When choosing a rural Internet service provider, one of the most important criteria is speed. Fast, high-performance Internet is significantly more satisfying to use than a slow, laggy Internet connection. Fiber optic Internet is one of the fastest types of Internet on the market, but it is only available in 25% of the country, and you likely will not find it in rural America, because rural communities usually do not have the proper infrastructure to support a broadband Internet connection. For this reason, rural residents have to look for the best rural Internet service provider instead of choosing a provider from the most common Internet service providers in urban and suburban areas.
While satellite Internet providers are capable of providing very fast Internet speeds, mobile Internet providers like UbiFi can provide speeds that are even faster if you are in an area adequately covered by the 4G cell towers they use to send Internet signals. In areas with good coverage, UbiFi and its cohorts can provide rural residents with speeds much higher than 15 Mbps, which is the top speed that most satellite Internet companies can reach.
Furthermore, mobile Internet companies like UbiFi almost always provide Internet service with significantly lower levels of latency than satellite Internet companies. Satellite Internet is inherently prone to high latency because of the distance that Internet signals have to travel to get to rural households. Satellite Internet companies such as Viasat use satellites in orbit to send Internet signals to receivers on the ground. This causes delays that result in latency. In contrast, cell towers are much closer to rural households, reducing the latency that is caused by unwanted delays. For this reason, you may wish to look for a mobile Internet provider that suits your needs if speed is your biggest priority.