Hey all,
I did a search on this and didn’t come up with anything, so I’ll ask forgiveness up front if there’s already been a thread and my madd search skillz failed me.
I live out in the country where DSL, cable or fiber optic are not available. My only option for high speed internet access has been via satellite, and it’s just not enough. There are latency issues, signal degradation, and a highly restrictive FAP, all of which makes my monthly access fee highly unpalatable.
I’ve searched for alternatives in the past, and while BPL came up, my search criteria were apparently not quite right because I finally stumbled the IBEC(International Broadband Electric Communications) website. I then took a look at the BPL.coop website to see where the service has been deployed. Only a handful of the cooperatives on their list have been deployed (either in full or in part). The rest have been approved.
This made me wonder if there were any Dopers out there who have BPL available, and if so, do you use it?
I live in rural Alberta, I don’t have BPL, but I use this. It works great and costs me about $50.00 a month. I don’t know if you have similar companies in your area, but if you do, I would recommend this option.
The ham radio people are going to fight BPL tooth and nail: American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
Our electric company has instead concentrated on wireless Internet, but it’s expensive, not totally dependable, and has fairly strict usage terms.
If you can get Verizon, Alltel, or Sprint cell service then “Mobile Broadband” (EVDO) may be an option. It’s about 1.5 megabit but I think all the carriers limit you to 5GB per month, which sucks if you do large downloads or watch web video.
Nuts. Knew I was leaving something out of my OP. On the EVDO front - I get little to no cell phone signal at my house, so using EVDO is a no-go. Also have a lot of trees around me, which makes line of site to a wireless provider difficult. My old ISP has wireless, but told me flat out that I wouldn’t be able to get signal and didn’t want to come out to see if I could.
But they’re both good suggestions, Farmer Chick and control-z. I do appreciate your input!
I did visit the ham radio website and saw that Ham Radio Operators are fighting this (and I can understand it, truly). However, when I read this articleon IBM and IBEC working together to bring BPL to rural cooperatives, it made me wonder if perhaps they might be able to work through the issues. There are many other articles during the same time period (November 12 and 13, 2008) discussing the venture - some more optimistic than others.