School me on Wireless Broadband

NYSpeed Automotive NYSpeed Off Topic
1

So my wife and I are closing on a house on Thursday. It’s in Vermont where we live now. It is in a rural area and the sellers were unsure of internet availability. We had called our cable company (Comcast) and spoke with 2 seperate agents who both gave us a green light as to the address having access to high speed internet. They even placed “sales calls” the next few days including a sales call at 7am. Not cool at all, but that is besides the point.

Fast forward to yesterday when we call to make the appointment to hookup service at the new place on Friday and we are told that service was not available at the address.

So at this point, we are unsure of what to do. DSL is questionable. We are only 1.4 miles from a major route and village center. Will know for sure on Monday when I can speak with the provider directly.

If DSL is unavailable, it seems that our options for “reasonable” internet is getting slim to non-existent. Would I be completely retarded to select a wireless broadband mobile hotspot and adjust our internet usage accordingly? Any info on mobile hotspots would be greatly appreciated.

For reference, bandwidth usage dating back to November are as follows:
November-
-35GB

  • My guess is heavy Netflix streaming or possibly iPods left on streaming Pandora around the clock.
    December -
    -10GB
    January -
    -8GB
    February -
    -2GB as of today
2

Most wireless broadband is limited to 5GB/10GB caps and then afterward gets pricey. My VZ mifi I believe is 5GB, I never hit it as I only use it when I travel and use it for SSH/RDP sessions which do not generate loads of bandwidth.

What kind of coverage is out there for cellular? 3G/4G?

There are ways to get a broadband connection @ 1.4 miles easily over the air however I doubt a local ISP would do it, nor would it be cost effective to go drop a few thousand on the necessary equipment.

3

I know in Virginia VA Broadband does Wireless in rural area you basically have a direction wifi antenna and AP you point it at one of their towers.

However they have gay bandwidth caps

4

3G. I’ve looked at the caps. It wouldn’t be ideal and we would definitely need to be aware of our usage and smart about it, but it would beat no internet, or dialup.

5

You need to move :P.

Those 3G cards are pretty comparable to DSL.

6

Sprint android —> root it --> wireless tether —> pretty sure its uncapped… works well too… hell you can get an old mogul/diamond and do it for cheap.

7

Thanks all for the info.

Fortunately, I will not need to explore the possibilities of wireless broadband. DSL service is available. It’s only up to 1.6 Mbps down and upload up to 384 Kbps but the price is not bad. $27.99 a month including all taxes and charges for 12 months. Not to mention that would likely be the speed of a wireless broadband service anyways.

8

VZW offers a 10GB package for $80. If this is something you want, I can get you the device for free.

I’ve not done it, but it seems like you can root a droid and use it as much as you want through wifi.