I need satellite internet

[kposey]

Help please! I need satellite internet for my job. (Not my choice). They will not allow me to use cell service of any kind including hotspot. I have to have satellite or wired internet service. We will be in a RV park most of the time but will be mobile from time to time. Looking for the best and cheapest way to get satellite internet. I will keep my current T-mobile internet for everything else I need to operate but I have to have satellite for my job. Most of the units I looked up were $1,000 and up just for the equipment. If anyone can lead me in the correct direction I would be grateful. I live in East Texas and won't be deep rural. I need download speeds of at least 10mps and uploads of 1.5mps with 10 ping. I would appreciate any help. Thanks

 

[Neal]

How will they know what you are using for your Internet provider? I suggest sign up for Starlink but that could be a long wait. There are other offerings but I don't have knowledge of their details such as Hughes I think is one.

 

[kposey]

Thank you for your response. I am not that tech savvy to know how they would know who we use, not sure if there are certain details or being that it is their equipment if they could access to find out. I have been signed up with Starlink since February 23. Just got an email saying it will now be Mid 2022 before it is available in my area now (it was supposed to be mid 2021). Plus they require us to disclose it and do a speed attestation test.

 

[tetranz]

I'm sorry to hear that you have to suffer this nonsense. I don't have a good suggestion other than to ask are you absolutely sure that they exclude cellular and not just exclude Wi-Fi?

The requirement of "10 ping" is quite challenging if that's not a typo. I assume that means 10 ms (milliseconds). Are you sure it's not 100 ms? I'm on typical residential cable internet right now and the lowest I can do is 15 ms to a server run by the ISP. Anything more distant is at least 30 ms. I doubt that you'd get anywhere close to 10 ms on satellite or cellular or even wired internet so something sounds a little off with the requirements.

As far as I know, there really is no easy or affordable solution for satellite if you're moving around. Starlink might be an option when you get it but I don't think you're supposed to move it from the address it was signed up for. There's talk of a "mobile Starlink" but I think that's some time away. I think the other satellite options such as HughesNet are also location specific and require a licensed installer to install it. I think HughesNet etc is geostationary (way out in space) so ping times are quite high just because of the speed of radio waves traveling at the speed of light.

I realize the following doesn't help since it's not your choice but just to say it, I think it's kind of crazy requirement. I'm no security expert but I think a wired connection to a cellular router (to avoid Wi-Fi) is probably more secure than any "wired internet" that a campground or anyone else might supply. With cellular there is nobody else involved with the immediate connection. You're behind the cellular carrier's big NAT router so hackers don't have a path into your system. Despite the frustrations we have with them at times, the cellular carriers generally know what they're doing at the infrastructure level. With wired there's a good chance you're going through a router of unknown security or firmware updates. As far as I know there has never been a case of someone hacking the actual cellular signal.

Good luck.

 

[redbaron]

Thank you for your response. I am not that tech savvy to know how they would know who we use, not sure if there are certain details or being that it is their equipment if they could access to find out. I have been signed up with Starlink since February 23. Just got an email saying it will now be Mid 2022 before it is available in my area now (it was supposed to be mid 2021). Plus they require us to disclose it and do a speed attestation test.

I assume this is for a customer support call center type company? The reason this requirement exists for many companies is that cellular data doesn't have an SLA guarantee or priority packet. Cell phones in general are subject to bad call quality without any change in environment, but purely load on the network.

I disagree with companies that take this stance, as there are ways around it, and any internet service can have the same poor performance under extreme load. Regardless, all companies can source the IP address of your service provider, and audit the connections to a company portal. Coming from a cellular network would be a redflag and could cause HR or other departments to take action.

The only way to mask your provider is thru a vpn service, but again companies can detect that as well if you use a well known service.