Topic 'Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri' in forum 'Other Broadband' - dslreports.com

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 19:35:21 EDT

pnyxxpress posted : Update. After the initial issues with download speeds and disconnects everything is performing really good. I have now had the same IP for 3 weeks so it hasn't dropped. Every time I do a speed test I'm getting at least what my plan is advertised. Good luck to everyone.

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:48:59 EDT

pnyxxpress posted : So far so good. Only the occasional hiccup that requires a modem power cycle. I still haven't had a chance to raise my antenna. Hopefully this weekend.

On another note. My wife's AT&T phone recently started connecting 4G LTE. We didn't expect to see this for another year or so. I can't help to wonder if is because of the Big River Wireless buildout..

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 21:47:08 EDT

pnyxxpress posted : Mine was real secure. not!
user
password

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 21:24:35 EDT

alex14464 posted : dose anyone know what the login and password are to theses modems? I would like to change the wifi SSID and password thanks

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 12:22:38 EDT

pnyxxpress posted : They can remotely access the modem. They actually have access to more settings than I can see locally. Whatever they did to fix the problem required me to power cycle. So far everything is working well. I had the same IP address all weekend. No drops or performance issues even with the the snow.

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 12:13:38 EDT

TonyKZ1 posted : glad to see that it's somewhat working for you. I wonder if they are remotely accessing the modem to fix/change settings? Or if the issues are just in their tower(s). The "Home and Garden Show" at the Show-Me Center was this weekend in Cape Girardeau, I wonder how many people signed up for BRT's service.
Tony

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 06:14:39 EDT

pnyxxpress posted : It took a couple of calls but I'm now getting 5 meg download on the 5 meg service plan..

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 05:40:03 EDT

pnyxxpress posted : It's official. You will only get about 1/2 the advertised download. I was getting about 5-6 meg downloads on the most expensive plan. Tech support told me that would be the best I would probably see given the my location from the tower. If 5-6 is the best I can get no need to pay the 10 meg download. I downgraded to the 5 meg plan now I'm getting 3 meg at best. How's that work? My location hasn't changed.

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 11:15:29 EDT

pnyxxpress posted : OK.. Well I'm going to keep it. I made arrangements to cancel sprint and suck up the canellation fee.

As for the modem being faulty. I'm seeing some issues that I can't explain. The modem does drop connection randomly. This is evident because of the randomly changing IP address.

I noticed this last night and again this morning. When I log into the modem I have no info in the status tab. Which would indicate it has no connection but it is working. This morning it changed the IP address again and know I can't get to my network from my phone. So it appears it is now not allowing traffic to flow even though tech support can login into the modem. The service is not perfect but it is the best thing going.

I have a ticket open that hasn't been worked yet regarding the random disconnects. My last call to tech support they said no updates have been put in the ticket.

I'm going to raise my antenna this weekend another 10 feet. Hopefully that will help.

Based on what I seen this morning with the modem having a IP address but not allowing traffic to get through. I also have a digital timer I am going to use to power cycle the modem once a day. This issue could be related our wierd power fluctuations. I also have a router on my home network that seems to choke traffic if it isn't occasionally powercycled.

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 14:33:58 EDT

TonyKZ1 posted : so only two bars and it's working? that's kinda funny 'cause at times I'd have all the 4 or 5 bars and then other times nothing. They just said that you can't go by the bars for some reason. Still makes me think my modem was faulty.
hmmm.. Tony

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:33:12 EDT

pnyxxpress posted : I'm only about 10 feet off the ground. I only see 0-2 bars. I know those graphic signal strenth indicators aren't that accurate but that is all I have to work with. Even when I have no bars the downlaod and latency are the same as two bars.

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:17:45 EDT

TonyKZ1 posted : Okay, thanks I just saved that link to the antenna, still debating on trying them (BRT) again as it's not like we have a lot of isp's to choose from out here. How high did you install the antenna?
Thanks, Tony

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 18:34:03 EDT

pnyxxpress posted : I am about 2 miles from the tower. In the winter I can just see the lights at night peeking over the a nearby hill. I am using a Wilson antenna.
»3gstore.com/product/2875_wilson-···453.html

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 17:51:25 EDT

TonyKZ1 posted : please keep us updated. what external antenna are you using? You've also said before that you can see their tower, so it's pretty close, is that right?
Thanks, Tony

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 08:13:16 EDT

pnyxxpress posted : Second round looks real good! Latency is averaging 40ms and 3ms of jitter. In simple terms I now have a near level playing field when playing Black Ops on xbox live. No more 1/2 second delay.

