Internet in the sticks

[Jens]

A bit off topic but hey ....

For those of you living off the grid, how do you handle internet access ?
I shudder to think about life without broadband access.

[mobile_bob]

i know of a couple guys that use satellite internet, i guess i works pretty good.

hughsnet iirc is one of them.

bob g

[Jedon]

So I don't even get cell reception even though I'm only 10 miles from town ( tower ) as the crow flies since I'm below a 300ft cliff that stand between me and town. I have a 4ft parabolic grid antenna 800MHz that I point to a further away tower that has better line of site, 14.5 miles away. I have a 6W cell amp, then into an EVDO modem, into a cradlepoint EVDO router, then to my gigabit/wireless router, then into a Vonage VOIP router that the regular 5GHz phone hooks to. It works to varying degrees depending on weather etc. I'd much prefer the local WISP but I don't have LOS, my "neighbor" up on the cliffs can get it and they would install a repeater there so I could get it as well for a measly $2K. I'm holding out for 4G LTE now. I decided satellite would be my last resort since VOIP is really bad on it due to latency and packet reordering/prioritization and I need to RDP for my work which also likes like latency.
So if you need internet, first try to find a local WISP, then try Cellular, then Satellite, unless cost is a huge issue in which case satellite might trump cell.

[Chris]

I live off grid. I have a land line with dsl about 3 miles down the shore, at neighbours house. Access point with a grid type directional antenna pointed to my house with a similar grid directional antenna pointed to the access point. A wireless bridge at my end, hooked up to a router for my computers. I have line of site between the two sites. Also a ALCON remote phone for the land line (Phone). The ALCON has been giving problems. I think bad antennas. (Salty air). Internet works great as long as the DSL is up.
Vonage and or Magic Jack internet phones work reasonably well most times. The land line service is government owned and goes down all the time. Phone workers don't care too much. They gota job, but don't work too hard. My system is probably illegal. The phone guys don't mind cause they can't provide me with direct land line service.  I don't complain too much cause they will probably shut me down if I do. Hey it's better in the Bahamas.

Chris

[BruceM]

That's quite the setup, Jedon, and Chris's hookup is also very impressive.

I have some friends here with satellite internet (Hughes and Wild Blue).  It works well, though power consumption is significantly higher than a cellular hookup that only requires an external antenna.

I don't recall the details well, but I had a friend take some actual power consumption measurements on the Hughes unit.  My vague memory is about 25 watts, worse sending some big files, slightly better at idle.  Since a low power laptop needs about that much power, I thought it was mostly poor design; nowhere near that power is actually radiated.

Depending on the plan, cellular internet is sometimes a bit cheaper and is slower but has less latency if the system isn't heavily loaded.  Some people claim Verizon's service is somewhat better than rural DSL, performance wise.  For satellite, the latency is near 1 second to load a page and except for big PDF files, even fairly poky DSL is faster for general browsing  Satellite has troubles sometimes with peak loading, also.  (I previously had Hughes one way service; on occasion I would switch to phone line as it was faster at about 28Kbaud.)

Replicating my custom rear projection workstation in a low power version for my off grid place is a big project that I hope to be tackling this summer.  I intend to try the cellular (Verizon) internet service first, as the transmitted power is much less, and I can use the east (steel) wall of my shop between the external antenna and house.  If that service sucks, then I'll go satellite dish.

I have phone service at m off grid place via my fiber-linked cell phone system now; it originally connected via Yagi to a tower 24 miles away, not line of sight but no major mountains.

[Tom Reed]

We have wild blue. I do remote desk top with it and it is useable, but not great. We also have cell phone service which is marginal so I use an external antenna on the phone. I am working with a provider to get wisp in the area.

[BruceM]

Tom, I'd be very grateful if you could take some typical power consumption measurements on the Wild Blue system.  The company could not provide that to me; they had no idea what their actual power consumption was. 

[XYZER]

I've been land line forever....almost went satellite.......then a local line of sight but big trees in the way.. way out there....We ended up with a Verizon aircard.....this model has a plug for the antenna which helps big time, and the part that it so portable. Not the fastest a little slower than our dsl at work but for a landline guy it is zippy for me.

[BruceM]

Thanks for the report on the Verizon service, Dave.  I'm already on slow rural DSL so I know I can live with that level of performance for my needs.  There is WIFI service within line of sight (6 miles) from a hill on my property but they are oversubscribed and service is so poor they won't take more customers.



 

[Dail R H]

   I've got a mobile Verizon card plugged into my desktop in WV . Right on the roaming boundry at present. Speed is only slightly ok,but it disconnects at will, anywhere from 3 seconds to 1 1/2 hrs,ya never know. Acording to Verizion ,when I get to my permant location at Craigsville, I will have faster service, n no dropout. We shall see.

[mbryner]

We will be off-grid (house under construction) starting in September.   I plan on using WISP with WiMAX line of sight to WISP mountaintop accesspoint.   (See applegatebroadband.net).   Will have to use an ethernet extender for about 800 ft to house.   Should get up to 6 mbp for surfing and work, and will provide VOIP phone as well.

[lowspeedlife]

Is anyone using an OOMA for their VOIP phone connection? A one time charge of $249.99 plus $35.00, if you want to keep your current phone number. It would pay for it's self in about 11 months at Vonage's current price of $24.95 a month.

scott

[BruceM]

That should be a sweet performing setup, Marcus.  I wish the WIFI provider in nearby Concho AZ would upgrade to WIMAX.  It would solve their loading and performance problems nicely.  Alas, the company was bought by Cellular One and they seem happy to let it flounder.

[mbryner]

@lowspeedlife:  why is OOMA better than Vonage?  (Don't use Vonage, so I don't know what their deal is.)   I've had Broadvoice  (broadvoice.com) for a few years now as our VOIP provider and we've been very happy.   Cheaper than landline, but they've recently added a bunch of mandated taxes so it's not as good of a deal as it once was.   Still, I put a Broadvoice VOIP box at our partnership's (4 families) vacation rental in the Swiss alps, and the renters have a US telephone number to call home from and free calling to anywhere in Europe and the US.   Never going back to landline...

@BruceM:  I don't know much about WiMAX, but the WISP is getting it setup over the next month on their system.   Can't wait to move out in the sticks and break free from the cable company's stranglehold on me!   Of course, then there's the WISP stranglehold, but it couldn't be any worse...

[mike90045]

and once you have internet, I'm a fan of skype, but it's not a handset based phone system.