View Full Version : Rural Internet Service
Holger Danske
02-01-2016, 20:04
Living in rural El Paso county and have had Qwest/Century Link for ten years. Im tired of their slow service and got a flier in the mail about Kellin Communications. Has anyone used them before? If you live in the country, then What other options have you used? Thanks.
I use them now. It is an ether radio system, works ok most times. You need
line of site but where we are it was our only option other then a 1.5. dsl.
Speed can can vary but generally 10 down and 5 up. Sometimes it seems to require
a power cycle to the antenna. Customer service is good, local and friendly.
EvilRhino
02-02-2016, 09:01
They're the only ones so far we haven't had out to Franktown to try due to any online review for them being horrible. Our friends moving to Elbert have Direct Link now in Morrison and like it and plan to get it at their new house. We tried like hell to get Aerux (best reviews) but just couldn't get a strong enough signal.
We inherited the previous owner's CL 1.5 that has never gotten over 0.8mbps.
It seems the only other option is satellite like Hughesnet, but data caps and bad reviews...
If anyone has industry experience with this, is there any kind of a mapping system online for the towers? I've tried FCC, county business addresses, several "tower" sites that are based more on radio. On my roof, I can at least 4 big towers to the East, but apparently these Line of Sight companies just stick small antennas on a house roof that has fiber.
Subscribing.
My mom's house in Erie is ridiculously slow. You wait about 10 minutes to buffer a movie on Netflix and it still sometimes buffers during the movie.
buffalobo
02-02-2016, 10:25
http://risebroadband.com/
http://www.waypathinternet.com/exede/colorado/
http://www.wispdirectory.com/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=listcats&cat_id=37
Check with any local telephone co-ops in your area. We get wireless broadband from neighboring telephone co-op even though they cannot provide us telephone service.
we're with Kellin, and have been for over a year now. Our neighbors recommended them to us, as that's who that use and have for some time. Kellin recently upgraded our receiver to give us better speed for free, although I don't know how fast it is, but my wife works from home doing under writing and seems to do alright. Service has been good with Kellin' the time or two that we lost our service. So I guess over all, we're satisfied customers.
Holger Danske
02-02-2016, 17:53
Thanks guys. I will give Kellin a call.
EvilRhino
02-02-2016, 18:23
I did too. From where he says the tower is, it's the best shot I've got based on trees and ridges. Thanks for the positive review.
Rise Broadband
You can check availability here:
http://risebroadband.com/residential/
Colorado Fatboy
02-02-2016, 20:12
Rise Broadband
You can check availability here:
http://risebroadband.com/residential/
That's what I have down here in PW. I have the 15mbps which is the fastest available down here and it's consistently over 10mbps. Only option really besides the dreadful Century Link 1.5. Well worth the $73 a month cost. I would recommend them if available in your area.
Holger Danske
02-02-2016, 20:39
Cool, thanks Fatboy. It looks like they service Black Forest, so they are on my call list.
We've got Rise as well but the only tower we can hit is in downtown Parker and we're about 5 miles south of Castle Rock. We have the 5Mbps service but typically see speeds in the 3Mpbs range with high latency (no Netflix for us). Apparently they have antennas on the rock but nothing pointing in our direction.
So far customer service has been good.
We had Skybeam for years which may be Rise now. It was the only choice, but it actually worked decently. It was good enough to stream Netflix and play online. We would have to call in from time to time and harass them to keep the speeds up as it would bog down over time. We have a large lake between us and the tower which would cause issues around sunset.
Grant H.
02-05-2016, 17:22
We had Skybeam for years which may be Rise now. It was the only choice, but it actually worked decently. It was good enough to stream Netflix and play online. We would have to call in from time to time and harass them to keep the speeds up as it would bog down over time. We have a large lake between us and the tower which would cause issues around sunset.
Did they tell you it was being over the lake at sunset was the problem?
If so, they blatantly lied to you. Being over water could be a problem if they didn't plan their link appropriately, but sunset has absolutely nothing to do with it, other than more users on at one point in time (evening, after school/work)...
I do industrial communications for a living, and the stuff I hear about the excuses that Mesa/Skybeam/Rise gives is comical. I even use all the same gear that they do, not as WISP currently, and we never have the issues that they seem to.
