Help me pimp my crappy internet

[EMMST]

So, my internet sucks. Really sucks. 

 

I moved to a rural area and no ISPs pipe out this far. No fiber, no DSL, nothing. Tried to set up business class internet and it's a no go in my area.

The only option is satellite. 

 

Currently using the top consumer teir of Viasat. And other than the ping (800ms), it's "okay" during clear days (~50-70mb down, 1-15 up) but the network gets congested at night and usually slows below 1mb down. When it rains (here or at the ground unit) it stops outright. The $170/mo bill is pretty wack for internet this bad, but I would pay double that for fiber if I could get it.

 

At night, or during cloudy days I have been tethering my phone with PDAnet+ for 20mb-ish outside of peak hours. But it's still slow AF during peak hours from 6pm-2am when I want to be streaming movies and whatnot. 

 

Is there a way to run the satellite and tether connections in parallel to get better speeds? Or perhaps run two phones together? 

 

Any other ideas? 

[Electronics Wizardy]

5 minutes ago, EMMST said:

s there a way to run the satellite and tether connections in parallel to get better speeds? Or perhaps run two phones together? 

You can use a dual wan router, which helps with mutiple connections at once, or do network bonding, that needs a service, look at this video 

Also depending on how much you want to spend/do and where you can, it may be possible to run your own fiber lines to the nearest connection point.

 

 

[EMMST]

I've seen that video, but will that work with two entirely different sources? 

 

And I already looked into running fiber. Nearest node is 8 miles away. It would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to run it.

[KuJoe]

How far is the closest neighbor with a stable wired connection? I know people who have setup Ubiquiti PTP (Point to Point) setups to get broadband internet access to locations that don't have it available, but it only works line of sight so you'll need to be relatively close or build a tower in your background.

 

 

 

[EMMST]

That's my strongest option so far, but LOS is an issue since the house is in a bit of a valley. Maybe with a 60 ft tower. 

[paddy-stone]

10 hours ago, EMMST said:

So, my internet sucks. Really sucks. 

 

I moved to a rural area and no ISPs pipe out this far. No fiber, no DSL, nothing. Tried to set up business class internet and it's a no go in my area.

The only option is satellite. 

 

Currently using the top consumer teir of Viasat. And other than the ping (800ms), it's "okay" during clear days (~50-70mb down, 1-15 up) but the network gets congested at night and usually slows below 1mb down. When it rains (here or at the ground unit) it stops outright. The $170/mo bill is pretty wack for internet this bad, but I would pay double that for fiber if I could get it.

 

At night, or during cloudy days I have been tethering my phone with PDAnet+ for 20mb-ish outside of peak hours. But it's still slow AF during peak hours from 6pm-2am when I want to be streaming movies and whatnot. 

 

Is there a way to run the satellite and tether connections in parallel to get better speeds? Or perhaps run two phones together? 

 

Any other ideas? 

I think I would first look into whether you can get a better 4g signal from either your current provider or another provider... there may be options you can already connect to without much hassle. If that's a no go, maybe you could get a 4g receiver on a better location (tower/roof etc) and run it to your router. Some 4g providers may have a solution already available such as this.

 

[EMMST]

2 hours ago, paddy-stone said:

I think I would first look into whether you can get a better 4g signal from either your current provider or another provider... there may be options you can already connect to without much hassle. If that's a no go, maybe you could get a 4g receiver on a better location (tower/roof etc) and run it to your router. Some 4g providers may have a solution already available such as this.

 

Thanks

I've got a a booster with an omnidirectional antenna, going to swap for a directional Yagi one since I've found the exact location of the tower. Hopefully that helps.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Sounds like a good plan. 

 

I definitely wouldn't try to load-balance connectons that are clearly suffering contention during peak hours.  I tried balancing between DSL and 4G and during peak hours the latency would fluctuate as it got contended and then ease back, constantly.  The router just kept thinking the connection was going down, constantly bouncing the firewall so NO connection was usable.  If I increased the latency at which it determines the connection is down, it wasn't any better because when the connection goes high latency its unusable due to the contention, so you don't want traffic going over it.

Bottom line, you need a very consistent connection for load-balancing to work.  It can't function properly if the connection quality varies considerably from second to second, as there isn't any practical way to constantly re-route traffic down the most stable connection at any given time.

It also wont work to "share" both connections for the same task anyway, without some sort of VPN at the other end to combine both links.  This is not easily achiveable without expensive hardware and a few very specific providers that offer this service.

[EMMST]

Yes, I guest I'll see how much a higher gain antenna helps. The tower seems to crap out fairly regularly, I'm assuming it's because it's serving a lot of people. If the Yagi does not do the trick, I'll try a parabolic dish.