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Before we had this internet, our son just used his verison plan and used a hot spot to get internet. Can you do that? And I agree Hughes net sucks bad
Internet in Rural Areas
- Thread starter BBLife
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Help Support Homesteading & Country Living Forum:
@Bacpacker Haven't had it during snowy season but its heated so should melt right off. It also self calibrates and moves around on its own when it detects obstacles to optimize the signal. Our satellite is sitting on top of our RV with a ton of obstructions from trees and we've had no problems, rainy or cloudy days too. The wifi is strong enough we can run a youtube video on the phone while down at the sawmill approximately 300 feet away.
Edit to add: Ours is also about $110 a month. We were paying more than that with verizon's Mifi service. You have to pay the initial start up costs for the satellite which is about $600 and then if you need any other length cable or a pole to mount it on. It comes standard with a 75 foot cable, and you can also purchase a 150 foot one but they can't be combined together.
Edit to add: Ours is also about $110 a month. We were paying more than that with verizon's Mifi service. You have to pay the initial start up costs for the satellite which is about $600 and then if you need any other length cable or a pole to mount it on. It comes standard with a 75 foot cable, and you can also purchase a 150 foot one but they can't be combined together.
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I forgot to mention that the modem is wireless unless you buy an adapter to have ethernet. The connections into the modem are proprietary so you can't use different cables to connect it-- it has to be the one from them. Their base stand that the dish comes with isn't the best. If you want to mount to a pole you need an adapter. We ended up having to get the 150' cable and the pole adapter.
Viasat is actually somewhat better than Hughesnet but both suck. Hughesnet has terrible customer service. Starlink has no customer service that I've been able to determine. Never got emails answered from them. We got a survey asking about their customer service and my response was "There's customer service?" It's nonexistent. But, at least you don't have someone wasting your time on the phone blowing you off like Hughesnet did.
Sonya, the cell signal in our area sucks too much and there are no unlimited plans with AT&T in our area even if we could get better signal. I think we have 5G now but its still slooow.
Viasat is actually somewhat better than Hughesnet but both suck. Hughesnet has terrible customer service. Starlink has no customer service that I've been able to determine. Never got emails answered from them. We got a survey asking about their customer service and my response was "There's customer service?" It's nonexistent. But, at least you don't have someone wasting your time on the phone blowing you off like Hughesnet did.
Sonya, the cell signal in our area sucks too much and there are no unlimited plans with AT&T in our area even if we could get better signal. I think we have 5G now but its still slooow.
We just hooked up starlink 2 days ago. Hubby's computer picks up a wireless signal now, the old tower signal was too weak. He says it's very fast and likes it.
It only came with a 50' cable even though it advertised 75'. Check that out before ordering if you need longer.
We got lucky. When we went up on the roof to install brackets for the dish, we found an old set up from somewhere in the past, already up there. The pipe on the starlink fit in it perfectly so we didn't have to install a bracket setup.
We then followed the old wires which went threw a hidden conduit into the attic. The construction in this school is amazing and well thought out.
Our equipment costs were $200.00 Can. When we went into town to pick it up, Purolator said they were receiving on average, 6 units a day for rural addresses.
It only came with a 50' cable even though it advertised 75'. Check that out before ordering if you need longer.
We got lucky. When we went up on the roof to install brackets for the dish, we found an old set up from somewhere in the past, already up there. The pipe on the starlink fit in it perfectly so we didn't have to install a bracket setup.
We then followed the old wires which went threw a hidden conduit into the attic. The construction in this school is amazing and well thought out.
Our equipment costs were $200.00 Can. When we went into town to pick it up, Purolator said they were receiving on average, 6 units a day for rural addresses.
Ya'll are killing me... I had dialup until ‘08. Hughes satellite was great in comparison. Had a whole 5G of use each month. Have 10G now but I’m sick of it. I can watch a few videos each month but have to be careful. Members here post a lot of video links I’d like to watch but don’t…
I went to a county commission meeting last week at our polling station. High speed cable is creeping out here to the boonies, said maybe next winter… or spring.
State had left over covid money, spent it on high speed for rural areas. Not going to complain, least some good can come from that farce. Heck I still don’t have reliable cell service, have a land line.
