We are currently looking at a house that is pretty far out in the country. What are the options for internet? What speeds are availible? Wild blue seems like one of the better choices I have seen so far. We do not plan to get a land line phone installed, but will probably get satellite tv do direct tv or dish network offer internet service? Thanks for any help.

Satellite-based internet sucks.... Horrible latency (unworkable for VoIP, at least at consumer grades) and absurdly expensive. Better than 56k, though.  Unless it is your ONLY OTHER option, forget about it...
DirecTV used to offer a 'DirecPC' service, which at one time also required a land-line for upstream (they may have switched to two-way since then). Starband, WildBlue, and such are other satellite providers.





Direc & Dish both generally try to use DSL bundling as their competition for cable-internet, not VSAT networking, due to the above...






If you have cell service where you move, a cell-phone-data plan (Verizon air-card) MAY be an option.
Wide-area wireless (ClearWire, etc) is usually only available near the city.





P.S. Part of my job, is dealing with VSAT networks. They work, but they are far inferior to cable, DSL, and terrestrial wireless (both cell-phone based and non-cellphone based).....





 

check to see if there are any Internet companies that have wireless service in your area.  I know there are a lot of independent companies around here that have their equipment on towers and the customers use a direct view antenna.  It is a lot cheaper then sat and a lot faster

I live where cable internet and DSL don't exist, so we started with dialup. It was so slow that we tried WildBlue out of desperation, and WB sucked so badly that we went back to dialup.
 I would suggest you try the Verizon MiFi. If you get a good Verizon signal at your place (they have loaners to test this), you can get good service for only $20 higher than the basic WildBlue per month.

Look at the wireless companies to see what kind of signal and speed they have in your area.  AT&T/Verizon/T-Mobile etc.

Whenever I'm out and about I always tether my cell phone to my PC. Works great, and considering your service options will do you very well.

I'm in the same boat, or will be soon.

I bought Verizon wireless and a netboook to carry around with me, plan on trying satellite for home.

The problem with wireless plans is that they all top out at 5gb/month, with insane upcharges for going over that.

Wildblue has been working well for us. Dial up was what we had previously. The biggest advantage with sat internet is that you can have a wireless network in the house. My wife, son and I all on the net at the same time with no problems. Is it slow, yes. Is it expensive, we just upgraded to $80 a month(ouch). The worst part about it is that it works horrible in the rain. The odd thing is it worked great during the recent 3 day blizzard when we were snowed in.

I went from TWC when in the city to using a wireless provider in the country. I'm actually happy with the wireless service.