One of the modern conveniences we have all come to rely on is the Internet. It’s hard to imagine a day going by without checking email, catching up with friends on Facebook or watching YouTube. We probably use the internet for a hundred different tasks every day. Having internet access is especially important for us because we run an online business. But, how can we run our online business and our YouTube channel when we plan to live off the grid?

Just because we live off-grid it doesn’t mean we have to give up all modern conveniences. Living off the grid simply means that you’re not physically connected to any public utilities such as electricity, water, sewer, telephone, natural gas, and so on.

As modern off-grid homesteaders, we need to be able to not only run our online business but also allow our children to do their homeschooling online. Thankfully, it is absolutely possible to have high-quality internet even when we are off-grid.

Today, I’ll share with you 6 solutions that could solve our off-grid internet problems.  At the end of the article, I’ll share with you exactly what our plan is.

Off-grid Internet Solutions

1. Cell Phone

The first option that you should consider is just using your cell phone. If you think about it, you could probably do almost everything that you need to do online with just your smartphone. With your smartphone, you can do online banking, check email, engage with social media, watch movies, and so many other things. Probably, for the average person, a smartphone with a good cell phone signal is all you need to keep yourself online and connected with the rest of the world.

But, what do you do if you need to access the internet through your laptop or computer sometimes? Again, a good smartphone is all you need. There is an option on your phone to tether it to your computer or to turn it into a mobile hotspot. This mobile hotspot will turn your phone into a small Wi-Fi router that you can then connect your laptop or computer to. Depending on your service provider, speeds may be a little bit slower than what you would normally have on your phone and there will be a data limit for tethering/personal hotspot. But, if you’re not doing data-heavy tasks that shouldn’t be a problem.

The main concern here is whether or not you have an adequate cell phone signal on your property. When we were looking for our homestead property this was one of the main things that we were looking at. We wanted to be sure that there was a cell phone signal at the property.

Make sure you have a cell signal

There’s a simple way to do this when you’re first starting to look for property. You can look at the coverage maps of the major cell phone carriers. Here are some links to coverage maps for T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint. All you need to do is go to their map and put in the address of the property that you’re looking for or zoom in on the map to the area where the property is located. There you will find different colors indicating how strong the signal is in that area.

Be aware that this is an approximation and not a guarantee that there will be a signal there, but it is a good place to start. When you go to look at the property it would be a good idea to simply take your phone with you and borrow a phone from a friend or realtor who has a different carrier than you. While you’re on the property walk around and see how strong the signal is in different locations. You can use an app like Speed Test to see how fast the internet connection is on the property.

Know the limits of “unlimited” plans

Another concern that you need to be aware of if you plan to use your cell phone as your primary internet connection is that there are data limits even on “unlimited” plans. Depending on your provider your data limit could be as low as 20 GB per month or as high as 50 GB per month. When you reach the data limit you could be deprioritized. Being deprioritized means that you will still be able to connect to the internet but it will be at a lower speed than before you reached the data limit. I say that you “could be” deprioritized because it doesn’t always happen. It depends on the amount of traffic that is on the network when you are trying to access the internet.

Let’s say, you’re using T-Mobile and you have used all of your 50 GB of data for the month. When there are a lot of other people on the network trying to access the Internet at the same time as you they will receive priority over you if they have not yet used their 50 GB. They will keep their fast speed but you will be deprioritized and receive a lower speed. However, if you live in a rural area it is unlikely that the network will be that congested and you will keep your fast speed. Some people have reported that they are actually never deprioritized even though they use well over their monthly data limit.

This might sound like a perfect option but what do you do if there is not a strong signal on your property? We will talk about that next.

2. Cell Phone Booster

A cell phone booster takes a very weak signal from the cell tower and amplifies it so that it becomes a strong signal in the location where you need it.

There’re basically three main parts to a cell phone booster:

• The outdoor antenna. The outdoor antenna is typically mounted on a pole on or near the roof of your house. They are often directional antennas and will need to be pointed directly at the nearest cell phone tower. There is an app called open signal which can help you find the nearest cell phone tower.
• The signal booster. The external antenna is connected via a cable to the signal booster. The signal booster’s job is to take that weak signal from the outdoor antenna and amplify it. Then it passes it along to the indoor antenna.
• The indoor antenna. The indoor antenna is mounted somewhere in your house. This is the antenna that your cell phone will actually connect to.

The cell phone booster is not a subscription service. Once you buy the booster and set it up that is all you ever have to pay for. Of course, you have to pay for your cell phone service but there is no service charge involved with the booster.

Most popular cell phone booster

The most popular cell phone booster is made by weboost. One thing that I really like about weboost is that they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you purchase the product and it just doesn’t work as well as you would like, you can return it. To me, that says that the company has a lot of faith in their product and believes that it will be a viable solution for most people.

However, what if you need to have a more traditional internet connection with multiple computers connected to a Wi-Fi network? There are several solutions to help us in this area as well. The first one is called fixed wireless broadband.

3. Fixed Wireless Broadband

Fixed wireless broadband is not satellite internet. It doesn’t use the cell phone network either. Basically fixed wireless broadband is operated by private companies that have large antennas positioned throughout a rural community. When you sign up for service with them they will install an antenna on or near your house. This antenna will connect to the host’s antenna via radio waves. They must be in line of sight with each other. From there, your antenna will then run to a Wi-Fi router in your house. Voilà, internet!

This could be a great option if this service is available in your area. One thing that you should be aware of is that your internet speeds may be slower than what you would get through your cell phone and definitely slower than what you would get if you were connected to the grid with fiber-optic or cable Internet.

