Damn North Dakota rural is cheap

[Rural]

Pedal.  You pedal a bicycle.

You peddle your wares.  A traveling salesman may pedal his bicycle to your door to peddle his goods.

I'd generally put "middle of nowhere" at somewhere beyond 30 miles from a town.  In rural areas, with a car, miles and minutes are functionally interchangeable as well.

Sarri, my dikshunary was broak.

Anti-intellectualism is even less becoming to those of us from the Deep South than it usually is, if only because of the unfounded stereotypes we so often have to contend with.

[kimmarg]

I have always had a dream to move to coastal rural Maine. The mountains, lakes, acreage + the ocean is truly unique.

I know you can't plan around where your kids will live when they get older, but it would probably not be rural Maine.

You need to be pretty far "down east" for the coast to still be rural, at which point you're kinda far from the mountains. Plenty of blueberries though!

Maine is roughly divided into 4 quadrents by main crop split N/S by I-95 and E/W by a line from Bar Harbor to Bangor to Ft. Kent.  Northwest is trees, northeast is potatoes, southeast is blueberries and southwest is tourists.

[Trudie]

Couldn't live there myself, but have no desire to put people down who find it to their liking.  However, I have rather enjoyed reading memoirs about life in the Dakotas, like:

https://www.amazon.com/Prairie-Silence-Memoir-Melanie-Hoffert/dp/0807045160/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469715980&sr=8-1&keywords=melanie+hoffert

and

https://www.amazon.com/Dakota-Spiritual-Geography-Kathleen-Norris/dp/0618127240/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1469716015&sr=8-3&keywords=Kathleen+Norris

[dougules]

Pedal.  You pedal a bicycle.

You peddle your wares.  A traveling salesman may pedal his bicycle to your door to peddle his goods.

I'd generally put "middle of nowhere" at somewhere beyond 30 miles from a town.  In rural areas, with a car, miles and minutes are functionally interchangeable as well.

Sarri, my dikshunary was broak.

Anti-intellectualism is even less becoming to those of us from the Deep South than it usually is, if only because of the unfounded stereotypes we so often have to contend with.

If yɪu rili woʊnt ðə ɪnəlɛcʃuəl ænsər, hwäː aər wi yɪuzɪn ə spɛlɪn sɪstəm ðæət hæznt bɪn əpdeɪtɪd ɪn fäːv sɪntʃəriz wɪəþ ən ælfəbeɪət ðæəts tɛrəbl fr iŋglɪʃ? Æənd hwäː aər wi Səðrnrs soʊ əʃeɪmd əv ar hɛrətɪdʒ?  Anyway, I digress. 

[Rural]

Pedal.  You pedal a bicycle.

You peddle your wares.  A traveling salesman may pedal his bicycle to your door to peddle his goods.

I'd generally put "middle of nowhere" at somewhere beyond 30 miles from a town.  In rural areas, with a car, miles and minutes are functionally interchangeable as well.

Sarri, my dikshunary was broak.

Anti-intellectualism is even less becoming to those of us from the Deep South than it usually is, if only because of the unfounded stereotypes we so often have to contend with.

If yɪu rili woʊnt ðə ɪnəlɛcʃuəl ænsər, hwäː aər wi yɪuzɪn ə spɛlɪn sɪstəm ðæət hæznt bɪn əpdeɪtɪd ɪn fäːv sɪntʃəriz wɪəþ ən ælfəbeɪət ðæəts tɛrəbl fr iŋglɪʃ? Æənd hwäː aər wi Səðrnrs soʊ əʃeɪmd əv ar hɛrətɪdʒ?  Anyway, I digress.

Hwaet?!

[mindaugas]

For anyone living in a rural area, what's the internet like? How fast, what's the cost, what tech microwave, LTE, DSL, sat)?

[Syonyk]

For anyone living in a rural area, what's the internet like? How fast, what's the cost, what tech microwave, LTE, DSL, sat)?

I'm on rural wifi (terrestrial wifi).  It's OK.  Not amazing, but gets the job done.  There are two providers in my area, and I'm planning to get the second one set up because the first provider annoys me in the evenings (I work from home on the internet, so I'm sensitive to packet loss and erratic latency).

[Rural]

For anyone living in a rural area, what's the internet like? How fast, what's the cost, what tech microwave, LTE, DSL, sat)?

Exactly one option providing "best effort" DSL that maxes out at 3mbps. Adblock helps more than you can imagine, and we can stream Netflix on one screen as long as we both watch so that it's all we're trying to do. Not in HD, of course.