I signed up for the 10 meg plan just to see what it would do without hitting the limits of the lower download packages. Given my location I've got a best of 6.6 down and 1 up. The average seem to be just below 5 meg. So I guess there is no reason to pay for the 10 meg plan if I will never see 10 meg downloads. I'm going to continue testing it for a couple of more days then I'll swap to the 5 meg plan for the remainer of the 14 day trial period. Tech support assured me I still should see the same download speeds with the cheaper plan but I wanted to be certain.

I'm also using my own external antenna so I'm not stuck renting theirs. I'll report back in few days.

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 11:35:10 EDT

pnyxxpress posted : Well I never got that callback so I called them. The 4 T1 lines that was used as the backhaul on my local tower has been upgraded to a 100 meg backhaul. I guess it's time for round 2?

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 09:43:04 EDT

TonyKZ1 posted : Yea, I'm following their twitter posts. This latest tower is up by Patton, from their website "Just North of Patton, Near 51 and 72". It's too far away from me for a connection. Especially considering that the one outside Marble Hill was less than 2 miles away and I couldn't maintain a reliable connection. I'm glad that they're leasing or building more towers to help with the coverage though.
Tony

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:13:05 EDT

pnyxxpress posted : Their website has an update. They now have another tower online in Bollinger county.

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 15:45:20 EDT

TonyKZ1 posted : Yea, I thought that was kinda funny too. They immediately took my cash but took their time sending my a check when they could have given me my cash back. I keep thinking about giving them a 2nd chance since we went back to dialup, but I wasn't impressed with their tech support. We're having to goto town and use the wireless at the library, Holly's, or McD's to get anything done. According to the last salesman I talked with it'll be sometime summer 2013 before any more towers are online. I still can't seem them covering Bollinger County with towers the way they are up north, that just sounds too expensive.
Tony

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 12:23:30 EDT

pnyxxpress posted : I used the the hardware less than 24 hours. It been 3 weeks and I still haven't received my refund. I called and they told me it would be 3-4 weeks. The company still does everything on paper. What is is this the 80s....? 2 seconds to charge me 4+ weeks to get it back. I may not give them a second chance.

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 16:35:49 EDT

TonyKZ1 posted : Yes, I'm not surprised. That's best download I could get was 2-2.5Mbps, almost half of the adv. 5Mbps, I couldn't even check the latency or jitter as I couldn't keep a connection long enough or the test would fail. I was only able to complete the download test a couple of times or so.

It'd be nice to know if/when more towers are going to be brought online. So far I don't know if there will be any more towers or where they'll be at for Bollinger County. With their short range I can't see BRT putting up towers every 2 couple miles or so just to cover their advertised "90% penetration of all households with the latest and greatest internet." I wonder if they're reading this forum and our posts on their broadband internet? It'd be nice if they would post here or have a forum for info/suggestions/troubleshooting/etc. instead of occasionally just posting on facebook.
Tony

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 10:47:44 EDT

pnyxxpress posted : I live in a rural area 7 miles north of Bonne Terre in the forgotten part of the county. Down the street is our rural subdivison.

Well, I picked up the modem Tuesday evening and returned it Wednesday morning. The download was 1/2 of the advertised 5 meg. Latency and jitter was down when compared to my ATT and sprint wireless. Which was promising. The T1 lines used for the backhaul are definitely not enough to support the handfull of users on the tower. It was extremely laggy at times. Given I still have t o pay to get of the Sprint contract I didn't feel it was that great of an improvement when I require stablility to work from home. To be perfectly honest I didn't see much improvemnet over my ATT 3G HSPA+ when it came to latency. I thought it would be better. After my findings I discussed my reason behind opting out this time around. The salesman told me they aren't even offering 12 meg plan off this tower until they can microwave to the Bonne Terre tower. I'm not even sure how they could sell me a 5 meg plan. For me to achive 5 meg I woul need to use the bandwidth of nearly 4 T1 lines. I just don't see that happening even if I was the only person on the tower. T1s are several hundred dollars a month each and they are going to let me pay 50 a month to use them..

So I am now on the call back list for round two when the Bonne Terre tower completed.