I went to a county commission meeting last week at our polling station. High speed cable is creeping out here to the boonies, said maybe next winter… or spring.
State had left over covid money, spent it on high speed for rural areas. Not going to complain, least some good can come from that farce. Heck I still don’t have reliable cell service, have a land line.
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Peanut, I know some people have had good experiences with Hughesnet but we didn't. I posted a very long detailed review on dslreports of my experience with it & because it gives away your name and some location info, they were able to know who posted it and retaliated by ghost throttling my internet even when I wasn't over their limit. My speeds with them were always abysmal. I never got anywhere close to what I was paying for. Looked in their software and found out they had me permanently throttled below my pay level. I was told by a former employee that they would do that to customers who complained or who frequently went over the limit. Well, every time it rained it would download/upload while we weren't even using the internet & would miscalculate and magnify usage claims x10. It claimed we uploaded 50Gb in a 30 minutes. We couldn't even download that much in one day-- it would take a week-- much less upload. One time our modem was unplugged & they said we were downloading 5mb ever hour all day long. We were supposed to be getting something like 1.2mb down but we never got over 300k. We were told to call if we were getting under 600k. When I called the CS were extremely rude & wanted to know why I was bothering to call them as speeds weren't guaranteed (that was before the former employee walked me through how to check if I was ghost throttled). Eventually the service stopped working entirely & we were told the only option would be to "upgrade" to their newer service which was supposedly faster, but had half the data limit. Said it would take 3 weeks to a month before we could get it. We found out Viasat could set up that week. It wasn't without problems, but at least their CS never tried to gaslight me.
Landline is still essential out here just in case.
Clem, I hope Starlink continues to work well for you.
Landline is still essential out here just in case.
Clem, I hope Starlink continues to work well for you.
Gigs in a day? Their basic plan is only 5gb per month or about 160MB per day or 7mb per hour! A single video is larger than 3mb, can be 50 or 100MB in size. You post about watching videos all the time. A single large video will wipe out a daily allotment of data.
If you were abusing your account that badly it's no wonder they had you throttled!!! Uploads also count as usage, posting videos or large pictures will use up the daily limit very quickly. You've written previously your brother and mother were also using the same account. Duh! It looks like you caused your problem with Hughes.
I followed the rules for the account I paid for and there are no issues. I didn't like the limits but it is what it is. Don't follow the rules and you're cheating honest customers like me.
The only exception being once or twice a year I had to reload software. This required more data than my daily allowance. Between the hours of 2am and 8am there are no data limits. I'd use a download manager, set it to get the files I needed and go to bed. No problems.
On one occasion I was reloading software on 3 computers at the same time. I knew I'd be over my daily limits. I called them up, told them what I needed and why. I was a good customer so they simply removed all limits for a couple days. Again... no problems.
This was my biggest issue with windows10. It insists on downloading updates when it wants. Windows, behind the scenes, can wipe out a daily data allowance, even use up 2 or 3 days of data, happened to me a few times. Hughes wasn't the issue, uncle billy was.
3 people on one account all using windows devices? that used up a large portion of your monthly allowance. And the usage isn't logged by your computer, windows updates work at a root level and does what it wants. Add 5 videos a day between 3 people and you're way over the monthly allotment of data.
If you were abusing your account that badly it's no wonder they had you throttled!!! Uploads also count as usage, posting videos or large pictures will use up the daily limit very quickly. You've written previously your brother and mother were also using the same account. Duh! It looks like you caused your problem with Hughes.
I followed the rules for the account I paid for and there are no issues. I didn't like the limits but it is what it is. Don't follow the rules and you're cheating honest customers like me.
The only exception being once or twice a year I had to reload software. This required more data than my daily allowance. Between the hours of 2am and 8am there are no data limits. I'd use a download manager, set it to get the files I needed and go to bed. No problems.
On one occasion I was reloading software on 3 computers at the same time. I knew I'd be over my daily limits. I called them up, told them what I needed and why. I was a good customer so they simply removed all limits for a couple days. Again... no problems.
This was my biggest issue with windows10. It insists on downloading updates when it wants. Windows, behind the scenes, can wipe out a daily data allowance, even use up 2 or 3 days of data, happened to me a few times. Hughes wasn't the issue, uncle billy was.