Mesa/Skybeam/Rise is the WISP equivalent of Vulcan/Hesse/Blackthorne in the gun world. They suck so bad they have to keep changing their name.
Did they tell you it was being over the lake at sunset was the problem?
If so, they blatantly lied to you. Being over water could be a problem if they didn't plan their link appropriately, but sunset has absolutely nothing to do with it, other than more users on at one point in time (evening, after school/work)...
I do industrial communications for a living, and the stuff I hear about the excuses that Mesa/Skybeam/Rise gives is comical. I even use all the same gear that they do, not as WISP currently, and we never have the issues that they seem to.
Mesa/Skybeam/Rise is the WISP equivalent of Vulcan/Hesse/Blackthorne in the gun world. They suck so bad they have to keep changing their name.
Not doubting you but do you have another option for those of us in "rural" areas? The limits on Satellite make it unusable for me as I hit about 150GB a month just with work.
We've got Kellin coming out on Saturday and we'll run with them and Rise if they can get a good signal. They seemed pretty confident they should be able to get us 10 - 15Mbps... I guess we will see.
Grant H.
02-05-2016, 17:53
I don't have a better option I can recommend yet, but there is one coming, I can tell you that.
I have heard good things about Kellin, and Rise will probably work okay on the off-peak hours (depends on how many subscribers on the panel you will be hitting). A good friend of mine has Rise due to no other options, and he can only use it after normal people go to bed (he says its decent, ~7-10Mbps, after midnight and before 6 am).
I'll volunteer to beta test, we'll have Rise, Kelin and DSL running to compare it against. :)
On Rise I'm getting 2.12 down and .95 up at the moment. This afternoon I was seeing ~7 down. We're paying $68 a month so if you're paying more than that and getting those speeds most of the time, I'd have them drop you to a 5Mbps plan.
Kelin had to change their appointment but the installer, I think it was the same guy that answered when I called about getting service, just called and said they don't have the equipment and they can do it anytime next week. Kudos for calling the night before so we're not sitting here at 8am waiting for some guy who's not going to show up.
here is Rise. We have had the company of ever changing names for 9 years now.
We pay for about 4 times higher than we actually get. Its bs for sure.
The rise internet is fine, unless you want to watch movies, youtube, upload pics, etc. It is a little better now. It only buffers in the middle of movies sometimes now. It used to be that you couldnt watch a youtube video without it taking 20 minutes for a 2 minute video.
(http://www.speedtest.net/result/5061976012.png)http://www.speedtest.net/result/5061976012.png (http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/5061976012)
Kellin was out today and other than the installer not having any concrete bits for the stucco and drilling the first hole about a foot low, we're up and running.
Getting roughly 18 Mbps down and 5 up.
EvilRhino
02-10-2016, 16:37
Kellin was out today and other than the installer not having any concrete bits for the stucco and drilling the first hole about a foot low, we're up and running.
Getting roughly 18 Mbps down and 5 up.
Same speeds here today. Although he did aim at the wrong tower the first time and had to move the dish. [oops]
Same speeds here today. Although he did aim at the wrong tower the first time and had to move the dish. [oops]
Young blonde guy, driving a prius?
EvilRhino
02-11-2016, 11:41
Young blonde guy, driving a prius?
Tall skinny guy (like I have room to talk), brown hair. Looked like a Seabring with a busted front grill. You'd kinda expect work trucks with ladder racks, but he said he gets most done with a 13' telescoping ladder.
Holger Danske
02-22-2016, 09:24
I checked the Kellin website today. It looks like they now offer one residential plan with 15mbps a month for $70, and it is capped
at 300gb. Should I worry about the cap?
EvilRhino
02-23-2016, 10:14
I checked the Kellin website today. It looks like they now offer one residential plan with 15mbps a month for $70, and it is capped
at 300gb. Should I worry about the cap?
The website is totally different than it was even 2 weeks ago. There was no mention of the 300gb cap and the guy I talked to on the phone when ordering it said it was unlimited. I can't look up our old usage with xfinity, but for moderate internet use, online gaming, and streaming On demand type stuff, I don't think we ever got over 70 gb in a month.
Reviving this thread for any updates. Anyone have Aerux yet that can comment on their service?
