I first started looking seriously for internet providers who do not use wires on a winter day two years ago. A technician in a company rain suit was sitting on our dock with his feet in a junction box partially filled with raccoon leavings. He held a spray of wires in one hand and a continuity tester in the other.
“Do you live here?” he asked. I said I did.
“Don’t get our service,” he said. I already had it.
I knew what he was up to: finding a workable pair of wires in the cable that runs under our dock to reconnect a neighbor. Looking for cheaper alternatives to the service the tech was fixing, I discovered that all alternative providers of wired internet connections and cable TV in our marina must rent access to the decades-old cables under our docks. I began looking for alternatives to those wires.
Wireless internet service providers use the same technology as your cell phone. I’m aware of two in our area. I selected Unwired, Ltd. based on my experience with the second provider. I was their first houseboat subscriber, so the Floating Times asked me to share my experience, since that company has started advertising on the docks.
This is not a review; just the facts from one year and a half of experience:
- It works. The service comes to me over the radio spectrum by line-of-sight transmission from the cell towers above Wolfback Ridge. It has never been interrupted. There are no fees for “equipment rental.”
- At the lowest-priced available package of upload/download speeds, two TV sets aboard can stream content at the same time without any apparent lag or “buffering”. A pause in the stream was a constant annoyance in the cable TV service provided by the owners of the cables beneath our dock. That rendered Netflix, for example, unusable.
- The service requires an antenna installed on the roof. I presume any installation would have to have a clear line-of-sight to the cell towers above Sausalito — but I am not sure.
- There was an installation fee, and installation took upward of two hours. Most of that was spent on putting up the antenna and configuring my gateway/router.
- You’ll need your own wireless router at home. Unwired help me set mine up the end of the antenna lead, behind an Unwired converter of the incoming scrambled signal.
- Unwired only supplies the Internet connection. Like anyone leaving cable TV, I had to evaluate and buy or subscribe to, the following:
- A “smart” TV set; one that will link to your wireless network. These come with wands that control channel selection, volume, fast forward and back and other familiar functions. I found that the TV controllers work without a hitch over cellular Internet service to change channels, record streamed content, find and play recordings and search for shows or sporting events.
- A subscription to one of the streaming providers of network TV and special interest broadcast channels over the Internet (about $100 per month at minimum). The price goes up as you add networks or channels to a basic package.
- Subscriptions to your preferred source for movies, sports and other things you like to watch. With Unwired, I have not experienced lags or reloading interruptions — as I used to with cable TV.