3 people on one account all using windows devices? that used up a large portion of your monthly allowance. And the usage isn't logged by your computer, windows updates work at a root level and does what it wants. Add 5 videos a day between 3 people and you're way over the monthly allotment of data.
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Peanut, to clarify: we were NOT loading videos when we had Hughesnet. We could barely load e-mail with it. We would do basic browsing and e-mail checking. No video uploads. No big picture uploads, etc. The plan we had was a daily usage. When we first got satellite internet it was under a company called Direcway. With them we could load about 480Mb per day (20Mb/hr) without being throttled. If we went over the usage for the day we would be slowed for a few hours. Then Hughesnet bought them out and cut the limit to 200Mb/day and raised the price by $10 per month and didn't even tell us. From then on if we went over the limit we'd be throttled for 26 hours minimum. There was a virtual bucket and if the bucket was to refill the modem had to be on and connected to the satellite. If we lost signal due to weather our bucket did not refill. If we lost power our bucket did not refill even though we weren't using anything. Whenever they had a firmware update on their modem, hey counted it toward our usage. If we were trying to load a webpage & it timed out it would keep requesting and sending and magnify the usage. There was also a glitch with the modem (that was documented by other users as well) where it would say people used more data than they really did. We disabled automatic updates with our old windows computers. That said, we did not go over our limit very often, but when we did it was often due to glitches or faulty data on their end. Hence the complaints. (As a note, we were paying $150/mo or so to get 420Mb/day toward the end).
So, we were not abusing the usage or using more than average or more than we were paying for. Part of the problem was that the usage limits remained low while websites became larger. More bloat. All sorts of code, images, and auto-load video ads that we had to disable, but still websites were taking more bandwidth to load just to look stuff up. The larger the pages got and the more data they used the more bandwidth we needed over time.
We went an entire year without going over our limit at all but we were still being throttled right from the start of upgrading to a higher plan with more supposedly bandwidth. The router software we had logged the total usage of all of our computers combined and said how much data each computer used. According to the router we weren't using nearly as much as Hughesnet was claiming. We called them multiple times about the discrepancies. A few times they had to unlock/uncap us because they finally admitted there was an error on their end. We had a lot of problems with unexplained outages that turned out to be network issues on their end that they didn't want to admit to at first.
I did mention that they claimed we were loading 5mb an hour when our modem wasn't even on. Power was out for 12 hours and it still claimed we were loading. Then there was that 50gb bs that all of the lower techs claimed was obviously impossible and must have been a glitch, only to have higher tech gaslight me and say I must have been uploading something-- which I wasn't. No one was even home, the computers were off, & the doors and windows were locked. Our router was wired only so the only way someone could connect was to plug an ethernet cable in.
At one point Hughesnet went to monthly instead of daily usage and we still were not going over but we were still shadow throttled as we never got above the 300kb speeds. They had a free once per month uncap thing to restore our data if we went over. Initially you could only use the uncap if you loaded their website and used the token. Problem was, their throttle was pretty much 0bytes so we couldn't load their page. It took me 3 hrs to explain this to their cs and get them to use the uncap token. They also would not erase the previous data so if you used 1mb it would cap you again. To their credit, they did fix this and added the uncap token to the modem's page. Their modem portal was actually very advanced and good. I'll give them credit for that. But their CS was terrible. I was always polite to their people whenever I called, but man, they did not understand simple concepts. Viasat had better customer service and their speed and stability were more reliable BUT their modem software was barebones and sucked. They had a monthly limit instead of daily. We had the legacy plan of 150Gb per month, which was manageable if only one person did a windows update per month. We only went over three or four times in several years and that was due to automatic updates from my brother's & mother's computers. Even with online games it didn't use that much bandwidth-- although the stupid game updates were a pain. I had to resort to going into town with my laptop to download updates, put it on a portable drive, and then transfer it to our computers.
With Viasat's plan we could watch a couple of videos but would have to be careful. We all had bitmeter that logged how much data we used per hour. No streaming videos or loading tons of images.
