Rural Hattiesburg Wireless Internet?

As far as usage caps go, AT&T has a 5GB limit. After that, I dont know what they would if you exceeded that limit. Also, some wireless companies are willing to provide a discount if you get a voice plan along with a data plan. Usually, the higher speeds are available for the air cards.

I dont blame you for looking at the cellular companies... $90 monthly is rather steep....

I have a friend that is paying thru the nose for Hughes high speed internet because he is about 5-10 miles from Tallahassee and Comcast and Embarq (landline) dont make it out there ... even their landline phone sounds horrible.

Any way, i hope I shed some light for you....

PS, If Alltel has your area as "up to 2.4 Mbps", then most likely, you have EVDO. In my experinces, I have gotten speeds between 300 & 700 K on my phone... that will blow AT&T's EDGE speeds away.

 

Take a look at satellite internet. It isn't perfect, but until cable came out to my road I was on satellite. Prices are likely to be comparable or cheaper than a data card.

 

Check with the local ISP's that host dial up. Many ISPs are also offering wireless internet in the unlicensed bands. It is similar to wifi only long range. WISPs would be the term I think they fall under.

I would think that Alltel would offer the higher speeds as far as cellular based internet goes.

 

Satellite is an option, but usually more expensive.

Alltel would be the better choice in this situation.

 

Rudy, you may also want to have a look at Sprint. Although their coverage maps do not yet show it, they do in fact have EVDO deployed in the Hattiesburg area and all the way south on I-59. I've not been through Dixie in years, but I do know that coverage along I-59, US49, and Highway 98 is pretty good. An added bonus is that Sprint allows roaming on Alltel's EVDO network as well, at no extra charge.

 

id go satelite. your lookin at 10 bucks more a month for a 1.5gbps connection. thats a great deal. honestly though you should be able to get internet through your local cable or dsl provider and stay cheaper not to mention they will probably give you a wifi router for cheap

 

the OP said satellite would be $90 per month, which is $30 more than alltel or $40 more than sprint. OP also said that neither cable internet nor dsl are available at his location.

 

those prices are conditional on the fact that he already has service with those companies, otherwise those prices are 20 bucks more which puts you into the 70+ tax range already. so then your lookin at a 10-20 dollars difference for something a lot faster. if you get satelite tv also will the discount your internet? just a thought.

 

How do you figure? Last I checked, both the Alltel $59.99 unlimited plan and the Sprint Sero unlimited plan for $49.99 were both standalone plans and do not require any other line of service to get the published price.

 

I'm generally of the opinion that satellite should only be used as a last resort. It's the most expensive and generally is the one you're most likely to have problems with. If a friend is willing to give you all the initial equipment that should lessen the blow, but I tend to think about things in that if it's $30 extra/month, that adds up to $360/yr which seems far more significant not including the installation which can be done far easier with a mobile broadband card or usb adapter. With a mobile broadband card you could also look into a mobile router and get your place set up with WiFi if you have multiple laptops you'd like to use at the same time.

According to the maps, I also saw the same thing, it looks like you're in an At&t EDGE area at 70-130 kbps. For alltel it's an EVDO area at average speeds of 400-700 kbps with up to 2.4 Mbps according to their Mississippi Data Map here. Even though you can't zoom in, you can tell they generally cover far into the outskirts of Hattiesburg with high-speed. Though with either alltel or At&t also note that you really need a fairly decent signal or your speeds will get slower or even lost if the signal is too low. I wouldn't expect you to have any problems 5 miles south of the city but it's worth mentioning. But both providers offer trial periods where you can return what you've purchased if it doesn't work properly or you're not happy with it.

If it were me making the decision, I would go with alltel because it's $30/mo. less per month than satellite, and the equipment you need shouldn't add up near the $300 to install satellite for a very comparable speed. And it would be noticeably faster than at&t, which it sounds like also has a data limit, because alltel already has your area upgraded to high-speed data.

 

I think you may have answered your own question. Verizon doesn't have any native service in brooklyn or hattiesburg. They roam off of alltel in the area. So, if your friends said that the internet was slower in brooklyn, that means they probably have 1x (144k) internet access. If it got faster while they were in your area then EvDO (2.4Mbps) is more than likely available. I'd give ALLTEL a shot.

 

Well Sprint might be the way to go. I am surprised to hear about equipment breaking, maybe that was just an isolated issue. Sprint has a SERO unlimited data plan for $49.99 which is hard to beat. Verizon does have a 5gb/month cap on their plans which are more expensive to begin with if I am not mistaken.