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by throitallaway 918 days ago
> There's also a question of geography when it comes to places like Montana and Idaho compared to the rest of the country.

Duh. OP wasn't talking about cell service out in the boonies, they were talking about cell service in "big cities." Geography is not a concern in the case of cities in these states. The Bay area's geography is much more extreme than 99% of cities in WY/MT/ID. I've spent time in those states in the last few years (vanlife) and the cell service in cities is atrociously oversubscribed on Verizon. I have all three carriers, and surprisingly T-Mobile has great service (in the cities out there at least.)
1 comments
vel0city 918 days ago
> OP wasn't talking about cell service out in the boonies

Every location in Wyoming is what a lot of the country would consider "the boonies". That's kind of my point. Its a massive outlier compared to where the majority of the US population lives and not really a good place to point to when saying "see, cellular internet often doesn't work, it doesn't work in Wyoming!"

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ghaff 918 days ago
Cellular internet doesn't really work at my house 50 miles outside of Boston either. And, in fact, it goes out pretty predictably when I take the train in (presumably because the high-end closer-in suburbs where it goes out don't like cell towers).
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vel0city 918 days ago
50 miles outside of Boston is an hour away, not 20 minutes. 50 miles outside of Boston it can get really rural.

I'd also point out modern cellular home internet can give a pretty different experience than what you get on your cell phone. Antenna design and placement can be a lot better. You can place the antenna in a place where you're more likely to get good reception instead of deep inside your house. The frequencies and channels used can sometimes be pretty different. You're less power limited than your phone. In the apartment where my family lives their phone cell service isn't very great but as mentioned they get low latency several hundred megabit service through their router near a window.

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ghaff 918 days ago
Fair enough. I'm probably more exurban than rural although I'm in the middle of land with a lot more forest than houses. Cellular around Concord/Lincoln on the train is pretty awful though, but it's perhaps not universal.

Also fair that hot spots can be better than phones. My brother had one up in Maine but it went to Starlink and, more recently, to fiber.

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