I live on the fringe

moosehunter · August 27, 2020, 06:43:35 PM

Of internet service. No hard wire. Satellite is terrible, won't pay for it. So it's my phone. Here is what is irritating me tonight. AT&T. I have a three year old Samsung that I bought because I don't believe in making payments on a phone. Right next to it I have my almost brand new I phone that work gives me.
The iPhone internet works. The Samsung says no service. Both are serviced by AT&T.
I think AT&T is punishing me for not making those outrageous monthly payments.
Rant over

my

GAB · August 27, 2020, 11:32:50 PM

my:
Have yourself two double shot of everclear and go to bed.
Tomorrow will be another day.
Oh by the way, tomorrow you may need an extension to scratch your head.
GAB

Ianab · August 28, 2020, 12:48:45 AM

Can you get a cellular router with an external antenna?

Basically they take a sim card like a cellphone, and then route the cellular internet to a regular wifi signal around your. house. An external antenna means it can be mounted up on the side of the house where if should get a decent signal, and the wifi means you can hook your smartphones / laptop etc to it like any normal internet router.

They are promoted here by the ISPs for the "fringe" users as it's cheaper to set up a new cell tower in a rural area vs running miles of fibre to connect 20 or 30 houses. The push here is to get everyone onto fibre or wireless so the old copper network can be retired.

thecfarm · August 28, 2020, 05:43:03 AM

We are lucky here. We have no cable, dead end dirt road. But we have a small internet service company. They don't even advertise!! The best part is unlimited!! And yes, we can even watch nextflick. Somedays we can't, we just watch it another day. We was on one of those satellite. :

That was bad and cost more too. Than so much data too. Wife has a YouTube channel and would burn through that in just about a week.

Ianab · August 28, 2020, 06:03:36 AM

Yes, if you can find a local WISP (Wireless ISP) that's another good option. They tend to be locally based with small radio towers that can transmit line of site to remote homes. Because the infrastructure to set up that sort of network is relatively cheap a repeater can be set up to serve 20 or so homes over 5 miles or so.

jeepcj779 · August 28, 2020, 07:04:09 AM

I live in an internet black hole. There is a triangle of land about 500 meters on a side that no ISP provides internet service to. I have heard how bad satellite is, so I have not gone down that road. For now we use the 4G from the phones, but that is terrible also. Slow, intermittent connection. The signal moves around the house throughout the day. Sometimes the best signal is in the living room, sometimes the kitchen, sometimes up stairs. Sometimes it doesn't work no matter where you go. No streaming for us. Sometimes you can't even load an email or the weather. At least the FF will load most of the time.
Moosehunter, the best device in the house for internet is my ipad mini (I think it is because it has the biggest antenna), but the best phone for internet is my samsung galaxy S10. My wife has an iphone 11 pro and has a lot of trouble picking up a signal sometimes. The best internet in the house lately is from the hot spot provided by the county for my daughter's school purposes. Once again, I think it is due to the hot spot having a better antenna. All devices are on Verizon.

nativewolf · August 28, 2020, 07:18:08 AM

Keep watching the Starlink site

https://www.starlink.com/

SpaceX should have the beta up and going by years end and then finish up a full NA based service by end of 2021. It would be faster but Boeing has had 2 launches (they can only do 2/year) that keep getting delayed with the rocket sitting at Cape C. SpaceX schedule then gets thrown for a loop because Boeing is delaying other launches right out of launch windows. Do you smell bad behavior, you're not the only one. Boeing has never launched on time once SpaceX started doing launches as they can screw up others launches by just delaying a day or week. Dept of defense contractors are the absolute worst actors- rant over.

SpaceX is well underway building a first private launch facility in TX and once that is done the launch sequence will go crazy and service will go to the rest of the world as well.

In regards to your phones. Does your old phone have a case? If so try removing. Can you use the new phone as a hotspot, check with your company re allowable use policy. We have one phone this is a hotspot, it just provides internet to the rest of the house and we don't get billed the same on this one line. Check the radio frequency supported by the old phone. A new iphone has got the very best radio, picking up a great range of frequency. As someone said you can get a range extender, AT&T might even give you one if you complain. Tmobile just gave us 2 this winter, better to keep us hooked than move carriers.

moodnacreek · August 28, 2020, 07:37:39 AM

People drive so nice where there is no service. I'm off to camp tomorrow , no service up there, if I meet a car on the road they will wave.