So far Kelin has been great, pretty consistently above 14Mbps until today where we're sitting around 8. We have snow and ice built up on everything so I'll see if it improves by Monday. Rise is still mediocre at best, about 3Mbps on average now on my 10Mbps plan. They said that I could move to a new, updated tower, in Castle Rock but when the tech came out he said that one is only good for 5 mi and we're about 10 from it.
Opposite end of the spectrum. I live in the mountains. Everything is line of site. My first MRIC set-up included a 20' mast on top of the house, pointed between two trees. The trees grew and no more LOS. MRIC has great customer service but the technology is usually a step behind. Phase two, me (with an antenna in my hand) and the tech (following me with a laptop). We walked the property for an hour before there was a signal. Another hour and we had it isolated. An antenna, 50 yards of CAT5 to the garage and a line of sight router later we had a connection. 5-7mps during the day and 0.06-1.0 at night. Not the best but better than watching paint dry.
Moving to town next month. Three companies that better offer better service.
I'm moving to Elizabeth and will likely try Century link.... If that does not meet my needs, I'll try rise. I'm on Xfinity Blast plus (100mb/sec) so it's going to be a significant down grade.
I'm moving to Elizabeth and will likely try Century link.... If that does not meet my needs, I'll try rise. I'm on Xfinity Blast plus (100mb/sec) so it's going to be a significant down grade.
Did that one place end up working out for you?
Where I'm going, I will likely be relying on my cell phone hotspot, unless by some miracle there is DSL
Did that one place end up working out for you?
Where I'm going, I will likely be relying on my cell phone hotspot, unless by some miracle there is DSL
No we didn't end up getting the place with 30+ acres. We got another place in north Elizabeth on 3 acres. Way cheaper than what we were looking at also so there's budget for fun money still.
Reviving this thread for any updates. Anyone have Aerux yet that can comment on their service?
So far Kelin has been great, pretty consistently above 14Mbps until today where we're sitting around 8. We have snow and ice built up on everything so I'll see if it improves by Monday. Rise is still mediocre at best, about 3Mbps on average now on my 10Mbps plan. They said that I could move to a new, updated tower, in Castle Rock but when the tech came out he said that one is only good for 5 mi and we're about 10 from it.
I have had Aerux for 2 years. Excellent service, if you call you are taking to the guys that will fix it. I have noticed 2 outages that were fixed within a couple hours.
EvilRhino
05-03-2016, 20:14
Reviving this thread for any updates. Anyone have Aerux yet that can comment on their service?
So far Kelin has been great, pretty consistently above 14Mbps until today where we're sitting around 8. We have snow and ice built up on everything so I'll see if it improves by Monday. Rise is still mediocre at best, about 3Mbps on average now on my 10Mbps plan. They said that I could move to a new, updated tower, in Castle Rock but when the tech came out he said that one is only good for 5 mi and we're about 10 from it.
I just did Kellin on speedtest. 17 down, 5 up. There was one day last week when there was fog/frost on the ridge that the tower is on that we were slow, but so far so good.
My neighbor had just got Hughesnet, better speed but limited to 30 or 50 gb per month, after the .4 he was getting with qwest. I ran into him at the mailbox and mentioned Kellin. He's more than happy with it, but pissed that he's been here 6 years and I found them in a few months.
Good to hear about Aerux, they're coming tomorrow to do a site survey since we're on the edge, hopefully it turns out well.
Kellin has bee great and I'm definitely keeping them, if Aerux can't get a good signal then I'll be adding a 2nd Kellin dish. My neighbor had signed up for Exede and when I told him about Kellin he switched immediately.
EvilRhino
05-04-2016, 15:39
The neighbor said that the install tech mentioned that they either had or were in the process of installing some new "boxes" on their side that they would soon be opening up and would likely double our speeds for no additional charge.
I figured it was about time to bump this thread again to see if there were any new options.
I had Aerux out a couple months ago and even though we're supposed to be squarely in their coverage area and we're high up, they weren't able to establish a good connection to their tower.
I noticed that Exede now offers the Freedom 150 plan for $99 and 25Mbps for an additional $10. Anyone using exede and have any feedback?
