Horse Crashes Internet Service

Because I’m stupid, more than a decade ago, I went along with the idea of my wife buying horses.  As you may know, in Spotsylvania County, you are not allowed to have horses on a property of less than 5 acres.  So we moved onto a bigger property off of Courthouse road and Robert E Lee.  But what I didn’t expect was the tech problem of an internet connection.  

I’m learning from my neighbors but as far as I know, Cox,  Verizon, T-Mobile, Xfinity and a few others don’t provide service out in the sticks where I live.  Being OUT OF OPTIONS, we signed up for a satellite internet service that we absolutely hate.  It is slow, it cuts out, it buffers regularly.  When I’m talking with my wife on the phone, the router seems to mess with her phone making some words sound …s-l-o-w.   

Since my wife works from home and needs a computer with an internet connection, I tried shopping around and found a company that services Lake Anna and several miles this way along Courthouse road but when I looked up the reviews, they were shredded by almost everyone.  There were a few (obviously planted) online testimonials that were so glowing, that it was clear they’d been fabricated.  Even with fake testimonials, they get 2 stars.  Seriously?  You cheated the scorekeeping and only got 2?  

My neighbors have Starlink now and LOVE it.  So, I thought we might try that but I’m told there is a waiting list.  Some said it was 6 months to a year but others have told us it is nowhere near that long, so we’ll see.  Some of these companies charge $500 or $600 or more for the gear but if the connection works, we’re OK with that.  Yes, it will hurt but so does having terrible service.  

Here’s the capper!  We already hate the internet service that I signed us up to use, but then we got a notice that we’re “almost out of high-speed data”.  What?  How did that happen?   Well, it turns out my wife likes to have the TV on in the background while she’s working.  ‘Anyone think that might burn through your high speed data time since we use an internet based TV box?!!!  We got the notice on Oct 24 and now have to wait until Nov 1 for the service to get back to their version of normal. As you can probably guess, this isn’t an ad for an internet service.  This is me begging for info on a better rural internet option.  And you may have noticed I have NOT included the name of the company we’re using or the others we don’t like.  I can’t wait to see what a nightmare this service will be to cancel.