I have to say I really love the freedom with Starlink. I can stream videos, load images, & use the service like a "normal" person. I love watching tutorial videos and looking at pictures.
TL: DR? We were not excessively using the internet, watching videos etc to get capped-- it was glitching and misreporting our usage-- also, the limits were so low that a single website now would use the entire day's worth of bandwidth & they didn't update their limits in over a decade. We had our windows updates turned off and older versions didn't do sneaky updates w/o permission.
So, we were not abusing the usage or using more than average or more than we were paying for. Part of the problem was that the usage limits remained low while websites became larger. More bloat. All sorts of code, images, and auto-load video ads that we had to disable, but still websites were taking more bandwidth to load just to look stuff up. The larger the pages got and the more data they used the more bandwidth we needed over time.
We went an entire year without going over our limit at all but we were still being throttled right from the start of upgrading to a higher plan with more supposedly bandwidth. The router software we had logged the total usage of all of our computers combined and said how much data each computer used. According to the router we weren't using nearly as much as Hughesnet was claiming. We called them multiple times about the discrepancies. A few times they had to unlock/uncap us because they finally admitted there was an error on their end. We had a lot of problems with unexplained outages that turned out to be network issues on their end that they didn't want to admit to at first.
I did mention that they claimed we were loading 5mb an hour when our modem wasn't even on. Power was out for 12 hours and it still claimed we were loading. Then there was that 50gb bs that all of the lower techs claimed was obviously impossible and must have been a glitch, only to have higher tech gaslight me and say I must have been uploading something-- which I wasn't. No one was even home, the computers were off, & the doors and windows were locked. Our router was wired only so the only way someone could connect was to plug an ethernet cable in.
At one point Hughesnet went to monthly instead of daily usage and we still were not going over but we were still shadow throttled as we never got above the 300kb speeds. They had a free once per month uncap thing to restore our data if we went over. Initially you could only use the uncap if you loaded their website and used the token. Problem was, their throttle was pretty much 0bytes so we couldn't load their page. It took me 3 hrs to explain this to their cs and get them to use the uncap token. They also would not erase the previous data so if you used 1mb it would cap you again. To their credit, they did fix this and added the uncap token to the modem's page. Their modem portal was actually very advanced and good. I'll give them credit for that. But their CS was terrible. I was always polite to their people whenever I called, but man, they did not understand simple concepts. Viasat had better customer service and their speed and stability were more reliable BUT their modem software was barebones and sucked. They had a monthly limit instead of daily. We had the legacy plan of 150Gb per month, which was manageable if only one person did a windows update per month. We only went over three or four times in several years and that was due to automatic updates from my brother's & mother's computers. Even with online games it didn't use that much bandwidth-- although the stupid game updates were a pain. I had to resort to going into town with my laptop to download updates, put it on a portable drive, and then transfer it to our computers.
With Viasat's plan we could watch a couple of videos but would have to be careful. We all had bitmeter that logged how much data we used per hour. No streaming videos or loading tons of images.
I have to say I really love the freedom with Starlink. I can stream videos, load images, & use the service like a "normal" person. I love watching tutorial videos and looking at pictures.
TL: DR? We were not excessively using the internet, watching videos etc to get capped-- it was glitching and misreporting our usage-- also, the limits were so low that a single website now would use the entire day's worth of bandwidth & they didn't update their limits in over a decade. We had our windows updates turned off and older versions didn't do sneaky updates w/o permission.
We plan on using a wireless provider, there are 1 or 2 out here that service the rural areas. Faster than satellite, but can still reach more remote areas. We most likely will use Utah Broadband www.utahbroadband.com as an example. Not sure if that is an option. Just put a dish like antena on your place pointed in the right direction.
Ya'll are killing me... I had dialup until ‘08. Hughes satellite was great in comparison. Had a whole 5G of use each month. Have 10G now but I’m sick of it. I can watch a few videos each month but have to be careful. Members here post a lot of video links I’d like to watch but don’t…
I went to a county commission meeting last week at our polling station. High speed cable is creeping out here to the boonies, said maybe next winter… or spring.
When i went to the county commission meeting in June i thought... Yeah, right, high speed, not in my life time or years away.