While this may be a good option for a lot of people it is quite possible that it will not be available in your area. So, let’s look at another solution.

4. Unlimitedville

Unlimitedville is a membership organization that provides unlimited, uncapped wireless data to their members. They don’t resell their data plans with the 4 major carriers, they simply let you use their unlimited routers and hotspots for as long as you are a member. All carriers have unlimited data plans that are just not available to the public. When you join Unlimitedville, you become part of their connected community that works to get you online and keep you online with fast, reliable, wireless data.

The ‘unlimited’ phone plans that carriers offer are only ‘unlimited’ for data used on the phone and only allow 5-10 GB of tethering/hotspot usage per month. Unlimitedville’s hotspots and routers are specifically designed to broadcast unlimited Wi-Fi for every connected device in your home or office including laptops, smart TVs, gaming consoles and other Wi-Fi connected devices.

The speeds of all of their hotspots depend entirely on how close you are to cell towers in your area, and which carrier you choose. They’ve had reports of over 80 MBPS from those who are close to a cell tower with LTE+ and all the way down to 1 MBPS from those that are several miles away from a tower. So you’ll want to pick the carrier plan that has the best and strongest LTE signal where you will be utilizing the hotspot/router to ensure the best possible speeds.

No contracts

All of their plans require no contract and no credit checks! These are month to month plans with each payment prepaying your next 30 days. You may, of course, cancel your subscription with them at any time by simply returning your hotspot to Unlimitedville.

Additionally, they have a 14 day money back guarantee which allows you to try their service risk free. If the service does not meet your needs in any way, simply return the device for a complete refund.

Sound’s good, right! Unfortunately, none of those options may work for you.

5. Satellite Internet

The biggest name in satellite internet is HughesNet. Satellite internet will not be the fastest internet connection you’ve ever had nor will it be unlimited. However, if you have no other options satellite internet might be the best solution for you.

There are mixed reviews about HughesNet. Some people love it while others hate it. For those that hate it, I think a lot of the times people subscribe to HughesNet with unrealistic expectations. After all, we need to realize that our signal is going all the way up into outer space and then coming back down to earth. It is an extraordinary technology. When reading negative reviews keep in mind that they could be reviewing HughesNet’s older system. HughesNet is now using its new Gen5 system which is much better than before.

The new Gen5 system

Gen5 is the highest quality satellite internet service available. It is powered by the EchoStar XIX Satellite and can deliver broadband-level speeds.

HughesNet has plans of 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 GB per month plus every Gen5 plan comes with:

• Fast speeds. 25 Mbps of download and 3 Mbps of upload speeds so you can stream your favorite movies and music.
• Extra Data. They give you a bonus of 50 GB of extra data per month. Between 2am – 8am.
• Built-in Wi-Fi. Your HughesNet modem comes with built-in Wi-Fi. Connect all your devices and stream from anywhere in your home.

HughesNet also offers a mobile app that keeps you connected to your plan where you can access your account information and manage settings straight from your smartphone. Other features include:

• Usage Meter. Quickly check your data usage with the status meter and keep track of how many days are left in your data cycle.
• Rapid Login. Access your account information using your fingerprint to quickly view and manage your plan.
• Video Data Saver. Use the app to opt-in or opt-out of the data saver option so you can watch more videos with less data.

6. The Super Geeky Solution

If you are geeky and have the right conditions you could mooch off a friend. This solution is not the easiest to set up and will definitely take the cooperation of a friend. You’ll also want to make sure that you are not violating any terms of service with the Internet provider before you attempt this solution.

Basically what you’re going to do is extend the already existing Internet connection at your friend’s or relative’s house. This will require them to install an antenna on their house which will point directly to your house. Then you will install an antenna on your house which points directly to their antenna.  A cable will run from your antenna and be connected to a Wi-Fi router in your house. You will have Internet access at your location through your friend’s or relative’s internet connection. This solution will require you to have a line of sight between the two locations.

Here is a video that explains it:

Our off-grid internet solution

Stage 1

Which solution you choose will depend greatly on what’s available in your area and your Internet usage needs. During this stage we will primarily be using the internet to upload our videos to YouTube. For us, because we are on a tight budget, we’ll first begin with using our cell phone.

As I mentioned before tethering your laptop to your cell phone can be slow and has limited data availability. Our videos take about 1 GB per 10 minutes of footage. This would take a long time and use our data quickly if we tried to do it by tethering to our cell phone. Thankfully, there is a hack for this.

We can simply transfer the video file from my computer to our phone using Bluetooth. Then we can use the YouTube app and upload the video to YouTube directly from our cell phone.  By uploading our videos to YouTube this way we will ensure that we are getting the fastest speeds possible and keep the bulk of our data usage on the phone’s data allowance rather than the tethering or Wi-Fi hotspot data allowance. Then after the video is uploaded to YouTube we can optimize the metadata for the video on our laptop without using a lot of data.

Stage 2

Once we get into the Fall and we are moved into our home the kids will need to start school again. We homeschool our kids and some of their classes are online, which requires a lot of data. During Stage 2, we will look into fixed wireless broadband. However, I do not believe that this option will be available on our property. So, since we have a good cell phone signal on our property we will likely use a service like Unlimitedville.

Stage 3

If Stage 1 and Stage 2 internet solutions do not work as we expect, as a last resort we will use satellite Internet through HughesNet.

What off-grid Internet solution do you use on your homestead? I’m genuinely curious. Let me know down in the comments below.