Nebraska · August 28, 2020, 11:51:40 AM

We just got a repeater tower 4 miles from the house hopefully we will be line of sight and no more cell phone internet. Satellite was a joke for us as well.

Wudman · August 28, 2020, 12:33:04 PM

My satellite has gotten much better. I am on Exede and upgraded to their latest high speed service (as I work from home). It does pretty good. It's an unlimited plan, but I think they start throttling me around 100 Gigs. We can do pretty much anything we want for 3 weeks out of the month. The last week will buffer a lot if trying to watch a movie. Overall, I am fairly pleased.

Wudman

trapper · August 28, 2020, 12:45:13 PM

county subsudised internet by me only problem the tower is line of sight and trees are in the way neighbor loves it. Got a number to go to someone at att directly that can do somthing when they rate almost every other month, It bypasses the phone tree and the no service people you normally have to go thru to get to a person that can actually do something

SwampDonkey · August 28, 2020, 05:33:17 PM

My internet is off a tower. I can watch TV and youtube in HD, unlimited. The company is locally owned just 25 miles from here. I find it more reliable than a cable line for FiberOP, of course not as fast. The problem we had with FiberOP is it went out with any storm with a little wind, not even gale force. Phone was on it to, so you had nothing when it went down. Don't own a cell phone, I have no need for one. Tried cell phone for a spell, it was never used more than twice a week and nothing essential. No signal at the house, so pretty much useless. 4 towers within 10 miles, all behind hills and mainly they service the 4-lane traffic.

Corley5 · August 28, 2020, 09:41:25 PM

We've been through them all. Dial up, cellular, satellite. Our local electric co-op ran fiber optic a year ago and we were some of the first in the neighborhood to get hooked up. It's amazing 8) ;D 8) ;D 8)

clearcut · August 29, 2020, 12:22:02 AM

QuoteThe iPhone internet works. The Samsung says no service. Both are serviced by AT&T.

Could be the age of the phones. A newer iPhone likely supports more cellular radio bands, than a 3 year old Android. The iPhone is likely able to access a band not supported on Samsung.

Cedarman · August 29, 2020, 07:08:07 AM

Our REMC ran fiberoptic to our house. Standard of living went up several notches. Even though we are in the boondocks. Went from phone, to satellite , to this.

SwampDonkey · August 29, 2020, 07:46:30 AM

They ran FiberOP up the road that is parallel to ours, doubt they will run it here, even though the lower end of the community has had it for a few years because they ran it out to the border/customs crossing. Sign over the door there says Centreville, but it's actually Royalton. :D I'll bet there is agreements in place between each provider. Ones already on the local ISP will probably not get the chance to hook to Bell/Aliant FiberOp which in itself has been government subsidized to even get the internet they got. They didn't care about us for cellular service, so internet is no different. :D

Jeff · August 29, 2020, 07:55:00 AM

Every time I see this topic I read "I live on the Fridge" so my advice is to get a set of those roll around steps like they have at home depot. Much safer than a ladder.

SwampDonkey · August 29, 2020, 07:59:26 AM

Apparently, these towers are not just line of site, but signal travels in arcs.

moosehunter · August 29, 2020, 08:08:29 AM

Jeff, I had to double check my title. That is the kind of mistake I generally make.

There is a repeater tower about one mile from me. The neighbors that use it love it. The signal does not go through trees so we can not have it. Another company is running cable service this year, poles are up, trees are being cleared. I'll need to dig a 1200 foot ditch to bury the cable to my place.
mh

moosehunter · August 29, 2020, 11:06:10 AM

say_what I just got to thinking, my cell phone internet worked a couple of weeks ago, why not now??

. I have a booster antenna. The builders had to move it and it got covered up. I just moved and remounted it. I gots internet again! A link to the build thread:
http://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=111649.msg1748985#msg1748985

farmfromkansas · August 29, 2020, 01:10:41 PM

I used to use my Samsung phone for a hot spot. Worked ok, till I used up the data. My wife got us hooked up to Consumer Cellular, our phone packages dropped to 50$ per month for both our phones, and we get better service than before with ATT. ATT has a tower a mile from our house. There is a new tower going up about 1 1/2 miles from the ATT tower. We got a new cable by our house a year ago, now have internet and cable TV. Figure we can afford it now we are old folks and get SS.