Quote:
Originally Posted by n8nagel
You've pretty much described where they live; they are close to Youngstown but in a semi-rural area. Problem is, they bought their house before any of this was a consideration, the only thing anyone had at that time besides power, phone, and possibly gas was cable TV which was still fairly new but they didn't care that they didn't have it (there's no gas service there either; if they wanted gas appliances they'd have to get a propane tank.) They live on a semi-paved (it's technically dirt, but years of tar and chipping it have made it sort of asphalt like) road but all the houses on this road are a good 1/4 to 1/2 mile off the road. So nobody there has ever had cable TV, FiOS, etc. They are limited to using HughesNet for internet because Starlink doesn't serve the eastern US yet. Frustrating because it's a pocket of 5-6 houses that are affected like this. They're old enough that were I able to work remotely I might consider moving there so they didn't have to sell the place and move as they get older but as so much of my work involves CAD the lack of internet access makes that impossible.
Edit: now that I think about it, I should look into getting them a cell phone booster for their house. I want to say they have either AT&T or Verizon and have "OK" coverage, often when I visit I have to go outside to get a signal (I have T-Mobile). I know that cellular internet is starting to become a thing - when I got my last new phone the rep mentioned it - maybe it would be cheaper/faster than HughesNet for them, if they had a roof antenna.
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Cellular internet is getting pretty good. On vacation I've been able to run 2 different internet video streams at once off of it. Trick is making sure you're on whatever network has the best coverage at your home base. The family cabin had no in network sprint support, but grabbing a month of month to month Verizon got me reliable coverage there. If the neighbors have smartphones ask them what carriers they have and how good the data coverage is there.