I’m one of those people for who Starlink very much is the only option. I moved from Northern Virginia to Western Maryland. This land used to be state park and all it has is electricity and mail delivery. No water, no sewage, no telephone, no internet other than cell hotspot or Starlink. It sucks but I have to try and separate my distaste for Musk with the engineers and people who actually run Starlink day to day, because at the end of the day the service is pretty damn good. The only issue I have (besides the price) is with VoIP traffic; but SIP acts fucky even with Cat5/6 sometimes so idk. I looked up the current policy and at least in the US they do not have a soft data cap. They did when the service initially launched AFAIK but that’s been replaced with a more general “network management” policy (throttling, etc) . https://www.starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1470-99699-90?regionCode=US
We’re having a pretty nasty thunderstorm right now and it barely misses a beat. I swear I’m not a musk shill lol, I just remember 3G hotspots and how much worse this would have been.
Just gonna let you know, if ya have 5g available more specifically T-Mobile then ya can get an at home 5g router. It is most definitely cheaper and may have lower latency, though I don’t know how their network is on the East coast furthest east I’ve gone is Utah.
I really miss t-mob from living in northern virginia. I’m up in the Appalachian mountains tucked between two peaks. There was a plan at one time to utilize the old 800mhz band for some sort of municipal internet (since 800mhz can either punch through the rock or “ride” along the earth, been too long since RF school to remember). But as far as I know nothing ever came of it.
Unfortunately we only get AT&T and maybe a whiff of T-Mobile once in a blue moon. Gotta go a few miles into town to get reliable service, especially if you want 5G. Thanks though.
OP states the get AT&T signal. You live out in the country, you have to get creative. Find the spot where signal is strong, plop your phone there. Mine at the time hung in front of a window.
Unfortunately, for me the spot where the signal is strong is ~250 feet up on top of a mountain. We had a cell booster that worked great on 3G but I’m not real keen on spending another $150 on a new repeater that may or may not pick up a signal from our roof. Another fun aspect of being out in the country is that I’m living in a converted pole barn which has a metal “skin” with double layer mylar foil/foam insulation that makes it quite difficult for signals to get inside. There’s no mesh so it’s not a full Faraday cage but it creates a lot of attenuation.
The AT&T hotspot is actually data capped, higher ping, and quite slow since we only have HSPA+ (4G) way out here. We used a hotspot while we were on the wait list for Starlink and just knowing there was a data cap made it pretty unpleasant to use. I should have specified that in the original post.
I’m one of those people for who Starlink very much is the only option. I moved from Northern Virginia to Western Maryland. This land used to be state park and all it has is electricity and mail delivery. No water, no sewage, no telephone, no internet other than cell hotspot or Starlink. It sucks but I have to try and separate my distaste for Musk with the engineers and people who actually run Starlink day to day, because at the end of the day the service is pretty damn good. The only issue I have (besides the price) is with VoIP traffic; but SIP acts fucky even with Cat5/6 sometimes so idk. I looked up the current policy and at least in the US they do not have a soft data cap. They did when the service initially launched AFAIK but that’s been replaced with a more general “network management” policy (throttling, etc) . https://www.starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1470-99699-90?regionCode=US
We’re having a pretty nasty thunderstorm right now and it barely misses a beat. I swear I’m not a musk shill lol, I just remember 3G hotspots and how much worse this would have been.
Also don’t hack me plz
Just gonna let you know, if ya have 5g available more specifically T-Mobile then ya can get an at home 5g router. It is most definitely cheaper and may have lower latency, though I don’t know how their network is on the East coast furthest east I’ve gone is Utah.
T Mobile is amazing on the east coast.
I often find situations where I have service when my partner in Verizon does not.
I really miss t-mob from living in northern virginia. I’m up in the Appalachian mountains tucked between two peaks. There was a plan at one time to utilize the old 800mhz band for some sort of municipal internet (since 800mhz can either punch through the rock or “ride” along the earth, been too long since RF school to remember). But as far as I know nothing ever came of it.
Unfortunately we only get AT&T and maybe a whiff of T-Mobile once in a blue moon. Gotta go a few miles into town to get reliable service, especially if you want 5G. Thanks though.
So this is what I did for a long time at my folks place out in the boonies.
I do this with the same router when there are internet outages (thanks Cablevision).
It works great to get everyone in the house happy.
Hows that work if there is no signal?
OP states the get AT&T signal. You live out in the country, you have to get creative. Find the spot where signal is strong, plop your phone there. Mine at the time hung in front of a window.
Unfortunately, for me the spot where the signal is strong is ~250 feet up on top of a mountain. We had a cell booster that worked great on 3G but I’m not real keen on spending another $150 on a new repeater that may or may not pick up a signal from our roof. Another fun aspect of being out in the country is that I’m living in a converted pole barn which has a metal “skin” with double layer mylar foil/foam insulation that makes it quite difficult for signals to get inside. There’s no mesh so it’s not a full Faraday cage but it creates a lot of attenuation.
The AT&T hotspot is actually data capped, higher ping, and quite slow since we only have HSPA+ (4G) way out here. We used a hotspot while we were on the wait list for Starlink and just knowing there was a data cap made it pretty unpleasant to use. I should have specified that in the original post.
Yep, Starlink is the only internet that works out here. In WV, can confirm.