Holger Danske
10-26-2016, 21:15
I finally had Kellin installed on Monday was getting 18 down and 5up Tonight it is 3 down at best.Not very happy
EvilRhino
10-27-2016, 08:13
I finally had Kellin installed on Monday was getting 18 down and 5up Tonight it is 3 down at best.Not very happy
While it might be too much traffic, give them a call and see. Mine started getting painfully slow and I called about it. He noted it hadn't been reset in a while and was aimed at the wrong receiver on the tower. I.e. if the NW tower box was best for us, somehow we were on the SW box. Just unplugged the little box in the house that connects to the dish for a few seconds and when it came back were were back in the high teens.
I finally had Kellin installed on Monday was getting 18 down and 5up Tonight it is 3 down at best.Not very happy
Any updates from Kellin on your issue? I've been noticing similar variations.
Do you guys use speeftest or fast.com? I've heard good things about fast.com since it's supposed to be actual Netflix content so it's unlikely the provider would QoS it to get better results. I'm averaging about 9Mbps on my two Kellin connections using fast.
Grant H.
11-01-2016, 11:13
I finally had Kellin installed on Monday was getting 18 down and 5up Tonight it is 3 down at best.Not very happy
Very likely this is due to everyone being home at night and using Netflix/web/whatever.
One of the things that WISPS have a much harder time overcoming is the massive swings in subscriber usage. This is something we are having to manage as we are building our WISP out. The fact that you are still getting 3Mbps (assuming that's what you mean by 3) during "peak usage" times means that Kellin is likely being smarter than their competitors. One of the big WISPs that I have some experience with, Rise, is HORRIBLE about over selling their access on a tower. One of the end points I have gotten to work with literally gets about 50kbps from 5-9PM. After 9PM, he gets ~10-12Mbps (Yes, slower than dial up to over 10Mbps because the sector is so horribly over loaded). We have been going through the motions of only selling x number of subscribers per yMbps/Gbps of access so that even if EVERY single user was streaming netflix or downloading stuff, they all get a usable, if somewhat slower, network speed.
This problem actually stems from the Point to Multipoint networks that are used. All the traffic that is pointed at one access point (AP) panel has to be handled by one radio on the master side. That means that whatever the "maximum" throughput allowed by that AP is split across however many subscribers are actively pulling data. Currently, the absolute highest AP throughput I am aware of is 1Gbps. If you have 200 subscribers, that means each one only gets 5Mbps. Most of the gear used in the field is actually not the 1Gbps capable gear, as it is fairly new in the field, and is limited to 100Mbps due to both the radios capability, and the fact that they still have 10/100 Ethernet ports on the AP itself.
Anyway, sorry for the rambling. Wireless data is my job, and I enjoy the tech side of it.
Why not just use more radios until the tech gets cheaper?
Grant, I think Nokias Metro Hopper is faster, but not sure if the tech is applicable to rural or if it ever took off.
Grant H.
11-01-2016, 12:37
Why not just use more radios until the tech gets cheaper?
They do, but you start to run into issues of frequency allocation, synchronization, and the like. The tech isn't even that expensive, they are almost all chipset based radios with custom firmware and an external power amplifier and antenna connector. All the microwave I am installing right now is less than $200 per subscriber, and just over $600 for the AP.
All of these WISPs are in ISM bands (stands for Industrial, Scientific, and Medical) which means they are license free as long as they follow certain rules. That's great, except that EVERYONE has something in the ISM band (every single WiFi AP, home or otherwise, is in the ISM band), so finding clean spectrum that you can use is hard. Once you find some, if you have more than 1 radio on a single tower, or more than 1 tower in a general area (if they can see each other) you have to synchronize them. This is done with GPS 1PPS signals, and there are only 2 vendors of WISP type radio gear that have successfully implemented GPS sync. Everyone else has struggled and is still trying.
You also run into tower space rental costs. Most of these radios use a 90° sector antenna, and they run 4 sectors. These sectors are at minimum 2-3' tall, and probably 10-20" wide, depending on make and model. Once you mount 4 of them on a tower at your rented RAD height, (generally) there isn't enough room for at the same elevation. This means additional rental agreements on the tower, which (depending on the company that owns the tower) runs $1000-2000/month (sometimes more depending on location, tower loading, demand for tower space, etc). Now, just to offset your cost of additional tower space, you have to have a whole bunch more customers. Even worse, some of the big tower rental companies want $1000+/month per antenna on their tower, which makes them a non-starter for most WISPs, hence why a lot of WISP towers are silo's, small inexpensive towers that can't handle a whole lot of weight, or even large barns and such.