I was wrong, seems so anyway. I now have fiber optic cable on the power pole in the backyard. Today i signed up for a 500Mbps account. Both down/up and $20month cheaper than what i pay now. According to forbes magazine... this connection speed will support 20 devices streaming 4G content and no data caps.
My current isp is hughes satellite, best speed was 20Mbps. But it was usually around 2-3Mbps. Watching a short video was a pain, start, stop, 10min to hear a song. Don't get me wrong... it was reliable, consistent service and a heck of a lot better than dialup. Disappointing yes, it was what it was... a metered account I've had for 15yrs. No other option...
It'll be a couple weeks before an installer can get out here. At the end of the day, faster and cheaper than what i have now. We'll see....
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Internet is hit or miss on our cell phones at our location. Eventually we'd like to get satellite internet, but don't like having a bill. If internet or phone service was that important to us, we'd move closer to town, or out on the flatlands. Either option turns my stomach.
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My recent move has put me much closer to a town than I had ever planned to be, but at this point in my life it hardly matters. At least now it only takes ten minutes to get to church.
The ISP I had couldn't get a signal here. I spent a month desperately searching for options and finally ended up with Tmobile. They wanted all of my personal information but I was able to use the small business I have as the contact so I signed up that way. So far the service has not had any down time, even though the signal is "weak" on the app. And the speeds are great, anywhere from 70 to over 150 mbps, which is light years ahead of what I had. It's 50/month, unlimited. Their customer service is like talking to an Indian scammer and it took a lot of phone calls to even get signed up. I had a local company with local people to talk to; paid 70/month for slow internet that went down a lot. Now I have fast internet that seems to always be on, for less money, but I can't talk to anyone. Why does it have to be that way?
The ISP I had couldn't get a signal here. I spent a month desperately searching for options and finally ended up with Tmobile. They wanted all of my personal information but I was able to use the small business I have as the contact so I signed up that way. So far the service has not had any down time, even though the signal is "weak" on the app. And the speeds are great, anywhere from 70 to over 150 mbps, which is light years ahead of what I had. It's 50/month, unlimited. Their customer service is like talking to an Indian scammer and it took a lot of phone calls to even get signed up. I had a local company with local people to talk to; paid 70/month for slow internet that went down a lot. Now I have fast internet that seems to always be on, for less money, but I can't talk to anyone. Why does it have to be that way?
Update on this.. no issues with our star link in the snow or cloudy days - we just have issues with solar on these cloudy rainy days and have been running solo generator power the last week or so.
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The base plan for Starlink is now $120/mo and the speeds are much slower than they originally were. However, they are currently installing fiberoptic cable in my area. They are doing the main lines and afterward an ISP called SwyftConnect (based in Texas) will be able to tap in to the main line for individual houses. It can go straight to the phoneline box and would allow us to use VOIP instead of our current landline phone service. They also have TV packages so we could dump AT&T landline, DishNetwork satellite TV, and Starlink internet.
I'm currently trying to find more information about SwyftConnect. Has anyone here used it?
I'm currently trying to find more information about SwyftConnect. Has anyone here used it?
More Information Overload for you.
Two years ago I installed Starlink.
We are on a large track of land; three family homes.
The download speed is amazing. Average 60 - 90mbs
I ended up using two radio sets ($70 per set) (wireless internet bridge systems)
to send signals to the two homes near me.
You might consider doing the same and splitting the monthly $120 service
with one or two neighbors.
P.S. We are actually sharing with a 4th party as well.
Note: There are two types of systems: 1 for 1,000 feet and one for 400 feet.
Two years ago I installed Starlink.
We are on a large track of land; three family homes.
The download speed is amazing. Average 60 - 90mbs
I ended up using two radio sets ($70 per set) (wireless internet bridge systems)
to send signals to the two homes near me.
You might consider doing the same and splitting the monthly $120 service
with one or two neighbors.
P.S. We are actually sharing with a 4th party as well.
Note: There are two types of systems: 1 for 1,000 feet and one for 400 feet.
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I'm not close enough to any neighbors to share, and frankly, the neighbors who are closest to me are criminals and would not pay for their portion even if we were close enough.
My speeds have been terrible the last few months. I don't get anywhere near those speeds anymore and peak hours are the worst. I can barely get it to work at all.
