What is the best internet service for rural areas?

I bought a house in rural Tennessee this weekend. It is going to be our primary residence. My wife is freaking out because there is no internet access!

There is no cell coverage, but I think the booster from Verizon will work.

Good luck I've got family in WV that have frontier satellite internet It's pretty bad. He posted this the other day complaining.

 

Hughes Internet?

 

From personal experience Hughes is just like dial up: Slow

 

I remember the huge speed increase I got when I switched from a 14.4k modem to a 28.8k...

 

I'm old enough to remember getting my first modem, for a Commodore 64. It was a whopping 300 baud, but it was direct connect to the phone line and that was still better than the acoustic coupler that was common then. It would transfer text from a dial up BBS at a comfortable reading speed. Used to trade a lot of games with friends that way. I still remember upgrading to 12k bits per second, then 24k, and finally a 58k with compression for a faster effective speed. V28bis I think they called it.

 

Check with the local cable company. That's the fastest hookup we can get here, but it is a little pricey.

 

I doubt they have cable in rural Tenn. I sure don't even have it in NC. Best I can get is a 3-5 meg DSL connection, 512k up. Those who live further out of town will be limited to cellular or satellite.

Sounds like the op will be getting Hughes Net. They charge by the GB.

 

Bad experience from Hughes net. I decided to cancel in the trial period and they wouldn't even send the return box till the period ended. Plus they forgot how to work the switches to turn stuff off (they got it turned on fine) they also had a 2 year contract.

When I finally got it cancelled my credit card was charges $6 a month from california (sattelite internet usa) that I had to dispute every month and the phone number went to a full voicemail that was never answered. I ended up having to cancel my credit card and get a new one.

 

Check with the locals. Just set up internet our NC mountain place, and was surprised we have fiber coming in a week or two. Altough IMO a rural home would be better with no internet. Tell you wife to grab a book and get comfortable!

 

I'm going to try http://www.exede.com.

They seem to be the only company that has some sort of unlimited satellite internet.