Other Connectivity > Other Broadband > Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

I'm also waiting for them to bring their service to me, the Bollinger County, Marble Hill, area of SE Missouri. It's in the works and should be soon according to BRT.
I'm also hoping some of the new users will frequent this site, so we can hear their opinions of it. So far I've not talked to anyone that's got it, nor found a forum where they are talking about it.
Tony

I'm hoping to have time this weekend to visit there mobile office at Ter-du-lac. I would like to see some real world latency and downloads. I'm still not convinced I should jump on board just yet. I'm sure the performance we be awesome but I wonder how it will perform next year or so when they have a good load on the systems.

yea, that's what me and others are wondering too, what it's going to be like after they get bombarded with a large amount of people using their system.
Of course they've got data caps similar to the satellite i-net providers so the power users won't be able to use all the bandwidth for very long. Also curios to see how they handle it when someone does go over the limits. I've asked them some of these questions, but no answer. I also seen that they have lower pricing (about $15 lower) for families with students or seniors.

reply to pnyxxpress
Someone asked about that on their FB page:

What happens if you go over the monthly data cap?

Big River Telephone Company : Once you’ve reached the data cap limit, your service would stop until such time has a new billing period began, or until you’ve subscribed to a plan featuring a larger data cap. However, to eliminate this issue, we’re currently providing a promotion that includes three month with NO data caps. We’re doing this because we want our customers to use our service and make sure that the package they bought falls within the data amount that they need.

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They don't mention that to get that 3-month grace period, you have to sign up for the 2-year contract, which I am VERY hesitant to do with a new service such as this...

I live in Glenallen and have been waiting for this service a for a long time. So far I am very disappointed in their plans/data-caps/lack of information and will probably remain on dial-up for the foreseeable future

I thought the 3 month no cap was the first 3 months not any 3 that you might go over the cap. Maybe I misread it. Do you have 3g in Glenallen? I have been using 3g for my interrnet and it so much better than dial-up.

Yes, I think you're correct: just the first 3 months.

I'm not sure about 3g in Glenallen. To be honest I just use a Tracfone since I make less than 5 or 6 calls a month. I'm afraid I'm not very knowledgeable in that area.... I would certainly be interested however. Can you tell me about your 3g plan and provider?

Here's one that offered me internet service »www.millenicom.com and I'm just outside Marble Hill. A co-worker went with them for his internet connection and seems to like them well enough. Oh and I'm also using Tracfone for my cell phone.
Tony

Thank you, Tony. I checked them out and I do qualify for the $60/20gb plan. If BigRiver doesn't work out, that seems like a viable alternative I'm guessing it will be at least a month or so before they setup in our area, so I have time to weigh my options, lol

I understand what you mean but DSL, or anything like that, isn't available in this rural area and probably won't be for a long time.

reply to pnyxxpress
I just called Big River and, apparently, none of the city of Glenallen will be covered by any planned towers.

that kinda sucks, I'd figured you'd be close enough to Marble Hill to be covered.
Tony

Yeah it does. I have no idea how they plan to cover 90% of the area when each tower has a 3mile radius...

Please let us know if you sign up with them and how their service is. They are supposed to bring the sales-bus to Marble hill in a week or so and I'll double check that coverage info in person.

reply to pnyxxpress
After seeing the caps i am fairly dissapointed in big river. "This is big", yea not so much. 2gb for $35 per month and a 2 year contract? Better than dialup i guess, but you certianly wont be able to do a whole lot on it.

Well, from what I'm reading »bigrivertelephone.com/valuepackages.html it's 5/10/15/20GB data caps and it's 2/5/12Mbps download rate. It looks like for $34.95 you can get the internet only package 2Mbps speed and 5GB of data, so quite a bit better than dialup. Better than the dsl or cable internet, ehhh not really. The caps kinda do remind me of the satellite providers.
Tony

reply to pnyxxpress
I visited their sales bus in Marble Hill today and the sales person said they have had a lot of requests for service in Glenallen and hope to in under a year. This is different than what I was told on the phone but here's hoping (even if it is overpriced) :P

Sorry all. I have been out of the loop for awhile. My tower is online now but I have been hesitant to jump on board so early in the game. My tower is less than a mile and half away and I can see the lights on top of the tower in winter time. But I was informed I am on the outer limits of the coverage area and may need an external antenna.. They will install it free of charge for an additional $5 a month.... Wait that's not free...?? Lets squeeze every penny out of me that you possibly can.

The range on the towers don't seem to be that great so I can understand why so many will still be left without service even when a nearby tower comes online.

I met my new neighbor a couple of weeks ago. He just happens to be a the local ATT engineer. He told me they just finished installing some data only matrixes on the local tower and ATT may have 4G in my area by first quarter of 2013.

It would be nice to have more than one choice so I can do a battle for performance before locking myself into another contract that I my regret in 6 months.

I have also been reading everything I can find on Big Rivers website. They do claim some pretty good peak download and upload performances but 2 paragraph below the peak performance they mention the average which isn't much better than 3G.

I wish we could get a moderator to make us a topic thread on the dslreports website. I think this will be a hot topic in the upcoming months. I would like to hear some real world performance reports.