Internet access in Tucker County

When internet service first reached Tucker County we were stuck with dial-up provided by local ISP's such as the long defunct Meer Net and still operational Frontier. Dial-up meant you couldn't make a phone call and surf the net at the same time, you were limited to 56KBPS, and downloading a movie at this speed usually took a week or more.

As technology in the region expanded Frontier stepped up to offer the first DSL internet service with an advertised speed of around 1MBPS that in reality and from personal experience I found to be more along the lines of 256KBPS. Despite the slower than advertised speed experienced by many customers 256KBPS was still around five times faster than dial-up and offered the benefit of allowing customers to download a movie in around a day. Frontier DSL would be the status quo for more than a decade in our area as the local ISP market remained uncompetitive with little to no alternatives existing.

Just a few years ago Atlantic Broadband expanded into Tucker County and became the first ISP to offer high speed cable service up to 75MBPS, this is something I had personally called and asked for a decade earlier. At the speeds now offered with the arrival of Atlantic Broadband you could finally download a movie in minutes, enjoy high speed online gaming, and fully utilize most online video streaming services without any loading issues. Over the next few years Atlantic Broadband continued to update their service and increase their top speed which at the time of this article currently stands at 120MBPS.

As a tech savvy and constantly online person I've jumped from one of these services to the next in order to improve the internet speed in my home and have used my firsthand knowledge of all the companies mentioned to write this article. While Frontier has improved it's local speed to attempt to better compete with Atlantic Broadband they still at this point fall short of that task. While Atlantic Broadband hasn't yet reached the rural areas it's clear with them offering refer a friend incentives, cheaper intro packages, no contracts, and higher speeds that they've come into Tucker County with the intent to dominate the internet market and I for one am happy to allow them to.


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