Who Lives Rural?

A quick check of this forum section doesn't show the question that interests me, that being "Who Lives Rural?", an exercise in demographics.

I guess this is a sort of survey, please answer as it interests you.
1. Who lives in a rural location, ie. more than 20 km (12 miles) from the nearest village, town or city?
2. What quality of internet connection service is available to you (eg. dialup, cable broadband, wireless b/b, satellite b/b), and what sort of speed?
3. What issues relating to your connection type give you cause for concern or irritation?
4. How does living 'rural' affect your use of the internet, your Mac, its maintenance, and tech services available to you?

Okay, enough of the questions. Since I asked, I'll start:
1. I live in a rural situation, surrounded on three sides by farmland, and on the fourth by the sea. The nearest town of any significance is 25 km (16 miles) away. The nearest city is 70 km (44 miles) away. The travel terrain is hilly, even mountainous.
2. I have copper cable b/band connection to a radio shack (microwave telephone exchange) some 70 metres away. Transmission of b'band is by m'wave, but it 'piggy-backs' the analog phone line transmission.
3. Congestion of the exchange, and too many servers in between my computer and my ISP, some 350 km (220 miles) away. Service can be slow at times, my connection plan is 256/128.
4. I'm highly dependent on internet for connection to many of my contacts, incl Mac-Forums. I've learned to be largely self-sufficient in terms of Mac maintenance, but the nearest Mac tech is but 70 km away. I do a lot of news searches and shopping, including planning thereof, online.

Rural WV here. Just mountains and trees for me
Sat internet - ok speed but still slow compared to the city
No Mac issues at all - I can get to a Mac store if I need to - hey it is only a 500 mile round trip drive.....

Southeast Louisiana, swamps. GREAT Internet connection, we just have a really good local phone company that runs fiber to every home they service, no matter where you are. I am in regular contact with Apple authorized sales/repair locations all over the state, as per my job.

I'd say if I wasn't fortunate enough to have my specific phone company (littel local company), I'd go Satellite for sure. It's the best TV service on the market, anyway.

code54 said:

I can get to a Mac store if I need to - hey it is only a 500 mile round trip drive.....

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Man I will never complain about my mac store being a 20 minute drive by streets again.

i live on Long Island and we get great internet connections. my internet is super fast and ive been to other places around the country, world and i dont think ive seen internet as fast as mine at home.

My DSL service is slow, there is only one provider. I'm located 12 miles from my nearest town, (pop. 300+/-), and 60 miles from the mini metro community, (pop. 100k), that actually has stores and shops, and where I purchased this iMAC.
We live here depending on the good graces of UPS, FEDEX, and the USPS.
This Mac is used for my art during the winter months, as well as keeping in contact with family and friends across the country.
The computer helps me with my work, and the internet has replaced the TV and phone.

You know where I am. No ADSL2 service, poor telephone cables being old and copper, and twelve miles to the exchange results in a sub-sub-standard performance. About 80 miles round trip to Mac store and then they are more interested in selling PCs than Macs.

So through trial, error and TAFE (Technical And Further Education) tutorials have learnt to do my own trouble shooting and repairs, and as word spreads, my neighbours in a retirement community.

Keeps me outta the pub I guess.

harryb2448 said:

You know where I am. No ADSL2 service, poor telephone cables being old and copper, and twelve miles to the exchange results in a sub-sub-standard performance.

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Sympathies Harry. Seems like both Aus & NZ are still wallowing in the wake of Europe especially (screaming fast), and the US. From where I am - see pic - I've had to pester my ISP to get server or exchange faults fixed. Some days b'band is slower than dialup - truly!

I'm told I'm lucky that I live so close to the exchange, but people 5 - 6 km away can often get better b/band speeds than me. And yes, I've been through every connection hardware test known to humankind.

We're supposed to be getting fibre optic cable upgrade, and the process is under way to the nearest town (pop 750), but I'll believe it when it happens. Not enough inve$tment. I'd love to have satellite but it's prohibitively expensive for one person.

Who knows (or doesn't know) how to run ping and traceroute connection tests from Terminal? Post back here for further info. SpeedTest.net is considered a good web service to use for connection tests.