But I've had it so much worse. And I can do anything I need to in terms of teaching online, so there's that. If we lived closer to the public road we could get cable, but they won't run line this far into the woods, so consider more than just what goes along the street.


ETA we could also get satellite if we were willing to cut a bunch of trees, but I've had satellite, and this is both better and considerably cheaper. Works in the rain, too, usually, which satellite usually doesn't do.

[dougules]

Pedal.  You pedal a bicycle.

You peddle your wares.  A traveling salesman may pedal his bicycle to your door to peddle his goods.

I'd generally put "middle of nowhere" at somewhere beyond 30 miles from a town.  In rural areas, with a car, miles and minutes are functionally interchangeable as well.

Sarri, my dikshunary was broak.

Anti-intellectualism is even less becoming to those of us from the Deep South than it usually is, if only because of the unfounded stereotypes we so often have to contend with.

If yɪu rili woʊnt ðə ɪnəlɛcʃuəl ænsər, hwäː aər wi yɪuzɪn ə spɛlɪn sɪstəm ðæət hæznt bɪn əpdeɪtɪd ɪn fäːv sɪntʃəriz wɪəþ ən ælfəbeɪət ðæəts tɛrəbl fr iŋglɪʃ? Æənd hwäː aər wi Səðrnrs soʊ əʃeɪmd əv ar hɛrətɪdʒ?  Anyway, I digress.

Hwaet?!

To transliterate into fucked-up outdated English spelling:
If you really want the intellectual answer, why are we using a spelling system that hasn't been updated in five centuries with an alphabet that's terrible for English?  And why are we Southerners so ashamed of our heritage?

[pdxmonkey]

For anyone living in a rural area, what's the internet like? How fast, what's the cost, what tech microwave, LTE, DSL, sat)?

Exactly one option providing "best effort" DSL that maxes out at 3mbps. Adblock helps more than you can imagine, and we can stream Netflix on one screen as long as we both watch so that it's all we're trying to do. Not in HD, of course.


But I've had it so much worse. And I can do anything I need to in terms of teaching online, so there's that. If we lived closer to the public road we could get cable, but they won't run line this far into the woods, so consider more than just what goes along the street.


ETA we could also get satellite if we were willing to cut a bunch of trees, but I've had satellite, and this is both better and considerably cheaper. Works in the rain, too, usually, which satellite usually doesn't do.

Hmm. How far is your house from the road? Could you set up a little shed near the road that the cable company WOULD connect to, then run your own network to the main house?

[Rural]

For anyone living in a rural area, what's the internet like? How fast, what's the cost, what tech microwave, LTE, DSL, sat)?

Exactly one option providing "best effort" DSL that maxes out at 3mbps. Adblock helps more than you can imagine, and we can stream Netflix on one screen as long as we both watch so that it's all we're trying to do. Not in HD, of course.


But I've had it so much worse. And I can do anything I need to in terms of teaching online, so there's that. If we lived closer to the public road we could get cable, but they won't run line this far into the woods, so consider more than just what goes along the street.


ETA we could also get satellite if we were willing to cut a bunch of trees, but I've had satellite, and this is both better and considerably cheaper. Works in the rain, too, usually, which satellite usually doesn't do.

Hmm. How far is your house from the road? Could you set up a little shed near the road that the cable company WOULD connect to, then run your own network to the main house?

Well, I wouldn't put up a structure just to get cable (can't, anyway, or we'd violate the terms of our conservation easement), but we did have cable internet in the old trailer we lived in while building the house and might be able to extend from that pole. I think, though, we'd get too much drop over household coax over that distance (about a quarter of a mile, a little  less if we came straight up the slopes instead of taking it up the switchbacks). We could instead bury our own beefier line, probably. For now, for the last several years, this has worked fine, so we haven't gone to great lengths or expense. The technology is still improving so fast and spreading so fast, that I think we're likely to have other options before we absolutely need them.

[ketchup]

For anyone living in a rural area, what's the internet like? How fast, what's the cost, what tech microwave, LTE, DSL, sat)?

A friend of mine lives in rural Michigan on 45 acres down a 0.8 mile driveway and she uses an LTE hotspot.  She pays something like $130/month for it and has a bandwidth cap of 30GB/month.  Not great price or service, but really the only option where she is apart from satellite.

