On Mon, 27 Sep 2010 14:04:58 -0700, Rich Grise
wrote:

On Mon, 27 Sep 2010 07:42:50 -0700, wmbjkREMOVE wrote:
On Mon, 27 Sep 2010 01:57:46 -0500, Don Foreman

on some trails in MN, out of cell range for 911 but closer to varied
populace than your remote hide in AZ.

And yet I get 5 bars from inside my "remote hide" living room. What have
the cell companies got against *your* "varied populace"? Maybe you could
donate a drum of DEET to encourage the techs to bring your service up to
rural AZ standards.

Northern Minnesota isn't like Sedona.

Same with our area. Cell coverage is mostly along the highway
corridors, as is the bulk of the population.

The cell coverage is probably
pretty sparse because the population is pretty sparse

At our place the population is 2 per sq. mile, or even less if we
count surrounding property. And yet we have good cell service, which
tells the sensible that we're not very remote. sarah palin
impression We can see Home Depot from our house! (with binoculars)

- it kind of loads
up in the summer, with all the lakes and woods and stuff, but the summer
crowds are pretty much on vacation, so don't really need to call in to
the office.

But they have landlines, which seem to be adequate;

Same here generally. But the copper is stretched pretty thin in most
of the rural areas. Good enough for voice and terrible dialup. Some
need satellite for internet access, for others it's cell plus sat.
There's an outfit offering wimax with optional VOIP at attractive
prices, but relatively few rurals have the necessary 10 mile line of
sight to the limited number of base stations. Great for those who can
get it though, up to 8 meg unlimited IIRC.

out in the sticks
they've got CB radio, good buddy. ;-)

Yikes. We have 6 meg wireless ethernet, and dedicated VOIP hardware
which provides up to 4 full-service telephone lines. We pay regular
rates as if we're a wired DSL customer. The package includes all the
usual caller ID crap etc, plus a couple hours national long distance.
4 more hours NLD available on a $20 cell plan, but we usually only use
a few minutes of that. Not to mention unlimited international
skype-to-landline. IOW, typical hermit. :-)

Wayne