Bottom line: Yes, more AP's allows for more traffic and better service to all customers. But the additional cost, effort, and equipment often makes it not worth it from a financial standpoint for the WISP company.
Grant, I think Nokias Metro Hopper is faster, but not sure if the tech is applicable to rural or if it ever took off.
You are correct, it could be faster, but there are a lot of caveats with that kind of gear, some of which you pointed out. Rural is hard, it means "long" distances.
1. They have only proven, that I have seen, ~8Mbps throughput. They are pretty sure they can get 3Gbps with OFDM modulation being implemented, but as of the last thing I saw on it, that wasn't done yet.
2. These ridiculous high frequency radios (24GHz, 58GHz - Nokia, 60GHz) and optical data systems are great for very short links. In the 58GHz band, you get about 1km, assuming no rain, fog, or weird atmospheric shenanigans. 24GHz is better, but the best I have seen there is 1Gbps from UBNT, and they are having a hard time with links much over ~3 miles when it's dry. If it rains a lot? They say maybe 1-1.5 miles. These data systems were really designed for building to building data transmission, not rural backhaul links for WISPs.
The licensed 11GHz band offers some great solutions for Point to point shots, but the idea of PTMP in 11GHz is less than ideal because of the licensing restrictions. So, the PTMP gear ends up in 2.4GHz, and 5.8GHz ISM bands. Some goes in 900MHz, but that is harder to get good enough SNR levels with, that most don't bother. The 3.65GHz band gets used where it's legal (sometimes when it's not, it's actually not legal for WISP use in CO). The products in these bands are what we get to use, and they are the limiting factor currently. The radios are technically capable of 200Mpbs over the air, but it all comes back to how crowded the AP's are, and how much service they really have.
How close are we to freeing up the original television broadcast frequencies for other uses now that everything is digital?
Grant H.
11-01-2016, 13:57
How close are we to freeing up the original television broadcast frequencies for other uses now that everything is digital?
In theory, the bands that are set aside for TV could be broken up and the actual TV bands could be noticeably smaller with digital.
In reality, I doubt we will ever see that happen. The FCC is a .gov circus, and if they ever re-purpose/reclassify those bands, they will probably fall into the same rules as the existing 400MHz licensed band, which is to say very limited usage, limited throughput, and people buying and sitting on licenses because "you never know when we might need it". Several of the railroads hold lots of licenses for frequencies that they haven't used in decades, but the cost to keep them is minimal, and should they ever come up with a good use (when I was working for one of the radio manufacturers, we built some test devices for UPRR) for radios, they have the channels. Not that long ago, mid 2000's, the FCC changed the rules to shrink the channels in the licensed bands of 150-174MHz and 450-470MHz from 25KHz to 12.5KHz.
Now, if the FCC does something totally astonishing, and we see the option of 20-40MHz license free channels in low frequency bands like that, it will revolutionize the WISP world. The lower the frequency, the better the signal propagation you get, hence my comments on 24,58, and 60GHz networks. This means that perfect line of sight and perfect fresnel zone clearance will be less critical for reliable and functional links, and the channel size would allow for the data traffic necessary for WISP or other wireless ethernet applications.
How realistic would it be for you to approach owners of unused bands to try and broker a deal to test stuff out? Perhaps the owners of those band licenses are in a great position to create a new market for WISPs. Or, is it all futile unless the FCC changes rules first?
If I were Comcast and had access to largely unused television bands, I think I'd lobby pretty hard to change their use to continue dominating the cable industry.
Great info Grant, very interesting.
Any guess at why Aerux failed to perform here? The tech just did a simple test but said he couldn't get beyond 3Mbps (he was only here about 20 minutes). We have clear line of sight, no trees or buildings and were pretty high up for the area. We're also supposed to be well within their coverage area even though we are a few miles from their tower.
The tech said he thought it was a Fresnel zone issue.
