If that is even a thing?

Moving in a few months, and got told today by Frontier that they could still service me, but I would be dropped from 12 Mbps to 1...

So I contacted MediaCom, and they do not service the area, so I am now venturing out to Satellite Internet, I could do with it out, but the wife is a teacher, so she will need to, to enter grades at home etc. So

Who all has ViaSat? I would prefer a company that does not throttle your speeds after a certain number. If that exist.

Is cellular hotspot an option? If you've got good cell data service, I'd go that route.

I have considered it, however didn't know if cell hotspot would be any better that Sat internet..

If you have a good 4g lte signal with your cell provider, then cellular hotspot is definitely better than satellite. We temporarily had HughesNet at the camp before we could get Troy Cable in place and it was good enough to get on the internet and do some basic things, but it was extremely "laggy", really high latency that you don't see with other internet types.

This will be the Canoe/ Robinsonville area in South Alabama if that helps. Nothing but Casino and cotton/peanut fields

Don't go satellite. And if you do don't go with Hughesnet.

We’ve got Viasat and hate it. We have a 12gb plan,which sounds like a lot, and it only last 1-2 weeks. Last cycle it lasted 4 days and I’m the only one that used it. That was social media only no Netflix or YouTube or anything like that. And as mentioned above it’s very “laggy”.

My hotspot is way better than the satellite I had.

Isn't it capped after a certain amount of usage?

Hughsnet works ok for us in rural walker county

I'm on the other side of Atmore from you...Nokomis area.

I've ordered a kit from SardisTel/Fusion. Should be here by the end of the week.

Gonna give it a try and see how it works out. I'll let you know after it comes and I've had a chance to give it a whirl.

I'm interested to see how this works for you too hunterbuck. I am not too far from yall...between Flomaton and Brewton. I currently use an AT&T hotspot. The inconsistency drives me crazy.

Let us know. I think we are almost at a lost cause, Frontier has a monopoly over us.

Yep...Frontier absolutely sucks.

My mom lives inside the city limits and has Mediacom. Her internet is really good and fast. But, they don't offer any service past the city limits.

I got some friends that just signed up on sardistel.com that are really liking it so far. Says there Netflix doesn't freeze up like their last provider. No caps, no contracts. I'll give them a few weeks and if its good Ill be scrapping the dish!!

Hunterbuck...any updates on the new internet service?

I cannot give it a glowing recommendation THUS FAR.

Let me start from the beginning...

I called them to ask them a few questions before ordering. While on hold waiting for someone to answer (which in fairness, wasn't very long), they had this long recorded diatribe about how they don't put up with anyone being ugly to their customer service...which quite honestly made me throw up a red flag. If a company has this as their "on hold" recording, they get a lot of calls from angry customers was my thought.

So anyway, I talked to one of their Sales Associates, because I was curious about which wireless network they used for their internet. The lady I spoke with said they used a combination of AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint, so coverage shouldn't be an issue anywhere. I told her that's good, because while I use AT&T for my cell service, and it's really good and fast for my area, their data service is slow AT MY HOUSE. She said that wouldn't be a problem, because they use different frequencies than what the voice carriers use. Sounds legit, right?

So, I placed my order on the 14th of March. My estimated date to receive it (according to their website) was the 18th or 19th. I got an email saying they had some supply issues on the 19th, and it would be shipped as soon as they got some more. A week after it was supposed to arrive and didn't, I called to see what was going on. "Oh, we're having some supplier issues, and running behind getting the modems out" was the response I got. I was told then that they had gotten a shipment in earlier that day, but since there were 80 people ahead of me, it would be a little while longer. Well, why are you continuing to advertise that folks will receive their equipment within 5 working days on your website then?

Anyways, I received the equipment this past Wednesday, April 3rd (a couple of weeks after I was supposed to). Opened the box, and there was a set of instructions that said to read the instructions and do everything in the order it stated, or things could be messed up. Ok cool...I can do that.

Instructions state that you need to activate before plugging anything in. Went online per the instructions to request activation. The activation instructions clearly stated that your Modem ID# is on the back of your modem. It wasn't. Only a Sardistel sticker that was covering up all the AT&T information from the modem. AT&T modem, huh? So, I finally figured out that when they say that your Modem ID# is on the back of your modem, really means that your Modem ID# is on the back of the ROUTER instead of the modem, I was able to request activation.

Received my activation notice 20-30 minutes later. Great, they seem to really be on the ball, I thought. Set it all up per their instructions. Jumped right on the internet. Ran a speedtest....2mb/s down, 1.5mb/s up, which is exactly what I told the lady I got at my house with AT&T cellular service. Signed up for the 25/5 plan...so, not so good. But, they state in the setup paperwork that a small percentage of folks would experience slow speeds, and what to do in that case.

So, I did what they asked...set up the modem and router in 3 different spots in the house, run a speedtest, and take pics of the speedtest, modem lights, and modem location each time. Also, using an extension cord, do the same thing at 2 locations outside, as far away from the house as possible. I used a 100' extension cord, and got as far as it would let me both out back of the house, and in front of the house. Ran the speedtest, took the pics, etc. Sent all of that to SardisTel on Wednesday night and.....not a word from them since.

One thing is for certain...from listening to their "on hold" spiel, they don't want you to call them with problems. They'd rather handle everything electronically (email and customer portal on their website).

Needless to say, I'm not real impressed so far. But, I'm fair and patient and willing to give them a few days to get it right. Otherwise, I'll return it and get my money back. They do at least offer a 30 day money back guarantee.

I'll keep y'all updated with any further developments.

Thanks for the info hunterbuck. Hopefully things get better. I had my hopes up. Keep us posted.

Ok...update time.

There have been some improvements.

My last update was from April 7th, so I'll catch those awaiting feedback up to speed.

As I said above, I received the equipment on April 3rd, hooked it all up, got activated, and got poor speeds. I went through the process they require on their website to help troubleshoot. Heard nothing from them for a week. I sent another "reminder" contact to them on April 10th, one week later. After yet another 8 days without hearing back from them, I called. I spoke to a helpful lady named Lisa. She informed me that they had put up an announcement on their website regarding some of the new modems that had been sent out. It seems that some of them (mine included) had a firmware issue, and they were attempting to fix them remotely, but if it didn't work, I would have to be sent another modem. The problem modems were easily identifiable by the color of the lights for the signal meter...blue was bad, green was good. Mine were blue, of course. So, she pushed my next payment due date all the way back to June 1st to give them a chance to fix it, and in fairness to me. This was on April 18th.

So, I check the modem every day, and finally on Saturday the 20th, I noticed I had green lights on the signal meter instead of blue ones. Good news, it seems. I run a speed test, and got 6mb/s down....much better than previously, but still a far cry from the 25mb/s service I'm subscribed to. But, it's progress. And, they state on their website that in some cases, it may be necessary to get a signal booster antenna (that they will reimburse you for in the way of bill credits) to increase your speeds. Continued to check my speeds over the next couple of days, and I averaged in the range of 5-8mb/s pretty consistently.

On Wednesday, April 24th (two days ago), I contacted them again to update them on my improvement, and to ask them if I should go ahead and order an antenna to further improve things. I have heard nothing from them since then. I figure I'll just call them again on Monday and see what they say.

So, that's where we're at now. Better than we started out, but still not where we need to be to keep their service for the long run. We will see if an antenna improves it enough to keep them.

I appreciate the update.