Anyone have Hi-Beam for their internet? Its not satellite

[illinoisguy]

but some type of router/distributor at the top of a water tower or high point...

If so, what has been your experience/

thanks

[meanwhile]

Never heard of it but I would like to know more. We have very slow internet via TDS and no one else comes out our way. Would be nice to have some gadget to speed it up,

[Belfrybat]

Are you talking about wireless internet? We have that for parts of the county that doesn't have DSL available, but the receiver has to be in direct line of sight with the tower. From what I understand it works fairly well except in storms.

[Alice In TX/MO]

Google is your friend.

http://myhibeam.com/web/guest/marketing

[freegal]

It sounds like the Open Range that we have, but slower. I like it because you just get the router box, plug it in, flip up the little antennas and plug in your computer & phone. No drilling holes in the walls, running wires & putting a device on the roof; the box just sits on a shelf on the desk.

Once they got all their issues worked out when it was new to the area last fall it's been good. Phone quality isn't the best and has a delay at times but you just learn to deal with it.

It is way better than dial-up!

[motdaugrnds]

We are apparently stuck with dial-up. Nothing offered around here and I've never heard of "Hi-Beam" either; so will need to google that one.

[Alice In TX/MO]

I posted the link to Hi Beam above.

[Fowler]

I have Sky Beam aka Partnership Broadband (SkyBeam bought them out).
They place an antenna on your roof and point it to the water tower that has their satellite. You can buy your own router and they will connect it to your antenna.
Depending on the router you purchase it will allow you to be wireless within so many sq ft within or outside your residence. You will be able to connect to Wi-Fi to your phone, Wii. etc. to use multiple devices when you have a router.

I live in the country, and only had dial up, until this came along and it's quiet fast almost as fast as DSL. It does have some issues from time to time, like the wind may blow it off course, or their tower has issues. But it's better then Huges net, or wildblue ALOT BETTER and FASTER

[okiemom]

we have verizons myfi. love it. kicked sat to the curb fast!!!!!

[rzrubek]

I'd be pretty hard up to pay $56 a month for 1 (One) mbps.

[Sanza]

Do you have cell phone coverage? Then just tether your cell to the computer for internet.

[Horseyrider]

We had it up until this past summer, probably five or six years, maybe more. It was on a cell phone tower about three miles away, and the land in between is quite flat and all in crops.

Every year in midsummer, it would fail for days or weeks at a time. The crops would get to a certain height and the signal would bounce wonky. Depending on the time of the year, they said it was our trees (yeah but they were here last week and it worked fine) or our barn roof (not a new installation either....). This went on (with many complaints) up until they installed a bigger dish. That helped; but the thing still wasn't reliable enough year round for me to commit to things like online bill paying. Nothing like sitting down to move money and finding you're stuck until who knows when. And banking's not a function you want to take downtown to Starbucks.

We replaced more routers than I even want to think about, as they kept insisting the thing was failing on our end. No go. It was too unreliable for me.

It's sure faster than satellite and beats the pants off dial up. But not super reliable, at least in my experience. When Frontier sent a card offering DSL, we jumped on it. It's even cheaper. We bundled our land line and long distance with it, and it costs less than the radio signal/cell tower one alone.

[sunflower-n-ks]

Line of sight - literally!!! If there are trees, ANYTHING in the sight line between the tower it is on and your reception antenna you could have a problem. The service here, I understand can only cover a mile. ???

A new company is here now, but I am not willing to risk the high dollars or cut down the trees that surround my house. Plus I am just over a mile from the elevator I heard it is on and over a mile from the water tower I also heard it is on. The air brain in the office I talked to didn't have a clue where it is. Just kept repeating "we will send someone out to determine if it will work there".

Do your research for the service in your area. Talk to people that already have it, keeping all of the technical things in mind like distance, objects, etc.

[Ross]

We have that line of sight wireless internet. Sketchy service mostly due to poor equipment and support. Every time they come to service the system the kid never has a ladder and honestly doesn't seem to have a clue what hes doing, and its often worse after. The company did send an auditor out to look at the instal. He shook his head and said it was one of the worst he'd seen. The company has done nothing about it.

[sheepish]

We have that kind of service. It goes down when there is a snowstorm or dense fog and gets really slow when the kids get home from school, because the server has been oversold. But if you are up in the middle of the night on a clear night, it is really fast.