Anyone else you'd recommend in the castle rock area? I have 2 with Kellin and I've been pretty happy but I'd like to swap one out for redundancy.
Grant H.
11-01-2016, 14:58
How realistic would it be for you to approach owners of unused bands to try and broker a deal to test stuff out? Perhaps the owners of those band licenses are in a great position to create a new market for WISPs. Or, is it all futile unless the FCC changes rules first?
If I were Comcast and had access to largely unused television bands, I think I'd lobby pretty hard to change their use to continue dominating the cable industry.
It's possible, I've seen similar happen. DirecTV technically holds the license for a chunk of spectrum here in CO that one of the O/G producers I work for leased from them.
The bigger problem is getting hardware manufacturers to produce gear for a band that isn't available to a wide portion of the wireless world. Yes, we can develop radios in house, but the cost and time requirements make it less than ideal for a company like mine. Getting a Ubiquiti or Cambium to build a radio for a band that some small subset of the wireless world gets to use is hard. Add into that the fact that receivers and transmitters for that frequency range are a lot more involved than chipset radios from china, and the cost for the radios becomes more expensive.
The other problem with trying to approach some of the spectrum holders is money. In 2014 there was a spectrum auction and big players like AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc payed out something like $45 Billion dollars to buy up the spectrum that was being offered. The most recent round in 2016 came in around $23 Billion for the first round of auctions. Selling spectrum off to big players is always much easier, and usually far more lucrative, than trying to develop something for that band. When I was working for a radio manufacturer, we developed and sold a radio that was specific to the 700MHz band that a company owned. Their plan was to be the single source for spectrum and radios for industrial communications in that band. It didn't work out that well. I believe they went bankrupt, due to lack of interest, and the 700MHz band is now partially cell networks.
With 5G rolling out soon, and the planned performance of it, the idea of using currently unavailable spectrum for something akin to a WISP is maybe plausible, but highly unlikely. In everything I have seen, 5G supports higher speed than WISPs usually provide for thousands of customers, not dozens or hundreds. The coverage will still be an issue, but in the past year I have watched even 4G coverage grow exponentially to cover some extremely remote areas. The down side is that the cell companies then get to set the pricing, which is usually outlandish. This means there will still be a market for WISPs, but they/we just don't have a chance at "new" spectrum.
Grant H.
11-01-2016, 15:18
Great info Grant, very interesting.
Any guess at why Aerux failed to perform here? The tech just did a simple test but said he couldn't get beyond 3Mbps (he was only here about 20 minutes). We have clear line of sight, no trees or buildings and were pretty high up for the area. We're also supposed to be well within their coverage area even though we are a few miles from their tower.
The tech said he thought it was a Fresnel zone issue.
Anyone else you'd recommend in the castle rock area? I have 2 with Kellin and I've been pretty happy but I'd like to swap one out for redundancy.
Does the shot cross water? If you want, I can run a pathstudy for you and likely see what was causing the issues. I just need GPS coordinates of both ends (even rough google earth coordinates are fine for a guess at troubleshooting) and relative heights above ground level.
In reality, the path determines the signal quality, and line of sight isn't the only issue. You can also experience multipath issues and many others. If you have them back to look again, have them try moving the radio/dish up and down by just a few feet. I have watched radio links with multipath issues go from barely working to over 100Mbps due to moving the dish up/down by as little as 6". Multipath is where there is a reflection of the signal off of something (even the earth if there is a gentle slope somewhere between you and the tower) that then arrives to the same tower just slightly out of phase. This then causes constructive/destructive wave interference, which turns the signal to gibberish. Changing the incident angle by raising/lowering the antenna just a little can sometimes clear this up.
Since you are saying there are no trees or buildings in the way, that makes me guess more of a multipath issue than fresnel zone issue. Fresnel zone issues are usually only apparent when you have "line of sight" but immediately below that line of sight is blocked by something.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5c/FresnelSVG1.svg/500px-FresnelSVG1.svg.png
The blimp shape needs to be as clear as possible. The higher the frequency of the radio being used, the smaller "r" gets, but it is important.
