I'm guessing you've already checked that you can't get DSL. I'm in the same boat, it only works up to 8 miles from town. Some of the other villages around are upgrading out many miles, not mine. I'm in Nebraska too, so I get it. I had dialup until '06, Wildblue satellite for about 7 years. Then a well known company called Millenicom that is a prepaid reseller of Verizon Internet. They had 20GB for $70 (prepaid, so not much for taxes, that was the total), you get the same hotspot that Verizon has, same tower, same service. First 3G, then 4G when that was upgraded (3G slower, 4G much faster). I needed a roof antenna for both, tower is 9 miles away. Service was GREAT. Well, that raised to $90. At the same time Viaero turned on their upgrade here, so I got that instead, since it's practically unlimited and less than $60.
Do you know if your area upgraded to their so called 4G service yet, while you had it? It was just turned on in my area in May (map below). Do you know how far from the tower you are? Do you know if there are probably a lot of people on the tower, that it might be overloaded? I ended up buying a Wilson booster to use with the service, I have very thick trees to get through, there was no signal without it. Away from the trees I had good signal. But service is "pretty good" most of the time now. Their old service was worse than dialup here, but I've not had issues with the new one, yet. They don't have the best reputation, but I'm satisfied at the moment. http://www.viaero.com/coverage/local
If you are in a 4G Verizon area, they might install this. If you are not in a 4G area or don't have a good signal they will not. The prices are cheaper for data, but there are still overages. http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/lte-internet-installed/
Satellite is last resort. The satellites are something around 25000 miles away in orbit, so there is more delay when you click things, and some uses don't work very well, because light/the signal actually takes a while to go back and forth. General use it works ok most of the time. You have a choice of Exede (Exede is the product name, owned by Viasat, their old service product name was Wildblue) or Hughesnet. I very, very strongly suggest you DO NOT get HUGHESNET. Their service is MUCH worse, support is MUCH worse. Exede support is US based so you can understand them (Hughesnet support has a VERY thick accent). Exede has an unlimited download zone during the night after midnight so you can download anything (updates, movies, etc.), Hughesnet has a capped download zone during the night. You can bundle either with Sat. tv service and save a little, but with Exede you lose the download zone and get worse support when you do that. So Exede.com direct would be the best. There are no overages, they slow you down if you hit the daytime cap, but you can still do stuff (they limit some things you can do though, but not web and email though it won't be as responsive, things like video and file downloads are generally restricted). Also, speeds are restored temporarily during the free zone so it functions normally, or you can buy more to get speed restored. Add a $10 equipment fee to what you see for prices. Some areas have new plans available, mine doesn't. Their next upgrade isn't coming for around 2 years, new satellite is being launched, last one did not cover this area, focused around the more populated areas and a spot or two in between, they get more speed for the same price. My zipcode was closed to new installs due to the area being full the last couple years, but enough people cancelled after the two year contract, new installs can happen again here. So you would need to make sure you can get it first in your zipcode. The service is not perfect, does not always work, sometimes "free" usage is counted, etc., but considering the alternatives, it's not terrible. I use it at times at the neighbors, it works.
If you want to limit usage on your computers, there are programs to track data to find the guilty programs, and ways to stop things from auto updating, etc. But video uses a LOT of data, with Youtube you can turn the quality down a bit and it would help, but still uses a fair amount. If you do much with video, that is the most likely culprit. Unless you have a virus or something, updates are sometimes big ones as well.
Basically, if your Verizon area is 4G and you have a good signal, that would be likely the best and most reliable service, that other option I have above is the cheapest way to get data from them. Viaero, if you didn't use it since they upgraded would be worth looking at on a trial basis, because it's nice not worrying about caps. Satellite, not as reliable, but not the overages either. So, that's up to you. I can ramble on some more if you have questions, I know about this stuff, a little....
Edit: 30 gigs is NOT a lot. Last report I saw the average household used over 30 per month. That was a couple years ago. It just depends on what you do.
This post was edited by rview_ at 19:22:40 08/22/14.
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