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 17:36:11 EDT

TonyKZ1 posted : Best of Luck, but with you posting earlier that "my tower is less than a mile and half away and I can see the lights on top of the tower in winter time" you'll probably be fine. I couldn't see the tower from my house until I pulled out onto the highway and headed towards Marble Hill. You say your neighbor on the next street has it, then do you possibly live in town? Isn't there cable or dsl available? The connection from BRT is probably faster that most dsl connections I'd imagine though.
Tony

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 13:16:20 EDT

pnyxxpress posted : I'm taking the leap. I pick up my equipment tomorrow and I will definitely put it through some serious testing. I already know I'm in range a neighbor on the next street has it and seems to be working ok even without the external antenna. The gentleman that I spoke with said our tower is still using T1 lines for the backhaul until the Bonne Terre tower is completed. Once that is completed and online they will microwave from my tower to Terre-Du-Lac and that tower is fiber. Stay tuned.

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 12:16:56 EDT

TonyKZ1 posted : Yea, that's what I was thinking, how can they cover Bollinger County with only one tower when the system has issues at 2 miles out. They only show one tower atm on their map, hopefully they'll have more soon but probably not this year. I can't see it being profitable with the number of towers that they're going to have to build/rent/lease/etc. to cover the whole county vs. the amount of people living in Bollinger county that'll use it. Maybe that's part of the plan. I kinda felt like I was involved in a "Beta Test" while I was using it. I did notice a large amount of towers in St. Genevieve and Francois counties, probably a lot more people and money up there??
Tony

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 18:45:09 EDT

Gartok posted : Sorry to hear that. :( If you're only 2 miles away from the tower, I have no idea how they can expect to cover much of Bollinger county with any sort of reliable service... Very frustrating all around.

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 16:20:51 EDT

TonyKZ1 posted : Yea, I was kinda disappointed too. I was really hoping it would work out as we've on dialup for so many many years. I had even cancelled my dialup acct, I had to reactivate it this morning after I turned the modem/router back into Big River which wasn't a big deal fortunately. They also refunded the money that I paid when I got the service.
Tony

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 15:46:40 EDT

pnyxxpress posted : That's not what I was hoping to hear but I somehow expected this to be the case. It sounds like it is more than just signal strength. Sorry it didn't work out.

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 15:19:20 EDT

TonyKZ1 posted : Sigh.. Well I'm back on dialup again. The 4G LTE from Big River didn't work out. It'd be working fine, we'd be on the web/ reading email/ whatever and the signal btn the modem/router and the tower would drop and go away. Sometimes it didn't come back for hours. They're only suggestion was to have them install an expensive outside antenna for an additional $5 a month. I tried to do the pingtests and they wouldn't complete, the site said they were being blocked or something.. Also sometimes while I would be browsing the web I would notice the wireless signal on my computer start dropping down to one bar, it was still working but a lot slower, and then maybe a little while later, it would start rising back up to the 4-5 bars it was before. So well, it was fun while it lasted but just not reliable enough for me at the moment.

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:51:45 EDT

pnyxxpress posted : Run some test during peak hours and see how it does. Late afternoon ealry evening. Use www.pingtest.net. That will measure latency and jitter. All the good stuff. Thanks Good Luck

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 11:28:26 EDT

TonyKZ1 posted : Well, so far so good. We lost signal over the last weekend but usually cycling power on the modem/router fixed it. Basically while I'm only 2 miles from the tower, I've got some trees and hills in the way. Their tech support seems to be pretty good for the most part, they basically recommended me to get the modem/router as high as possible in the house or buy an external antenna (or they can install one and lease it to you).

Be sure to throughly explain where you are located at, preferably with them using google earth or some such mapping program or a physical map since Bollinger County still doesn't have the 911 addressing scheme yet which makes physically locating your house difficult. I even gave them the lat/long of where I was at, and they still had me inside Marble Hill, instead of where I actually live at. Oh well, I finally walked them (via google earth over the phone) their t/s from Marble Hill City to out where I lived at.

It's been working pretty good I guess, I did a speed test saturday and got 2.5Mbs down, while it's not the 5Mbs that's promised, it's a huge site better than wannabe 56k dialup that we could only get 45kps with. I just cancelled my dialup account this morning, so here's hoping that it continues to work and only get better..
Tony

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Sun, 02 Sep 2012 12:46:55 EDT

Gartok posted : Good luck, Tony! Please keep us posted on your experience with it here.

So that new tower by the pipeline isn't even Big River's?

