiring was terrible and they did also. My old speed was typically 85K to 135k. Yes, I am talking kilo

So in they come with the new system and I just checked and I'm 18M down and .85M up. Much better and a better price.

What do they promise is the minimum speed?

See if anyone in your area is doing microwave.

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I've been around a handful of villages in Nebraska (where I also live), relatives, etc., their Internet is typically advertised as "up to" a certain speed. There is no guaranteed speed. Same with satellite Internet (which comes to a crawl during primetime congestion here). It does absolutely no good to ask for money back/credit with them, typically, they will work to fix issues though. I live 15 miles from the village, the DSL works 8 miles from the village, so I can't get it. People on the end don't get that great of service, because of their distance from the office, and the copper lines it comes in on. It's simply not possible to get full speed on the end (their website says that speeds vary with things, like distance from the office, they are up front about it). A small independent locally owned phone company, I don't hold them at fault, it costs a lot of money to upgrade to fiber optic lines, and there aren't enough customers to justify that everywhere.

I don't know many towns around that have "microwave" or other options here, possibly further northeast and maybe closer to bigger towns. I know a couple bigger towns around with about 4,000 people did have it at one time.

Can you possibly find a wireless internet provider in your area. The sad part is your options are limited they know that and will only help so much. DSL is limited by you phone line quality and distance. Satellite is not a great option either due to latency and they throttle you once you hit a certain download limit listed in the fine print.

I am very lucky here I have a great wisp provider who gets me the speeds that are advertised of 8 Mbps down and 2 up enough to stream from Hulu or Netflix. Problems on the network are fixed in a timely manner even on weekends. My last wisp was not so great.

If you are in a Viaero area they "can" be ok, depends totally on the area though. They also changed their plans for the worst recently, caps are lower but usable. There is another new upgrade coming, who knows when. Supposed to be uncapped, you pay upfront for equipment and installation, they mount an antenna on your house, costs a few hundred up front.

Anyway, I've had them a little over two years without issues at all, it's worked any time I've used it. I'm about 5 miles from the tower. Average over 2 meg 99% of the time. I had to get a cell signal booster to get a signal through my trees, their signal doesn't penetrate well anyway. I bought my own equipment off of ebay so that I wouldn't have a contract (huawei b683, made sure it was a model that had the right frequencies since not all do, plus a backup hotspot).

Until they kick me off, I'm grandfathered on the $50 200GB cap plan.

Unfortunately our village does not get good cell reception due to the hills surrounding us. Verizon is our cell provider and most times we have 1 bar when upstairs. They do not
think they could supply us with good consistent service.

I am currently using Hughes Net. It's a satellite dish service. I have been with them for about three years. I don't have many choices as the phone lines in my area will not support anything but dial-up. I tried Verizon Hot Spot service and it is no better than dial-up. It's only as good as the signal you get in your area. Mine is weak so internet is pretty slow on it. I just checked my speeds and I'm getting 719 MS on the ping. A little slow there. I am getting 4.33 Mbps download and .42 Mbps upload with Hughes Net dish service. Overall I am happy with it. It has it's moments though, but I have never had to call for problems. It just seems to work. The only time I have an issue is during a really bad storm when the sky gets super dense and the the signal gets obstructed.

Greg

(quoted from post at 18:29:43 07/14/16) Unfortunately our village does not get good cell reception due to the hills surrounding us. Verizon is our cell provider and most times we have 1 bar when upstairs. They do not
think they could supply us with good consistent service.

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A cell booster should help get a better signal for Verizon if there's one bar inside upstairs. Weboost is the brand I'd suggest (formerly Wilson). If the signal is 4G, one bar should work, if someone has a smartphone you could check Internet on that. I'm 10 miles from the Verizon tower and get decent service on TracFone. You may have seen, they also have LTE Internet installed, caps are worse than satellite, but if you don't stream much video it can work. $60 for 10gb. I had a 10gb cap for 10 years after dialup, a pain, but better than nothing. Crazy price for what you get but performance would be good. Of course if your signal is too low they won't install it, it has an antenna outside the house. I know a lot of the hilly areas in the NE have very poor service.

https://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/lte-internet-installed/

Satellite is functional, Exede is the better service, but much of this area is full. They are launching a new satellite this fall. If all goes well, new plans next year.

Pretty much any other option will have a cap, and likely cost you more.[/url]

I'm using Exede and Dish. Used to have Directv but they kept upping their rates.

I'm using the exede service which is 10G per month for $60, forget the download speed but it's fast, real fast. Between midnight and 5 am no bandwidth charge so if you want to do a lot of data, just have a "sleepless night" and have at it. Service is from the Viasat satellite which serves both companies. Don't know who else uses their data.

Dish comes with TV in a package. Pay about $150 for pretty good sized TV package and the internet. Forget how many GB are in that.

Both systems are extremely reliable and of excellent quality. Service techs are educated and well suited for the job.

That ping is typical for satellite. Hughesnet is very poor in this area, I've used it in more than one place (service varies by location, each is isolated from the next, plus some are on an upgraded satellite, mostly east and west coast). Viasat Exede is better but not great either, and full, not taking new subscribers. This area is pretty full in general, fair amount of congestion at times. I haven't looked at the coverage map in some time to meet if all of NE Nebraska is in the same spot beam my area is in though. It might be better than the described DSL, but I'd hate to suggest getting a cap for only marginally different service.

Just be glad you don't have Windstream. Mine shuts down 4-5 times a day.

