3G or 4G for rural internet access

[Marian Schwaller Carney]

Dear NazNet Geeks,
I am located in a place where no cable company or serious telephone company wants to operate. :mad: While I see Google now has a street view of our area (good grief!), I cannot get decent internet bandwidth. I am on WildBlue satellite. How slow is it? I can count the 7 seconds it takes for Outlook to send a 39kb plain text email. Yeah.:(

So, what about 3G or 4G, and the hardware it requires and etc. - anyone using this as your primary internet access? We have a metal roof.

Signed,
Desperate in Dublin

[Bud Pugh]

Marian,
I don't know about using 3G for Internet access but I suspect it would be adequate. I do know that at least Verizon is available in 3G in Dublin. Here's an article saying so: http://news.vzw.com/news/2009/06/pr2009-06-18g.html. AT&T says they have 3G in Manchester.

Your mileage may vary, of course, since just because the companies say they have coverage in an area doesn't mean you'll actually have signal where you are.

You would simply need a 3G USB modem adaptor and a 3G data plan.

[Hans Deventer]

Marian, you could do a test with a smartphone (or an iPad if you know someone who has one). They often support 3G and/or 4G and it will give you a good indication of what it can do. My experience is that it's OK for email, but for browsing 3G is pretty slow.

[Marian Schwaller Carney]

Marian, you could do a test with a smartphone (or an iPad if you know someone who has one). They often support 3G and/or 4G and it will give you a good indication of what it can do. My experience is that it's OK for email, but for browsing 3G is pretty slow.

Thank you, Hans. In fact, this is what a friend of mine ( a techie ) and I did just yesterday, which prompted my question. The 3g on my phone is slow for internet, it does email fine. We looked at the hardware needed for 3g home internet, and costs can head to 300-500 dollars for antenna and booster. It might boost my phone's 3G.

Speedtest.net clocks me at Download=1.61mb/s, Ping = 0.06mb/s, Upload=0.06mb/s (which is better than 62% of the USA - no wonder our economy is in the tank!)

[Gina Stevenson]

Test said: Download = .25 & Upload = .43 (tho' this one stuttered around in the low-mid 20's & less before suddenly popping up to .43, so not so sure the .43 would be called accurate)

Never knew about that place. Thank you. ;)

ETA: new one said .24 & .40

[what is that "ping #"? That says 71]