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 15:27:55 EDT

TonyKZ1 posted : Well, after talking with them yesterday afternoon and again today at lunchtime. They've only got one tower close to Marble Hill currently on country road 402. That new one on Hwy 34 isn't theirs from what they said. Until their new towers come online, coverage in my area is spotty so it might work or not. I thought I'd go ahead try it and I went for the internet bundled with the local telephone service. So I guess we'll see how it goes. Wish me luck ;)

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 11:24:54 EDT

TonyKZ1 posted : Yea, I would also like to hear from people that's already using it. I'm going to go talk with them (BRT) this afternoon, if I can get off work a little early. The only new Tower that I've seen is on hwy 34 between Marble Hill and Burfordville, I'm not sure if that's close enough or not as I live off of B Highway a couple of miles from Marble Hill. Does Big River have a forum or use anything other than Facebook, I wonder? It's kinda odd about the short range I've heard about, most other 4G systems have "from I've read and heard before anyhow" have around a 10 mile radius depending on the terrain, but I might be confused too...
Tony

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 13:59:42 EDT

pnyxxpress posted :

said by TonyKZ1:

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

Not that it's bad thing but I found a similar company that offered wireless internet in my area. After a few hours of connecting the dots I found out they were piggybacking on Sprints network. Which really sucks in the rural area I live in. I call the comapny to confirm. The gentleman that answered the phone was amazed I already knew what he was trying to keep a secret. :)

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 13:47:29 EDT

pnyxxpress posted : 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.

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:41:33 EDT

TonyKZ1 posted :

said by Gartok:

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.

Well that sounds good, hopefully it'll be available for you soon. As for the price, well I'm comparing it to the satellite internet, and it's somewhat cheaper than that, but unfortunately not as cheap as my dialup that I'm currently using..

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 13:56:07 EDT

Gartok posted : 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

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 15:38:42 EDT

TonyKZ1 posted : 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

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 12:42:07 EDT

cooldude9919 posted : 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.

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 01:35:53 EDT

Gartok posted : 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.

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 12:38:31 EDT

TonyKZ1 posted : that kinda sucks, I'd figured you'd be close enough to Marble Hill to be covered.
Tony

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 19:00:15 EDT

Gartok posted : I just called Big River and, apparently, none of the city of Glenallen will be covered by any planned towers. :(

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 02:28:02 EDT

Hayward posted :

said by Gartok:

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. :(

No and I meant to include that but guess I did't... but beyond just surfing and email... I understand nothing else available... is rather restrictive` at this point in time... I'd think they would at least allow 50 to be a realistic self controlled alternative and really with DSL I rarely go over, but have public hot spots I get a lot off of now finally too, but not until the past two years or so (vs the 18 before and 12 of home DSL), where they started to understand that got them local loyal clientele (and even tourists seeing locals streaming), vs places that don't... employees wish they did again realizing that and owners not.

And unlike astoundingly restricted iDevices, an Android really a fully functional computer Apple will never allow on their platform, because they wouldn't make money of it.

Actually until 2000 AOhelL dialup was the only really available thing here... but being such a concentrated dense population was a perfect testbed for DSL (and cable before did the same for just TV service improvements...5 years after DSL and but still years after ownership change they ever offered their internet, and entrenched DSL they have been battling since even with higher but less reliable speed... goes out in a stiff breeze or no reason, vs DSL on hurricane hardened strucure by riding on fed regulated POTS performance lines)

And then it was just KW for a couple of years before the rest of the Keys got DSL... first year or so just the mid to end of the island closest to single CO I lived on did either.

Then remote terminals came in.

Yeah while we are 100 miles out to sea from mainland FL, and first to get it vs everything between... middle of no where low pop. density is a tough thing, and for them to cost wise vs return to support. And again the entire Keys, a tiny wide string of island up to the mainland... even after totally covered big parts or rural FL that still weren't and not still today.
--

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 07:29:48 EDT

Gartok posted : 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. :(

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 03:17:02 EDT

Hayward posted :

said by Gartok:

Thank you, Tony. I checked them out and I do qualify for the $60/20gb plan.

Wow... I'm hardly a DL everything in sight person, and have never come close to exceeding my ATT DSL 150GB cap but I could definitely easily burn through 20GB in well under a month, with occasion Netflix and other streaming/download.
--

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 17:47:57 EDT

Gartok posted : 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

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 14:54:07 EDT

TonyKZ1 posted : 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

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 13:07:49 EDT

Gartok posted : 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?

Re: Big River Broadband Now Available in eastern Missouri

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 12:51:52 EDT

pnyxxpress posted : 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.