I'm Eric Mac, and for the last four years, I've been living off the grid. Today, I'm going to tell you how you can still get high-speed internet even way out here in the New Mexico desert. So now I'm here in the house, and getting set up online involves probably the same things you have anywhere else: there's a modem or a router, and then you probably got some wires coming into the house from somewhere. But chances are that the other end of those wires are connected to some sort of dish, your antenna, and the whole system is probably powered by solar panels, wind turbines, or some other independent energy source. In our case here in the high desert of New Mexico, our broadband is powered by solar panels, although there was a brief period of time while I was installing the panels that I actually stayed online by connecting my system to this 12V battery and a small inverter. Not ideal, but a good temporary solution. So our connection is through a local internet service provider via a fixed wireless connection using this

receiver. This has been a top choice in this area for years, but Starlink is also now growing in popularity. And increasingly, some people are able to stay online by using their 5G hotspots. These are all big improvements over what used to be the only option to get internet in many remote or off-grid locations, which was the older legacy satellite providers. See, when you're off-grid, the key consideration for a quality internet connection becomes the physical distance between your receiver and the satellite or tower that you're connecting to. If you're connecting to a tower via fixed wireless, like us, you're typically going to want a clear line of sight to the tower. This is why we put communication towers on top of mountains or ridges or other high points if we can. The one I'm connected to is actually a straight shot across the plateau to a tower in the nearest town about 15 mi away. It works great even during rain or snowstorms. Satellite connections are a different story. Legacy satellite systems like ViaSat and HughesNet connect to larger

Telecom satellites in high orbits over 20,000 Mi above the surface of the Earth. This gives them a view of the whole planet, making the service available practically anywhere. But it comes at a cost of higher latency. Data signals travel at or near the speed of light, but would they have to travel tens of thousands of miles to space and back to reach you. It can still mean noticeable delays that affect things like gaming and video conferencing. So that's starlink has been a game changer for many people off-grid, as its constellation of thousands of satellites operate in low earth orbit, usually less than 400 mil over our heads. Higher speeds and less latency are the result. And once it's all set up, Broadband off-grid has actually meant a more reliable internet connection than what I had living in a city. And that is solely because I no longer deal with power outages that are out of my control. So between the solar panels and then backup power being stored in batteries and a generator is a backup to the

Backup. There's really never any reason to be in the dark or offline when you're off-grid. [Music]

4 Years Living Off the Grid with High-Speed Internet - Here's How!

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