Ranch Wireless

Had this service nearly 4 years now and I have nothing to complain about, have to understand that its wireless and you need to have line of sight to one of their towers for it to work. I live on top of a hill and works good for me. I get 5 – 7 megs of speed all the time and I use movies and online gaming no problems. So if you live in a hole or in a forest don’t bother…

I generally don’t like writing negative reviews, but Ranch Wireless, and some of the snobby staff that Ranch Wireless employs has earned this negative review.
I got service with Ranch Wireless in December of 2011. For over 2 years, I had no issues with the service. Around the end of 2013, and the first part of 2014, the service really degraded. I would call in, and explain the problems, but was rarely followed up with or they would tell me to move my radio, check local cabling, etc. They sent a tech out once, and all I got from the tech was, «I have a good signal to the access point.» Once I tried everything Ranch Wireless support staff suggested I do, is when I really started having issues with the company.
Ranch Wireless lied on their response to the FCC on the complaint I filed on them. In the response Ranch Wireless claims that I have «trees on my property blocking the local access point», and that «Ranch Wireless has informed me numerous times I need to increase the height of my mast to get above the local trees.»
Both statements made by Ranch Wireless is false.
Increasing the height of my mast would not solve the local interference problems in this area.
The company has went in a direction that I don’t recognize, and has stooped to some really low levels.
Also, don’t be fooled by the «likes» and ratings on the Ranch Wireless Facebook page, as most of those are friends of the owners, and their daughters.
If you are in the Fentress area, and looking for wireless internet, I would consider all other options before going with Ranch Wireless.

I’ve had this service for about a year. The signal was never very good but recently it has got even worse. I’ve requested for someone to come take a look at it but there service rep that answers the phone states that my signal is fine. Don’t waste your time getting this. I will be changing providers as soon as possible.

We had Ranch Wireless service for about a year in 2010 – 2011 timeframe.
Ranch wireless is a great way for the casual internet user to get online without breaking the bank, particularly since after all these years the wireline services are still limited in availability.
The ping times are good, it will blow the doors off satellite service particularly if you do remote login, VPN, VOIP, etc.
It’s a local company, you can call them and get a real person on the phone.
If you have connection problems, they will come to your house to help diagnose the issue.
There are a couple of limitations you should be aware of though:
1) The bandwidth is shared between everyone on the same tower and they pretty aggressively throttle the bandwidth. You get a little burst that makes web pages load quickly, but beyond that you only get the «Committed Information Rate» that’s listed in their price plans.
If you want to be able to stream video you will need AT LEAST the $ 100+ plans (750kbit committed) If you’re a power user and you want unrestricted bandwidth and static IP you’re looking at $ 250 – 300 plans. So while they start out at $ 50, the price goes up quickly if you demand more.
2)They do have outages, service is not guaranteed, no SLA. Sometimes it is down for an afternoon and all you can do is wait for it to come back on. Depending on your location you can have packet loss issues or weather effects. My wife and I both work from home and this became a real issue for us.
3) You have to buy or rent the modem. It’s about $ 350 to purchase or $ 10/​mo with a 2-​yr contract. You have to install it yourself or pay them to install it for you (it goes on a pole on your roof)
4) Unless you have a plan with (or pay $ 30 for) a static IP, you will have a NAT-​ed IP address, so you can NOT get any incoming connections at all. With a normal DSL/​cable you can use dyndns but this will NOT work with RW unless you pay extra.
We eventually ended up getting a T1 with Verizon which is $ 350 a month, which is expensive but still about the same as equivalent service from RW. If you need a very reliable connection you can’t beat a cable.
Bottom line: If you’re a casual user looking for an inexpensive way to get online, and the big telco’s don’t have service in your area, this is the plan to get. I would recommend this over satellite any day. If your needs are higher, you will have no choice but to shell out more money, and at that point other options will emerge (T1 is available basically anywhere you have regular telephone service).
As a side note, I had signed a 1 year service contract but after explaining my issues they had no problem canceling my service, in fact they even credited the unused portion of the month!