I am looking into internet service from our local service provider but am not sure what speed to get. Would mostly be doing general web surfing but also would like to stream Neflix. Can anyone give me some advice.

My experiences is that the fastest internet you can buy will still be kinda slow.

Do you plan on watching HD movies and TV Shows from Netflix? If so, You will need to get 5MBPS down or better. Which, Mid-Rivers only offers 1.5, 3, and 10. So take it from a guy who had them all. 10MBPS is your best bet. However... It will cost you $89.95 a month for JUST the internet.

Are there any other providers in this area?

Qwest

Have we played the speedtest.net game here lately?



This is the fastest WildBlue has to offer, which costs $79.99 a month for those of us in the boonies. It's technically possible to stream SD netflix over this connection, but more often than not it's a very unsatisfactory experience, and it will eat up the 17 GB monthly cap pretty quickly. This is why I was obsessed with the fiber optic cable MidRivers was burying along the Baker highway last summer. Unfortunately they stopped it on top of Government Hill which is still about 30 miles shy of my place :P.

Anyone have Mid-Rivers' new 700Mhz Wireless out at Kinsey yet? I've been curious how good it is and how much it costs since that's probably my best hope for real broadband out here although I doubt that it would make it here in the next few years. My secondary hope is that Verizon might put up an LTE tower that could reach my house but that is probably even less likely than Mid-Rivers getting something out here.

tried to show my speed test results but it didn't work

[This message has been edited by M T Zook (1/25/2011)]

FWIW, here's Comcast ...

Levi, I pity you.

I should switch to Wildblue.

This is my work connection.

Shaddup Larry. We in Montana aren't so lucky...

However I believe I am probably the fastest 18 year old on the web in montana.



And that connection here in Miles City costs $89.95 a month.

However I believe I am probably the fastest 18 year old on the web in montana.

Maybe in Miles City. Bresnan is available in Billings and points west though and they offer an 18Mb package.

When i lived in Georgia, for 49/month I got 16M down, 8M up...that was rural, not a city. whats up with that? I believe it is greed on behalf of the providers in this area. Here i get 1.55M down, 570K up on a good day. Its been as low as .99M down 200K up.

Really Levi? Makes me hate Billings more than usual.

How does Hughes work for you Hal? And what does it cost? The reason I ask is that they are going to put up a new satellite next year that is supposed to provide speeds up to 20 Mbit. I've heard nothing but bad reviews about their customer service and bandwidth caps though and really high prices for their current service.

http://www.engadget.com/2...y-provide/

Hughes and Wild Blue are providing the same services from the same satellites. DirecTV and Dish both broadcast from satellites belonging to Hughes. I don't know where one company begins and the other ends.

There hasn't been a lot of talk of Quest on here so I thought I'd throw something out there. I just got signed up for there service. I am paying $25.00 per month for 5 mbs. Now, during peak times it will sometimes be as slow as 1.5 mbs but for the most part hovers around 3 mbs. In my experience this month, it is plenty fast to stream netflix. I fired us "The Office" last night in HD without any trouble. Hope this helps.

Here's mine from my office..

Download - 5.5 mb
Upload - .37
ping - 160

How do I show the graphic?

[This message has been edited by Steve Sullivan (1/26/2011)]

Bresnan's highest speed consumer tier in Billings. Have heard that it's supposed to double as Charter takes over.

Levi,

We pay around $100 a month for a 300 MegaByte "Home Plan" package. Installation & set up was spendy. None of the discounts apply here that are available in the 48s.
http://www.hughesnetalask...vices.html

We did get lucky in that there is a guy here who does installation & set up. In some villages you either do it yourself or pay to fly someone in. I've some friends way out in the Bush who did it themselves. Since the nearest telephone was a half day away on the other side of a bay, dealing with online help was a challenge for them. One person stayed at the neighbors with the phone and relayed instructions back to their place on the VHF.

We've only had to deal with customer service once, a problem configuring a router and their help desk was actually helpful.

Aside from the challenge of keeping the dish clear of snow & ice (it's on the roof), we've not had any problems.

The usage restrictions aren't really a problem for us - anymore we are fairly light bandwidth consumers. We don't download a lot of stuff. Susan streams Netflix stuff sometimes, but she does that from 10pm to 2am Alaska time when we get unregulated usage. Whenever possible we schedule software updates for the free period.

As far as the service goes, when we posted internet speeds here in the past, I was always the slowest. The provider we had in the past - the local phone co-op, had one dish and then rationed out bandwidth via dialup or WISP. We were lucky to be within line of sight of the antennae, so we had WISP, but it was still painfully slow and very unreliable.

But if the same company owns WildBlue and HughesNet, there's probably no reason for you to switch.

I went with qwest because I can have my grandson over and watch Netflicks cartoons and it works great, they say our speed is high speed it works great and runs around $54. a month my daughter uses Mid-rivers cable and it works equally as good she pays a little more then us but I believe she has everything hooked to her TV. She has a basic cable on Tv included in her bill we pay extra on ours.

I'm not sure if WildBlue and Hughesnet are one and the same or if they are using the same satellites. Hughes owns about 40% of DirecTV and Wildblue is often packaged with DTV. Somehow you're paying the same guy... Leonardo DiCaprio.

My brother gave me Netflix for 3 months for Christmas. I have the Midrivers cable 1.5 mb, and it streams onto my Playstation 3 just fine. I am not real puter savy when it comes to bandwidth jargon, and a lot of people say to keep on eye on it. I can't find anywhere on the Midrivers online agreement about bandwidth usage. Is this something I need to be concerned about with Midrivers?

Thanks

[This message has been edited by K. D. (1/31/2011)]

Not if you're lucky. If you find your provider limiting traffic on certain ports or choking your bandwidth after a set limit, change providers. Also, if you hear anything about ACTA or COICA, they are bad.