The other issue that you could be facing, since you said you are higher, is if you are outside of the useful patch of the antenna... In a given radio system, you only have so much signal. If you want to stretch that signal out in one direction, you lose signal in all the other directions, including up/down and left/right. Microwave dish solutions like WISPs use are extremely directional in that they usually have a 7° or narrower beamwidth (side to side) and usually 7-10° or narrower vertical span, which gives them a high gain value, probably 20-25dBi gain. The patch antenna for AP will be a 90°, or possibly 120°, horizontal shot, so they will design the antenna to limit the up/down so they can have more power across the horizontal beam. These patch antennas are usually only 12-15dBi gain, so noticeably lower when you know the rule that every 3dB up is double the power, and every 3dB down is half the power. So, if you are enough above their antenna, you might be in a "dead zone" for that antenna.
I don't spend a lot of time down south, so I don't know a whole lot about what is available for you, but I have heard/seen decent results from Kellin. If Aerux can't get it figured out, maybe see if Kellin has a second tower that could be an option for redundancy (make sure you explain the reasoning so that if their towers aren't redundant you don't switch for no reason).
Skullworks
05-20-2017, 02:08
Centurylink looted El Paso County Telco when they took over. Before Centurylink, the internet was on the same Battery backup system that powered the dial up phone lines. Power could go out - but if your modem was on a UPS you still had a net connection. May not seem important - but I remember laying on the floor in the dark with all the east facing windows and skylights smashed in, baseball sized hail ripping the linoleum floor to shreds, watching in realtime via internet the radar image of a tornado moving past my home about 1.1miles away. If its path had shifted we were going to have to risk the baseball sized hail to make a run for the well system pit. That storm did $80,000.00+ on my property.
Now - the net goes down every time the power fails or more often. I live in an area which is kinda like a black hole for cell service, so I am screwed either way.
I thought I'd re-open this old thread to see if there have been any improvements or new companies entering the market south of Denver. We're still on the same WISP as 2 years ago and no one at Aurex, including the CEO, would even take the time to call back. We offered to look at funding a separate antenna that could be aimed a bit higher as well as enter into a multi year contract for the neighborhood.
GilpinGuy
12-07-2019, 00:58
Once again I am searching for a better internet service than satellite. Our satellite data cap is exceeded in a week. Then it's just painfully slow and I'm better off using my cell phone as a mobile hot spot.
Has anyone used or heard of BroadbandQ Wireless? I just found them online. They use the cell network, which is viable for me since I do that myself with pretty good results with just my cell phone when my satellite data cap is reached.
What's interesting here to me is that this company claims unlimited steaming of Netflix, Amazon, etc. If this is true, I would ditch DirecTV, get the best plan available from BroadbandQ, and still be ahead.
I though someone here might have had an experience with them.
buffalobo
12-07-2019, 09:17
No experience with them.
Out here Viaero uses the cell system to provide wireless internet. About only game for those who live outside local rural telecom service area. Service cost same as local telecom. 15mbs service = $55/month.
Due to a dispute between two providers we lost our wireless broadband service and went with local telecom's internet service provided over fiber system. It is not as good or as reliable as our previous wireless service.
Once again I am searching for a better internet service than satellite. Our satellite data cap is exceeded in a week. Then it's just painfully slow and I'm better off using my cell phone as a mobile hot spot.
Has anyone used or heard of BroadbandQ Wireless? I just found them online. They use the cell network, which is viable for me since I do that myself with pretty good results with just my cell phone when my satellite data cap is reached.
What's interesting here to me is that this company claims unlimited steaming of Netflix, Amazon, etc. If this is true, I would ditch DirecTV, get the best plan available from BroadbandQ, and still be ahead.
I though someone here might have had an experience with them.I have people that look at phone systems, and I can ask them to look at yours. It may be that you are already as good as you can do, but then again, maybe not.
-John
longrange2
12-07-2019, 19:58
Take a look at Ubifi too, I have been investigating them for my place.
Once again I am searching for a better internet service than satellite. Our satellite data cap is exceeded in a week. Then it's just painfully slow and I'm better off using my cell phone as a mobile hot spot.
Has anyone used or heard of BroadbandQ Wireless? I just found them online. They use the cell network, which is viable for me since I do that myself with pretty good results with just my cell phone when my satellite data cap is reached.
