Wireless internet in rural areas

[cjboy]

I have to travel to fairly small country towns form time to time and either have to use GPRS on my mobile or a dial up bigpond connection in my hotel room.

In the major regional towns I can often get a wifi connection via the hotel or local providors.

I would really like a wireless broadband connection but the impression I get is that only Telstra would have the coverage I need and the plans are horribly expensive and I nay need it every day for a couple of weeks and then not at all for a month or two.

Is there a reasonably priced solution that I am missing. Most of them would end up roaming and the per megabyte costs are amazing

[admin]

I believe Optus , Vodafone and 3 also offer that service. You would have to check their coverage maps though.

[admin]

Here is the Optus deal


This is their coverage page


This the Vodafone offering


Their coverage


3's offering - Note Vodafone bought them out last week


Coverage

[gordon_s1942]

Do you have a regular route or is it Ad Hoc?
I live between Lithgow and Bathurst and every so often I go into the dealers at Bathurst to ask the usual stupid questions regarding their coverage.
Primarily most towns have some sort of coverage within a kilometre of the towns centre unless of course your really in the boondocks.
Their coverage maps are just laughable, Telstra's are downright hysterical.
What I suggest you do is when your visiting your area, why not ask your fellow travellers what they have found works for them?
Also, is there a Commercial Travellers association that could help you?

[best4less]

3's offering - Note Vodafone bought them out last week

Ahhh do you have a link for that Sanity where Voda has brought Three

[admin]

Ahhh do you have a link for that Sanity where Voda has brought Three

Right here mate

[best4less]

Thanks mate
I don't know how this will create more competition in the Australian market if they just go and buy every one out LOL

But then it might be good for the OP to be able to use Three in more country locations

[LeroyPatrol]

When I was recently enquiring Next G was really then only option for rural areas for high speed wireless bb. All the others when out of there 3G coverage area ie capital cities seem to roam to GSM networks using GPRS.

Leroy

[b_franklin]

3's offering - Note Vodafone bought them out last week

actually voda never bought anyone out....its a 50% merge and still not made official, until 6 months time.

[admin]

actually voda never bought anyone out....its a 50% merge and still not made official, until 6 months time.

Of course its a merger...and Vodafone get a 500 million dollar payment.

[dryfry]

You should check out Optus and their "yes G" mobile internet service.
It looks like Te$tra's Next G .

Here's the NT coverage .

[cjboy]

I think Next G is probably the only option as the other networks just roam as LeroyPatrol says.
A big concern is that many of the plans have quite low download limits and charge per Mb rather than dropping speed. It would be quite easy to build up a substantial excess data charge.
I travel on an ad hoc basis sometimes larger cities like Orange and then smaller ones like Blayney, Tumut and Tumbarumba

[AceR]

PC user just did an artical on wireless ISPs but as usual thay did not take into account rural areas. They just sat at a cafe 50 KMs from the CBD on there fat ass's drinking coffee and thought that was good enough. Even though only Telstra and Optus look after the WHOLE of Australia PC Luser rated Optus at 50% " not recommened" because of latency issues. Maybe if PC Luser looked at the whole picture instead of just the "cream" areas of this country, then piss weak operators like "Three,Vodafone, Virgin" and alike would have to try a little harder to reach all of us and at the same time make a better service for all Australians.

[ufo8mycow]

I have to travel to fairly small country towns form time to time and either have to use GPRS on my mobile or a dial up bigpond connection in my hotel room.

In the major regional towns I can often get a wifi connection via the hotel or local providors.

I would really like a wireless broadband connection but the impression I get is that only Telstra would have the coverage I need and the plans are horribly expensive and I nay need it every day for a couple of weeks and then not at all for a month or two.

Is there a reasonably priced solution that I am missing. Most of them would end up roaming and the per megabyte costs are amazing

Internode will soon have 3G plans out, dont know how its 100% going to work, but i beleive that you can have a Node ADSL account and 3G account and when u log on with your 3G device it just comes off your ADSL data....

I could be wrong, but there is a lot of talk about different plans etc. also have heard of a $0.00 per mth plan and you just pay for the mb's

Anything is better than telstra