Internet...

[honey-lilac]

So, for those of you who do live way out there, how goes your Internet?

If DH (possibly STBX, we'll see) ends up moving with us he will only move somewhere where there is really fast Internet since he's a compulsive gamer. (Part of the reason he will probably be STBX, but anyway.)

Is broadband generally available in the country? I'm assuming not but I figured I'd ask anyway. I random searched a few listings we might be interested in, and only one of the... like six houses I looked up was eligible for Comcast service. I also looked up sattelite and it was too slow for DH's tastes. He said anywhere that gets phone service can probably get DSL, though. Is that the case?

I'm very confused, someone please help me out?

[sparkygirl74]

We have sattalite and it is not fast, there is cable at the street though. They just wanted $4,000 to run it to the house!
I believe DSL requires modification of the way the phone lines are run and so it is not available to all areas. The concentration of customers in out in the country is a lot lower than a suburb or city so we are low on the list of recieving those changes.

[Denvergirlie]

We have DSL here, about 7 miles from "town" and 25 miles from Denver, up in the wooded foothills.

Satillite would/ could be faster, but the cost wasn't something I was okay with signing up for without first trying DSL. Our speeds are 1.5, which is the slowest DSL option of DSL, but the only option where we live. We find sometimes we have to buffer TV shows we watch online (hulu), but only if the other half is also playing poker. Sometimes it slow, but really all in all it's fine. But we can tell a difference from Comcast cable internet.

It is what it is for us. We could try satilite, but for now we are fine with the speed and cost.
Unfortunately, you won't really know until you move into a place and get things up and going to see how the speeds will or will not affect you and your lifestyle.

[GardenStream]

We live 17 miles outside of town.

We cannot get DSL even though we do have phone lines. We used to have satellite, but got rid of it. It wasn't very fast and it constantly had issues getting and receiving the signal. We live on the top of a hill with no trees, so that was not the problem. Strong winds, rain, clouds, and snow were all the problem. We switched to the Verizon 3G. It's about the same speed as satellite, but is much more reliable. The down side is that we are limited to 5GB a month and we really have to watch it so we don't go over. It gets really expensive if you go over.

[JB1972]

We also use Verizon Broadband

We are also on Verizon's broadband internet. Not the cheapest, at $60 a month, with a 5G monthly limit... speed in our area tend to run about 1.4mps at the high end, weather dependent. If he is a cumpulsive gamer, I'd bet that it would be a bit slow for his taste and he'd have trouble not running over the 5G limit (just guessing). DSL was NOT an option, and neighbors felt that their Sat connection speeds were overstated greatly. Supposedly, when the 4G network comes online we'll have much faster speeds... not that I really need it, but that might be something worth looking into for him. It may well change the monthly allowances too... and likely will change prices for that matter???

[honey-lilac]

Yeah, on his worst days he plays up to 20 hours a day. On a light day it's more like... 10-12. I'm pretty sure that would mean he'd go over the allotment. In like, a sitting.

[Farmer'sWife]

We live 5 miles from town and cannot get DSL. My inlaws live 2 miles from the same town and can get it...I'm not sure how the limits are determined. We have a service where we have a small antenna box on our roof that gets a signal off the water tower in town. It's $35 a month for the lowest speed they offer (not sure what it is, but not fast enought to stream videos well). Tecnically it's through Verizon, but only because they bought out Alltel, who bought out Midwest Wireless...I don't think it's widely available. Our cousins have Wild Blue (a stand alone satilite service), but I'm not sure the speeds on that.

[JB1972]

Originally Posted by honey-lilac

Yeah, on his worst days he plays up to 20 hours a day. On a light day it's more like... 10-12. I'm pretty sure that would mean he'd go over the allotment. In like, a sitting.

20 hours?!?! Any chances of him developing some "new hobbies" to fill some of that time AND keep his mind and reflexes sharp for gaming... I dunno hobbies like building fences, milking cows and goats, building chicken coops, cutting firewood, etc?
I'm sorry, it must be frustrating. Perhaps some of his interest/addiction could be distracted if he had something fulfilling to sink his teeth into. Otherwise, I'd say that going for broadband or satelite will probably not work, and DSL is not available (or affordable) in all places (especially rural).
Good luck

[honey-lilac]

Yeah, I know!

He has social paranoia (combat veteran) and a multitude of other issues so he doesn't want to leave the house. Maybe if we were out in the sticks "people" wouldn't bother him so much (here even the neighbors make him nervous). And me personally I like solitude and figure I'll be doing pretty much 100% of the work whether he is with me or without. Just like I do 100% of the work here on our "urban homestead" - which is a joke. I know it's going to be even harder to be out of city limits but I'm not disillusioned about it, and it's what I want.

And to be blatantly honest, it is better if he is gaming in our house than gaming elsewhere because he gets the same disability check - it can either go toward paying his rent in an apartment somewhere or the same money can go to me and the kids if he lives with us. (Which then means, I have no income. Heh.) He says he's not moving with us unless there's Internet.

We have a *totally* healthy relationship dynamic, I swear.