There are two possible ISPs for the fiber. Swift and Swyft. I'm hoping it is the latter. They have telephone, tv, and internet services. Their TV has streaming. Their top tier plan is ~$113/mo-- still better than what we are paying now-- for up to 1gb down. Their lowest tier is 250Mb down. I'm currently trying to find out if they bundle phone, internet and TV. Their Core Tier TV plan looks good. And their phone service is half the price of our current landline service.
Plus, I'm worried about more satellites dropping out of the sky or Starlink going belly up.
I’ve learned that if you have cell phone service - you can can have internet on your computer by pairing it with your computer.
How easy it is depends on your computer’s operating system, but it is possible in all cases.
How easy it is depends on your computer’s operating system, but it is possible in all cases.
It gets even better, Starlink will soon become a flash in the pan like DSL, remember that? How many use it today?
Verizon 5G is taking over the country
.If you have cell service, they can pipe blazing fast internet to you over the same hardware.
DW ordered their 'box' without even asking me.
I will be glad to see At&T's monopoly fade away from back in the days when they would say: "you ONLY have us or COX to choose from".
COX was garbage piggybacked on cable, so there was No choice
.Nobody will be happier than me when I toss the At&T junk into a box (along with their $70/month bill) to give back to them
.Say hello to my new friend
:
Idk what internet/cable is out here near me.
I pay $30/month for cell reception and that takes care of it, ive got one or two bars out here depending in where i stand. Work has wifi.
I am seriously considering getting a repeater though.
I pay $30/month for cell reception and that takes care of it, ive got one or two bars out here depending in where i stand. Work has wifi.
I am seriously considering getting a repeater though.
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The only cell service out in my area is AT&T and it sucks. We don't get signal in the house and it is extremely slow. When my power was out and I was trying to rely on cell service while standing outside or in my truck, I couldn't load webpages because the service out here is so lousy. I had to drive into town and tap in to wifi from McDonalds.
Looks like there was only the one complaint about Swyft.
Looks like there was only the one complaint about Swyft.
There is Always One...!!!
Our Electric coop has provided us with really fast fiber lines at a very reasonable price in our area
We are 11 miles or more from a "city", and have high speed fiber optic. It's one of the reasons I agreed to move . City water, Sewer, high speed fiber, underground utilities (Till they see sunshine for the feed )
Yeah the retirement home list was comprehensive as to requirements.
. City water, Sewer, high speed fiber, underground utilities (Till they see sunshine for the feed )Yeah the retirement home list was comprehensive as to requirements.
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You got 'in-ground' electric power?We are 11 miles or more from a "city", and have high speed fiber optic. It's one of the reasons I agreed to move
I can tell you that you're gonna love it!
While everybody else is looking at their power poles and lines blown down, you just sit back and smile while you watch them on TV, fixing them.
I don't know, haven't found where it goes "Mole people" yet, but so far so good. I can drive a a bad shot with a golf ball to the Fire station, post office and Sunoco gas station beer caveYou got 'in-ground' electric power?
I can tell you that you're gonna love it!
While everybody else is looking at their power poles and lines blown down, you just sit back and smile while you watch them on TV, fixing them.
11 miles to 2 fishing lakes, and 12 to the gun club. How could I saw nyet?
If you don't have one of these next to your house...I don't know, haven't found where it goes "Mole people" yet, but so far so good. I can drive a a bad shot with a golf ball to the Fire station, post office and Sunoco gas station beer cave
11 miles to 2 fishing lakes, and 12 to the gun club. How could I saw nyet?
And there is one of these nearby instead...
You are golden!
Fast internet is great, but power that never goes out, is priceless!!!
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Yeah, the "transformer" ? box, cable box and phone box are right at the property line, The phone is hilarious, cable cut at the house , and no demarc box. I don't have a good camera shot of the boxes, but I mow around them every couple weeks
The lack of overhead wires is stunning!Yeah, the "transformer" ? box, cable box and phone box are right at the property line, The phone is hilarious, cable cut at the house , and no demarc box. I don't have a good camera shot of the boxes, but I mow around them every couple weeks
View attachment 156234
Welcome to present day technology!!!