No cable, wireless, or DSL offered in my area so it is either satellite or Verizon. I use Verizon as I can get 2 bars of a 4G signal and it is just as fast here as basic satellite without the delay

Part of Texas, if that's where you are, is on their newer satellite. Sounds like you aren't in a congested area at least. Most of this area is full and won't accept new subscribers.

Bundling with Dish or DirecTV gets different support and plans. There are different plans in different areas depending on congestion too. Going direct and not bundling in general gets better phone support and more data usually during the night zone. But some areas have good local support.

We had satellite Internet over by Martinsburg, it worked OK. We use Verizon now with better speed and the cost is somewhat less. Our first dish before the hailstorm 5 years ago worked better than the one that replaced it. We had similar issues and finally just went somewhere else. We live on the edge of NNTC territory, and they have fiber optic, and tried to opt in but didn't have any luck, Great Plains here only offers dial up.

Reminds me of when I was traveling the US & Canada by air back in the 70's. I had a conversation with another business traveler about airlines. His comment was that he would get mad at one airline until he had a reason to get mad at another airline. He said that he would do that until he came full circle and could start all over again.

Internet, phone and cable/satellite services are pretty much the same. They all have their problems, poor service, etc. and want to overcharge you for everything. Just pick the one that you want to be mad at next.

(quoted from post at 19:38:57 07/14/16) We had satellite Internet over by Martinsburg, it worked OK. We use Verizon now with better speed and the cost is somewhat less. Our first dish before the hailstorm 5 years ago worked better than the one that replaced it. We had similar issues and finally just went somewhere else. We live on the edge of NNTC territory, and they have fiber optic, and tried to opt in but didn't have any luck, Great Plains here only offers dial up.

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Raining today, can't hay I guess, was going to finally start, but it's very welcome. Sitting in listening to the rain and thunder, nice change from all the years of drought.

Satellite is the last resort, next to dialup (which is not offered here anymore to new customers, barely worked anyway this far out on the lines, static, always slow and disconnecting). NNTC is in neighboring villages, I'm 15-30 miles from others not servicing here. They did run a bunch of fiber, people 15-20 miles from town have it straight to the house, "cable" tv too. Pretty impressive when houses average more than a mile apart, less than 3 people a square mile average.

If that last satellite upgrade with either Hughesnet or Viasat would have covered us with the new satellite, it would be better. The new one will cover here for sure, but it's covering a very large area, I expect no miracles. They say they will increase caps. With the last upgrade, they actually lowered the daytime caps after promising "good" plans. After many complaints and months, they increased the cheap package only back to what it was in the daytime, then added in the download zones, so that helped, but not with congestion. Some areas have "unlimited" (150GB soft cap), but over $100 per month. Verizon wireless performs just as well as DSL in a good signal area, no congestion most places (maybe by bigger towns though). But, caps on every option make what people call "normal" Internet impossible, things like streaming youtube, Netflix, etc. for much anyway. People that use Windows, especially 10, some updates are blowing through nearly 1/3 of the monthly daytime cap. Viaero is about the only difference if available, their caps were better, new plans are better than other options though. They had a very bad reputation because service barely worked, signal still doesn't compare to Verizon, but since the upgrade in this area a couple years ago, the Internet works. http://www.viaero.com/shop/plans/home-phone-internet

It's annoying to have to browse with pictures disabled as a person approaches a cap, videos stopped/blocked, etc. Getting harder to do these days. Can't even plug in DIsh/Directv safely with all the automatic downloading (unless they are connected to a router set on a timer to only turn on during the free zone). It was such a change to get what I have now, and most people don't even think about it.

I had Wildblue for about 8 years when I actually figure it up, worked "great" at the beginning, end was terrible. I paid for 0.5 meg service, $50 per month (no lease, they allowed buying their equipment back then). They transitioned to Exede needing the new equipment. Browsing, couldn't tell the difference from Wildblue here, several neighbors got it while it was available to subscribers. I didn't transition to Exede. I went to Millenicom, $70 per month for 20GB on Verizon 3g, at the end Verizon upgraded to 4G, 20-30 meg download speed 10 miles from the tower, it was great. Millenicom was kind of "shady", not doing business right, they were forced to stop selling Internet. Verizon offered $90 for current customers on that plan, same time Viaero upgraded, so I switched. Slower downloads, but page browsing is the same, and the cap is much more livable.

Typed enough I guess.

It doesn't sound like you have much to loose by switching providers.

Some US senators and congressmen are pushing to get better internet services to rural areas as an aid to rural businesses, but there is a lot of resistance to that idea.

(quoted from post at 02:49:40 07/15/16) I am currently using Hughes Net. It's a satellite dish service. I have been with them for about three years. I don't have many choices as the phone lines in my area will not support anything but dial-up. I tried Verizon Hot Spot service and it is no better than dial-up. It's only as good as the signal you get in your area. Mine is weak so internet is pretty slow on it. I just checked my speeds and I'm getting 719 MS on the ping. A little slow there. I am getting 4.33 Mbps download and .42 Mbps upload with Hughes Net dish service. Overall I am happy with it. It has it's moments though, but I have never had to call for problems. It just seems to work. The only time I have an issue is during a really bad storm when the sky gets super dense and the the signal gets obstructed. Greg

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Greg, I'm in the same spot as you. We've had Hughes for about 5 years and while not wired-internet speed it's much better than dial up. Late evening I can even get some videos to stream pretty well. And after the 2 a.m. freebie period it really screams. I use that time to download software or updates. The Garmin map file is something like 1.2 terrabytes so it takes a long time, even then. I've often wondered about the difference their "Gen 4" would be from what I have now, but never checked on it and really don't want to get into more equipment and a higher monthly fee.