Mojave Wifi

I give up. My internet service has been worthless to me too often. Having moments of excellent service and then days of no useful service has been worse than consistently slow service. I’m cancelling my service this tuesday.

These guys mount a dish on your house, and beam the signal to you. Poor service is 30.00, and you can upgrade from there. They also charge you $ 200.00 up-​front to install the dish. After about one year, your service will suddenly drop or stop. When you call, they will tell you that you need a «service call». Another $ 200.00. And-​so-​it-​goes. The service is hit & miss. They will tell you «the wind is blowing», «it’s raining», «there’s a solar storm on the sun»…the excuses are silly. But, if you live in the sticks, you don’t have many choices. You take the abuse or you go without internet. If I ha a choice, I’d be using another service.

I waited awhile to get Mohavewifi and I must say, it was worth the wait. I love it. The best service for living in Desert Heights. So if you move this way, don’t get discouraged cause we finally good internet and there are different plans to fit your budget.

When we moved from LA to JT, I didn’t give much thought to internet service. Having lived in big cities all my life, it never even occurred to me that finding a broadband provider might be a challenge in Joshua Tree. After all, this is California, not Mississippi. Our friends in nearby Yucca Valley were able to choose from DSL and cable; surely things would be no different in JT?
Let’s just say that I was not a happy camper when I found out neither cable nor DSL were happening in our newly acquired abode. The only options, it seemed, were dialup (NOT really an option) or satellite internet with its high prices, high latency and low usage caps. I was kicking myself for not looking into the broadband situation before buying our house when I learned there was another option: Mojave WiFi.
We called them up immediately and made an appointment. Now, coming from LA, we’re used to super fast, cheap broadband service with free installation. Out here, we learned, things are a bit different. In fact, Pat warned us that their speeds were nothing like what we were used to. Fortunately, we’re not speed freaks. Sure, blazing fast speeds are nice but they’re not an absolute necessity for us. We were actually more concerned about reliability.
The cost of installation was a bit of a shock. We paid nearly $ 300 for our basic two-​computer installation and antenna, but everything was explained ahead of time so we knew what to expect. And satellite internet installation would have cost about the same.
Because Pat said we could always upgrade over the phone without additional fees or appointments, we decided to start with the Basic Package which was then $ 24.95 (now $ 29.95 for new subscribers) and seemed like the best value. Advertised download speed is 1 megabit (so 125 KB/​s) but it’s actually closer to 180 KB/​s, so that’s pretty cool. I like companies that deliver more than they promise!
All packages come with unlimited bandwidth and there are no long-​term contracts to sign. They say they don’t have one of those annoying «Fair Access» policies and they really don’t. Some months I’m downloading up to a dozen 1+ GB multimedia files for my business in addition to our usual internet use and they have never complained or throttled our speed.
The Basic Package is fast enough to stream video content as long as the file sizes are small (no HD content obviously). We also use it for VoIP though there is a noticeable lag when talking to someone on the phone. We should probably upgrade to the Premium Package but that would literally double our monthly cost from $ 25 to $ 50, which is a bit hard to justify given that we’re using our internet connection primarily for web surfing, email and Twitter. We don’t use VoIP that much and we don’t mind allowing videos with bigger file sizes to start downloading for 5 – 10 minutes before we start watching so there’s no annoying buffering. Also: The speed of the Premium Package is still just 2 megabits.
Mojave WiFi promises 99% uptime which I’d say is pretty accurate. They’ve been our internet provider just over 1 ½ years now and during that time I recall only two 5+ hour outages. Both occurred in the early AM and we had to wait until 9 or 10 in the morning before our internet was working again. On one of these occasions I was planning to pull an all-​nighter which required internet access so that was rather frustrating. Mostly though, outages are resolved within an hour or two. They seem to occur mainly after thunderstorms and the like, though not nearly as frequently as with satellite internet.
Customer service is great. They’re very helpful and always willing to answer questions either by phone or email. When no one is at the office after business hours, you can leave a message and ask for a callback.
Rating Mojave WiFi is a bit difficult because while I’m incredibly grateful we found them, they obviously can’t compare to LA broadband providers, nor do they compare particularly well to the cable internet packages available to our friends in Yucca Valley. If I recall correctly, they’re paying $ 35 for 12 – 15 Mbps download speeds. By contrast, Mojave WiFi’s 12 Mbps package (currently their fastest) would cost you $ 130/​month — plus almost $ 300 for installation. Yikes!
On the other hand, when I compare Mojave WiFi to satellite internet, they come out looking fantabulous, and I think that’s the fairer comparison. Because it’s not like anyone able to get cable internet in their home is going to go with WiFi instead. So I’m going to give them 4 stars. If speeds improve (especially for the lower tier packages — $ 50 for 2 Mbps and $ 70 for 3 Mbps is just too much) and/​or prices come down, I’ll update this review to give them 5 stars.

Mojave WiFi is a great company! Efficient and easy to work with. Pat and Debbie at the office set us up and explained everything very clearly. (I am from the age of pen and paper)!!!
Justin set the system up for me, and worked really hard to get us a signal in a remote part of Northern Joshua Tree.
He was extremely polite and very knowledgeable. This is a great company– use them and support our local businesses and veterans. Highly recommended!

Where I live, getting internet service (or any other modern day service) can be challenging. Cable and telephone lines don’t reach me. For internet, we used to use satellite, and it was horrible. We are a gaming household (COD, MW, WoW, etc). About 3 ½ years ago, we found Mojave Wifi and purchased their medium package ($ 45.95 for 2 mb of download), and it was great! Seldom have we ever had outages, but the few that we have experienced, the problem was fixed quickly. I also love that there’s no contract and unlimited usage; this was NOT the case with the satellite internet that we once had. We have since also got rid of our satellite TV and opted for Netflix; works great! Buffering is at a mininum. Granted, this isn’t cable internet speed (oh, how I miss those… lol), but for being out in the vast desert, this is GREAT service! And the staff has always been very wonderful, courteous, and expedient. I have recommended their service to many people, and I plan on keeping their service for many more years to come. :-)