For the past 3 weeks I’ve been trying to find an improvement over our old Frontier DSL near Port William, Ohio – between Xenia, Ohio and Wilmington, Ohio.

We have had Frontier’s DSL since Verizon sold it to Frontier back in 2008 or so. The area we live in is so far from main lines that our DSL maxes out around 1.5 Mbps download and is usually less than .5 Mbps upload.

So 3 weeks ago, with the goal of getting my home internet to a point where I could actually work at home more often for the web and digital media I work on, I decided to contact our TV satellite provider Dish Network.

Dish has been great for us for satellite. We have America’s Top 120 and pay about $76/mo for HD TV. We rarely loose the signal, the service has been excellent, and the price has been the same for years. So I thought I’d try their satellite internet.

Dish offered high-speed satellite internet with download speeds of up to 30 Mbps, and upload speeds of around 5-6 Mbps. Both of those were nearly 15-20x what I had with Frontier’s DSL where we are at for download, and 3-4x better on upload. That sounded GREAT! However, what Dish did not really go into detail on was the latency issues associated with satellite internet. It was T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E!

Some days it would only be 5-10 seconds to send my browser requests to their satellite and get a reply, other times it would be a minute or two. It was impossible. Now if we watched a video or something, it ran pretty smoothly, but the latency, impossible for us.

Dish has a 2-year contract as soon as you sign up with no cancellation policy other than the hidden Ohio-mandated 3 day buyers remorse policy for all products and services. From what I found online, it was impossible to get out of so many new (and unsatisfied) subscribers just paid the extra $50/mo until they met their 24-month contract then bailed. I was not satisfied at all with the service and dealt with many phone calls, emails, and Facebook messages until I got them to relent and waive the 2-year agreement. Minus the latency issue, this would be a great deal, but with it, the internet is not good for what we needed.

So I cancelled Dish high-speed satellite internet (and got to pay the misc fees they charged to set up). Sigh.

Next up, I emailed friends, co-workers, vendors, and checked out line-of-sight wireless, 4G wireless, and many others.

We have Sprint at our family mobile provider. They have a Pocket Wi-Fi that uses your local mobile service as a hot spot for wireless internet. The plans start out with 4G high-speed data plans in bulk, then once that high-speed data is used up, you get 2G service. When I got the Pocket Wi-Fi home, the 4G speeds were WONDERFUL! I felt the speed was nearly as good as it was at work (which is very good) as shown below.

We tried to test the worst-case 2G service in the Sprint store, and supposedly did, but after getting back from our mini-vacation last weekend and really seeing what 2G speed is, it was not accurate. With 2G service, we got around .11 Mbps download and .12 Mbps upload (yes that is point-one-one and point-one-two or about 1/10th of a Mbps!). It was TERRIBLE as you can see below.

While latency was good with the Sprint Pocket Wi-Fi, the upload/download was worse than when we had dial-up, so we used the 14-day return policy to return that unit. While you get all your costs refunded (set-up fee, plan payment, device charges), they charge you a $35 restocking feel that was not mentioned after carefully reviewing what could or could not be refunded. There are also some other miscellaneous fees that I still need to follow-up with them on that don’t add up.

Today I called Verizon and they have a wireless hot spot device like Sprint’s Pocket Wi-Fi that starts at 4G data, and goes down to 3G. That could be good, but the minimum plan with them was $130/mo just for internet. No including our phone plan or our satellite TV.

So I limp back to Frontier having exhausted all options, and in dire need of home internet for the web work I do, and to have email and such. The blessing here is that with the Frontier plan we had before, the only thing they offered was an emergency line phone (for 911 calls and nothing else) + DSL for about $80/mo. The plan I learned about at lunch today was DSL-only for $20/mo ($19.99 for ‘insecure’ and $24.99 for ‘secure’ DSL for residential customers)!

Tonight I got on another 50 minute + call with Frontier, discussed options and got the ‘secure DSL’ plan that is $24.99/mo and it was back on in less than 1 hour! I also have a new router on the way that should help with speed and local wifi.

So my takeaway, there are good deals out there for home internet if you live in the boonies. If you go satellite, expect latency issues. They may be a deal-breaker for you if you need fast internet response. AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and others have good 4G wireless plans. But expect to pay big money to have 4G service for ALL your home needs.

Consider this, for one evening (after work) of standard browsing with almost zero video, I used nearly a Gig of data. If you buy a 10 GB plan of 4G service, you may have 10-12 days of normal internet use before it drops to the bottom data plan. If you have hundreds of dollars to spend or can expense it for work, go for it. Otherwise beware.

If you live in a more urban area, especially in a corp limit, your options for low-cost high-speed internet may be robust. For instance, even living south of Waynesville, Ohio some 12 years ago, we had digital cable, very high-speed internet, and digital phone for just over $100/mo! Crazy. Some cities have free wifi or wireless internet just because you live in the city. If you don’t you may need to shop or be content.

Here are some links if you want to do your own comparisons or test your connection:

Time Warner (now Spectrum) Internet Speed Test
(used for screen shots above)

Frontier Residential High-Speed Internet
(what I left and what I came back to with better price)

Verizon Mobile Hot Spot Devices
(dig for plan details)

Sprint Pocket Wi-Fi