[Gondolin]

HAHAHA. I can't compete with that! My wife totally called me a nerd when I read your joke to her :)

Thanks. Just trying to get everyone to FI a little bit faster. :)

[Trudie]

I work for a rural telecom that provides internet.  All I can say is that it really varies and depends on who your provider is.  Best to put this item on your checklist when you're researching places to live.

I don't live in the exchange of the company where I work, but I wish we did.  My rural telco has been investing money into fiber to the home for the past 5 years and people in this little area have superfast, reliable, affordable internet.

In my town we have cable-dsl.  It works fine and I chose a lower end package that's 15Mbps/3Mbps and is more than sufficient for our needs.  Still, I wish we had more options.  My wee village is exploring starting a utility to offer it, but it's a tremendously expensive construction effort (especially in low population density areas.)

This is why I prefer university towns with at least 50K population... there's a critical mass and it's easier to justify the investment in infrastructure.

[Fishindude]

Our rural location requires both satellite TV and similar internet.   It's a pain in the rear and a bit pricey, but something I will gladly live with to get away from the crowds, noise and close neighbors.
If it was up to me only, I'd probably dump the satellite TV and just be happy with the good old fashioned antenna and renting an occasional movie.

My cabin has zero internet and damn sketchy cell phone reception.   It's actually pretty nice.
The TV gets three crappy local channels.

Most of us are pretty spoiled with all of the IT services we have.  Internet service, TV and cell phones are a huge drain on the average persons budget and most of us could probably get along fine without some of this stuff.   We did for a long time.

[Rural]

For anyone living in a rural area, what's the internet like? How fast, what's the cost, what tech microwave, LTE, DSL, sat)?

A friend of mine lives in rural Michigan on 45 acres down a 0.8 mile driveway and she uses an LTE hotspot.  She pays something like $130/month for it and has a bandwidth cap of 30GB/month.  Not great price or service, but really the only option where she is apart from satellite.

I did something similiar at the rental farmhouse we had before we bought here exhaust I had no other options, but here there is virtually no cell signal, so it's not an option. Low end DSL is better (or better than what I had) anyway, if it's available. Still, I was able to work completely from home over that old cell dongle. this was ~2006-2009.

[ketchup]

For anyone living in a rural area, what's the internet like? How fast, what's the cost, what tech microwave, LTE, DSL, sat)?

A friend of mine lives in rural Michigan on 45 acres down a 0.8 mile driveway and she uses an LTE hotspot.  She pays something like $130/month for it and has a bandwidth cap of 30GB/month.  Not great price or service, but really the only option where she is apart from satellite.

I did something similiar at the rental farmhouse we had before we bought here exhaust I had no other options, but here there is virtually no cell signal, so it's not an option. Low end DSL is better (or better than what I had) anyway, if it's available. Still, I was able to work completely from home over that old cell dongle. this was ~2006-2009.

Wow, that's great that you were able to do that in 2006-2009.  My friend in MI went from no cell coverage at all to only bad Sprint coverage a few years ago, to that plus good T-mobile coverage last year.

[katsiki]

If anyone has a structure that could get service, you could always use wifi repeaters.  I looked into this for an office environment separated by two blocks.  They work pretty well and are not as expensive as I would have guessed.  The brand I looked into was Ubiquiti.  You do have to consider line of sight though.

[RysChristensen]

Maine is roughly divided into 4 quadrents by main crop split N/S by I-95 and E/W by a line from Bar Harbor to Bangor to Ft. Kent.  Northwest is trees, northeast is potatoes, southeast is blueberries and southwest is tourists.

Wait, a jointed line? Just want to make sure I learn my quadrants correctly before I get there! I make it into "trees" by 1.8 miles according to Google Earth :) And Lo! I have trees. Itty bitty overcrowded trees thanks to the people before me who stripped it so hard it can probably be seen from space.... but trees, which are mine (and partly Machias Savings Bank's, but whatever).

[arebelspy]

I took a look at some of the local real estate, and found a 3bd house on 1/2 acre for $29,000.

Nice.

If you come back and visit in January, you'll probably understand the pricing better.

Yeah, it's a great place in the summer :)

So buy a $29,000 place in rural N. Dakota, and a $29,000 place in rural desert (AZ or NM or TX or something) where when you post about it people say "If you come back and visit in July, you'll probably understand the pricing better." and "Yeah, it's a great place in the winter :)".

And then you stay in ND in the summer and desert house in the winter.  Snowbird type idea.  Get two great houses for <100k total, and always have phenomenal weather.  Win-win.  :)