I've been on hughesnet for about five years now.  The service is pretty good, and way faster than snail modem.  Still 1.5Gbps download is pretty slow.  So I'm expecting this new service to be way better than hughesnet.  I've tried the 3G hookups a couple of times.  My impression was that they were slower than my dial up modem, and were barely useable.   Perhaps we were too far from the nearest tower to get decent connection speeds.  Carol's 3G on the iPhone seems to work pretty well though.  Perhaps will try 3G again at some point in the future, since there are lots of new towers in the area since last try a few years ago.

 

Looks like it may be years before we get access to U-Verse.  They are currently working on the infrastructure, but with our low housing density in this rural area, I would be surprised if we get a remote  terminal close enough to provide service any time soon.

 

Everything comes with trade offs, and the lack of infrastructure and certain services is one cost associated with living the quiet country life.  That is a trade off that I'm willing to accept, but with no little grumbling along the way.