Internet Alternative for those of us in Rural Locations

Bed & Breakfast / Short Term Rental Host Forum

Help Support Bed & Breakfast / Short Term Rental Host Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Breakfast Diva

Well-known member
Joined
May 27, 2009
Messages
5,911
Reaction score
29
I have been using sattelite internet for a couple years now and have had a horrible time with it. Nothing else is available for my area. I love living rurally, but it's definitely a challenge as far as high tech devices go.
If you have cell service in your location I have just found an amazing product!! Today is the first day, but so far I'm extremely happy. Verizon has a "mifi" unit which is about the size of a deck of cards (but thinner) and it logs on to a cell signal to give you high(er) speed wifi that you can take with you anywhere. It gets about 4 hours on it's battery and you can also plug it into a wall. I'm not using it for the B&B because it's range is not wide enough, but it's doing great in our "other house" which gets no other high speed access. You can take this little device with you anywhere you go and as long as you have cell service, you now have wifi. Even in your car! Up to 5 computers can log on at once, but I'm sure that slows down your speed. Right now, I'm achieving much faster downloads of websites than I do with my sattelite connection.
I just thought I'd share, because I was totally unaware that this technology was out there. We signed up for the up to 5 gig per month usage for $59.99 per month. I think that's pretty reasonable for how much other internet connections cost.
 
Is finding out its a whole different world in rural areas..
Amen! I love the rural life, but sometimes it's a challenge. I've become so low tech since living here. We don't even have cell service at our B&B. It's great for our guests to come and disconnect from their busy world, but a challenge to stay current with the changing technology. It can be done though.
 
It all depends on who your cell phone service is with here. I have it! Found out this week I have to have long distance on home phone here to have it forward to my cell phone. All because I can't get a cell phone that would have a local with my cell phone carrier.
 
It all depends on who your cell phone service is with here. I have it! Found out this week I have to have long distance on home phone here to have it forward to my cell phone. All because I can't get a cell phone that would have a local with my cell phone carrier..
This is not an internet rant, but a cellphone rant...we got our new cellphone when we moved here. Verizon. To test it out, we used our inn phone, which has a block on long distance calling. Guess what? It was long distance to call our cellphone from our house! Which meant if we forwarded the inn phone it would never dial because it's blocked, or if it did dial, it would be a long distance call!
We had to get a whole new phone number after we told everyone the new one.
What kind of bozo gives you a long distance number between your house and your cell? Any call we made was going to incur roaming charges.
Now we have a calling card program for our cell. We buy minutes instead of paying each month. So far, we've saved over $200. We only use it so I can call my mother from the beach and neener neener at her (and she calls me a rotten child, it's a beautiful thing.)
wink_smile.gif

 
Is finding out its a whole different world in rural areas..
Amen! I love the rural life, but sometimes it's a challenge. I've become so low tech since living here. We don't even have cell service at our B&B. It's great for our guests to come and disconnect from their busy world, but a challenge to stay current with the changing technology. It can be done though.
.
We were on an 8-party line. There were 4 J-rings and 4 R-rings. We did not have a dial - you had to wait for the operator to deign to answer your pick-up and hop no one else was using the line (of course many others listened in to every call). The first time I saw a dial (I was about to start high school), I did not know how to use it.
 
We don't have regular access here, and if you are in an area that works for cellphones, we have a little plug in thing from Sprint that works fine. The whole inn system is on it and it's portable.
Riki
 
interesting! sad that the place i live sometimes that has only dialup internet also gets no cell phone signals that i know of. in a way, it's nice because you're out of the world and the things of man. but in another way, i've come to depend on and expect them.
years ago (and i do mean YEARS) a man i knew mentioned he was going to send a fax from his computer while on vacation on a beach! and i thought he was kidding. he was a techi and said it was all in the development stages but that someday i'd hear about it and i would remember him and his crazy satellite talk.
 
We don't have regular access here, and if you are in an area that works for cellphones, we have a little plug in thing from Sprint that works fine. The whole inn system is on it and it's portable.
Riki.
Called broadband...:) We have lots around here who can't get DSL who are using it. Lucky they can still pick it up in our mts.
 
Back
Top