What's interesting here to me is that this company claims unlimited steaming of Netflix, Amazon, etc. If this is true, I would ditch DirecTV, get the best plan available from BroadbandQ, and still be ahead.
I though someone here might have had an experience with them.
If your cell service works why not just use it? Pretty much all the carriers have devices that will provide a cell hot spot vs using your phone.
something like this:
https://www.verizonwireless.com/internet-devices/
longrange2
12-08-2019, 08:24
Most of the cell company solutions have pretty strict data caps or very high pricing for unlimited data, Ubifi uses the AT&T network but is supposed to be unlimited data with no caps and no throttling.
GilpinGuy
12-09-2019, 13:56
I've been looking into the cell option. Service in the house is pretty bad, but up on the roof it's great. So I'd need an antenna up there and a router in the house. I'm learning a lot about this stuff. For what I'm considering here it would cost about $600 but it would pay for itself over time. And I have AT&T.
GilpinGuy
02-20-2020, 22:56
I finally found a solution: MOFI4500-4GXELTE-SIM4_COMBO (http://mofinetwork.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=199)
It' a cellular router and was $315. I took the SIM card from my tablet and upgraded the data package for it with AT&T for $20/month - our shitty satellite internet service was $70/month and we usually bought $20-$30 worth of additional data every month.
This thing is BAD ASS. We've been streaming movies, YT and the kids are online gaming without any issues for about two weeks now. Cell service is marginal at best at our house. 2 bars on the phone on a good day. You could get yagi antennas to mount on the roof if your signal is REAL bad. I thought I'd try the unit with the antennas it came with before getting the yagi's and we don't need them apparently.
If you have a cell signal at your rural/remote location, I highly recommend this.
Glad you found something that's working for you. I expect this type of solution to be more common as 5G is rolled out (probably in more urban areas).
I finally found a solution: MOFI4500-4GXELTE-SIM4_COMBO (http://mofinetwork.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=199)
It' a cellular router and was $315. I took the SIM card from my tablet and upgraded the data package for it with AT&T for $20/month - our shitty satellite internet service was $70/month and we usually bought $20-$30 worth of additional data every month.
This thing is BAD ASS. We've been streaming movies, YT and the kids are online gaming without any issues for about two weeks now. Cell service is marginal at best at our house. 2 bars on the phone on a good day. You could get yagi antennas to mount on the roof if your signal is REAL bad. I thought I'd try the unit with the antennas it came with before getting the yagi's and we don't need them apparently.
If you have a cell signal at your rural/remote location, I highly recommend this.
I never considered this. I get about 2 bars on my cell with AT&T and currently use a Rise Broadband antenna getting about 3 Mb/s while paying $56 a month for 100 Mb/s because they have not upgraded their antenna out on Badger Mt. Fortunately, I don't game, but even HULU is often buffering.
So, does AT&T just consider this another device on your plan and you pay for unlimited data for that device? Does AT&T throttle-back your data after a certain amount?
GilpinGuy
02-21-2020, 00:08
I haven't checked on speeds with this yet.
We're on the Unlimited Elite plan and the AT&T guy at the store today said that it is unlimited. The info online says they "may" slow you down after 100 gig during peak times if there's a lot of traffic. We've had this for about 2 weeks, been using it A LOT, and have noticed no slowdowns or buffering at all.
Bailey Guns
02-21-2020, 09:20
We've always dealt with the rural internet challenge. Now I'm dealing with it in rural OK. I was elated to get an AT&T plan (it's some type of hybrid between DSL and fiber) that's advertised at 18Mbps for $60 month. Actual speeds are right around 16. That's the best I've ever had. We'll see how it holds up during heavy storms this spring.
Internet is definitely like crack. The more you get, the more you want.
I thought I'd pick this one up again. I'm still looking for a good alliterative to the standard WISP services outside of Castle Rock.
At the moment we have two separate WISPs (Aerux and Xtreme), no real complaints about either (pretty solid from availability) but I'd love more speed and less latency if it can be accomplished for around the same price. We're getting about 30-40Mbps between the two on average for about $250 a month. Does anyone have any other ideas or work for a company that can do P2P for a reasonable price? I got a quote for 100Mbps but it was $1500 a month.
We download about 1.5TB a month and that's without streaming, mainly my work.
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