[SOLVED] (Rural) Wanting to Ditch DSL & Need Help Choosing Alternative.

[RomitchGaming]

Hello everyone. I will be starting online college soon, & I would prefer a faster internet connection. I currently live in a rural area outside of a small town in NE MS. I have Frontier Communications DSL & get 1.2 Down & 0.08 Up. I play games on PC like League of Legends & World of Warcraft, & have no problem playing those games, downloads & updates just take forever. I would like a faster internet connection to take my online courses & be able to play other games that were previously unplayable on my connection. (CS:GO,GMod,Apex Legends,Rust,etc.) Here are my options to alternative ISPs & Connections:

Save Up & Pay $12,600 for a Cable Run from local Cable provider in town (not in service range)

Put up 2 Tower/Mast(s) & Mount Ubiquiti Radios, offer to pay someone to share the previously mentioned cable that’s available in town,

Order Service from a Fixed Wireless Point (WISP)

(Not going to list Viasat or Hughsnet bc of interest in FPS Gaming)

I don’t know which to choose & would like some input. Thanks!

 

[Eximo]

How close is the nearest cell tower? A uni-directional antennae has much better range than you might think. Many ISPs will sell you an antennae setup that goes in your attic or mounted on the outside of building.

Sounds like what the WISP option might be similar too, as well as your ubiquiti solution. If you can get a signal far enough to get to that guy's cable run, there should be a cell tower in range.

There are even DIY methods. An old friend of mine did this for his parents. He bought a Verizon compatible antennae and pointed it at tower to get fairly decent speeds (for the time, this was in the 2G days)

 

[britechguy]

I would definitely be looking into which wireless phone/data service providers may serve your town. There has got to be at least one of the majors, possibly two, that cover that area, correct?

I had been using Verizon DSL and landline phone service for years here in rural-ish Virginia, but last year finally dumped that for T-Mobile. I use my phone for my WiFi hotspot and it works far better and far faster than DSL did, and way faster than your current DSL service does.

If you decide to go this route, carefully check to see what the data plan includes as far as mobile hotspot data per month. My mobile data (as in on phone and hotspot) is unlimited but the mobile hotspot portion is limited to 20 GB at 4G speeds per month. That's more than enough to meet my needs, but it would not be for some. Most providers do not make a point of making clear any distinction they might make between mobile data on-phone and mobile data for WiFi hotspot in the usage rules.