[mamadelbosque]

Yeah, satalite isn't an option for anyone doing anything more than very moderate-light surfing, IMO. Our only options here are satalite, dial up or cell-phone. We have cell-phone - its OK. Its definetly faster than dial up but not nearly as fast as dsl/cable/etc. And you definetly can't get dsl anywhere you have phone service! :sniffle: I wish that were true, but its just not. A few years ago, they changed the laws and made it so that the phone/cable companies *don't* have to hook everyone up to broadband internet, and not surprisingly the phone/cable companies went 'oh! thank goodness!' and stopped expanding their offerings.

[DirtRoadMama]

Hi honey! (sorry, I couldn'r resist!!!)

I don't have access to high-speed cable where I am, and I am about 15 miles out of a "major" city. I talked to the internet company, though, and they said that they are trying to upgrade everyone as soon as they can. My other options were the wireless (expensive and has data limits) and satellite (same problems). So, I went with dial up. I can't use hulu, youtube, or other streaming data sites.

That is not going to work if he is on WOW. (I'm assuming it's that one) I used to be a gamer, and I can tell you that those types of games really suck the bandwidth.

The only way to know what internet you'll be able to get is to call the internet people, when you find a place you like, and ask them.

[CariOfOz]

Originally Posted by DirtRoadMama

That is not going to work if he is on WOW. (I'm assuming it's that one) I used to be a gamer, and I can tell you that those types of games really suck the bandwidth.

My dh is a wow addict as well (although not nearly as disfunctional about his use as the OP's husband!) And I even play a little bit (maybe 3hrs a week for me lol) We have to have wireless where we live, and have a 10G dl limit. Believe it or not we never go over that, even with massive amounts of wow played. Our daily use avgs about 250m or so.

The only way to know what internet you'll be able to get is to call the internet people, when you find a place you like, and ask them.

Unfortunately not even THAT is fool proof! We checked before we leased this house with our ISP and they said, oh yes you can definitely get broadband/dsl at that address. Then after we moved in and xferred service... they informed us that it was unfortunately not available here
So ISPs can, and will, lie.

[annethcz]

We live about 7 miles from town and we're able to get DSL. It's not fast, and it does require us to buffer movies. But it's good enough for us to download music/movies, play games (PC and Xbox live), and for DH to use when he telecommutes to his IT job.

[Linzie2]

If you know where you're moving, maybe contact neighbors to ask?? We have a pretty fast satelite set-up that a guy across the hill does but it's only for people in direct site of his tower. And it's pretty cheap, too. Maybe we're just lucky but you never know!

[PreggieUBA2C]

We're 30 kms out of town, but along the highway that runs to the next little town north of us, so we have phone and internet through our phone service. We pay extra ($20) for 20,000 megs rather than the 10,000 megs that come as part of the basic package. This means that we can watch youtube (documentaries, interviews, and Billy Connelly ) if we want but obviously it wouldn't be even nearly enough for gaming.

Ours is also very fast because we have a dedicated line simply because there is only one other user, on the same property. People who live closer to many others have very slow connections out here.

Our cost is high though, relative to the most of the country- Canada. We pay $75/month for our upgraded internet and $40 for basic phone service. We were paying $55 for internet, but kept going over the limit and having to pay $1/meg over our 10,000 meg limit, which added up to more than $20, so we switched permanently. We don't do anything that would be considered heavy internet usage and now we usually use about 14,000 megs/month of our allotted 20,000, since we're not as careful.

[henny penny]

We live about 40 minutes from the major city in our state and we can't get dsl or cable. We have premium satellite internet and it is not fast or reliable. Most places in the country have limited options for the forseeable future.

[alivia]

We live about 60 miles from the nearest city in Indiana, and we have unlimited DSL through our local phone company. Last month, they even sent out a mass mailer that "low income" folks could get $20 off their internet bill only if they had or signed up for DSL high speed. DH is laid off right now so we qualified. I think our bill for 1000 min long distance, basic phone w/ a few features & DSL is around $60/month - less than when we lived in the city.

After reading everyone else's stories, I feel very lucky. Next time dh is chasing yet another craigslist "deal" we don't have time or money for I might not feel so privileged though!

[GeekMom84]

We only lived 2 miles "outside of town" and we still couldn't get dsl or cable. We ended up dishing out for the high cost of satellite internet and it was barely worth it. I used to play WoW and actually quit because the lag was so bad that playing wasn't worth the annoyance of bogging out during raids or while in the bazaar.

When my husband and I split the place I ended up was even further out of an even smaller town and we don't even have the option of satellite internet here! I tried going with the Verizon card but Verizon hasn't made a card that's up to date enough to work with the new processors [think i3, i5, i7] so that wouldn't work either. Luckily Sprint is savvy enough to just have come out with a new card to work with the new computers so we're using that now.

The card is $60/month with 5gig max but as soon as 4G comes out we will be limitless and the monthly charge will still be the same. It's also going to be a lot faster than it is now. The speed works for us, I wouldn't game on it but we can download quickly and watch movies with no problem. Also, we don't worry about the weather interfering like we did with satellite.