Most of you that are visiting this site probably already have high speed internet (DSL, Cable or Fiber Optic). Unfortunately, in the rural area where I live the only option other than dialup or cell phone has been satellite internet. We have been using HughesNet internet since they introduced their first generation system several years ago. While it was an improvement over a dialup connection it was not very fast and suffered from a number of issues:
- Long ping times . (750 ms)
- Low data caps (50Gb)
- high cost
- widely variation in speed
- too slow to stream HD video
Their Gen5 service was a significant improvement when it came out last year but to a lesser degree these issues still remained; particularly during afternoons and evenings.
This Spring, Endeavor Communications, announced that they would be installing fiber optic cable in our neighborhood. Once completed they would be offering phone, internet and TV to their customers. Endeavor communications is an Indiana based cooperative whose mission is to provide fiber optic services to under-served rural communities.
Our fiber optic internet was finally installed in August. Our speed is 1Gb/s. The difference is amazing. We are now actually able to stream HD and Ultra-HD movies on multiple TVs without re-buffering or data limits.
I was also able to take advantage of our new connection to participate in the W9IMS (Indianapolis Motor Speedway) Special event operation last week. I was able to remotely operate the station using TeamViewer and N1MM just as if I were in front of the radio. This is pretty amazing technology.
73 for now,
Fred, KC9QQ