One of the things that used to deter us from moving to a remote location was the spotty internet coverage, until we found out that there are pockets of rural areas around America with fiber optic internet. Basically, my internet now is about 15x faster than it was in Chicago for the same price (if we paid more it could be up to 60x as fast)! This is great if you plan to work from home or simply want to watch Youtube videos without them pausing every 15 seconds.

How to Find (and get) Remote Work Online

Most realtors in rural areas won’t advertise fiber to the home and if they do, the price of the home has been adjusted accordingly. A lot of the homes may not have fiber (because the previous owner opted out) but they are within the coverage area map, which means you can get fiber installed when you move in. That’s what we did. We found a house that was within the fiber coverage area map and had it installed for $100 when we moved in. Now we live on a couple acres with our own well, septic system, wood burning stove, and fiber optic internet.



Below is a list of 3 beautiful and inexpensive rural areas we found with fiber optic internet:



1. Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri

Co-Mo Connect Fiber Optic Coverage Map:

The different colors represent the different phases. Dark blue = phase 1, Green = phase 2, Orange = phase 3, Light blue = phase 4. They are mostly finished with phases 1 and 2 and starting to roll out fiber to phase 3 / 4. Check their progress status here



Fiber to the home starts as low as $49.99 / month in this area. For example, this home is on sale for $69,900 on 4.89 acres and within phase 1 of the fiber optic rollout (listing here):





2. West Tennessee / Kentucky

WK&T is the service provider. I couldn’t find a roll out map, so I looked at homes on Zillow and plugged the zip code here to find out if the home is covered. Since Broadband Now is a third party website, you’ll want to call WK&T and confirm that a home you’re interested in is in the Fiber rollout map.



This home is on sale for $75,000 on 1 acre and showed up as having fiber when I typed in the zip code. Fiber to the home costs around $99 / month in this area (listing here):

3. Central / Southeast Idaho

Syringa Networks Fiber Optic Coverage Map:





I like this map because you are able to type in an address and it lets you know if the home can currently qualify for fiber or if it will have it in the next 6 or 12 months. You can check it out here.



Fiber to the home starts as low as $59.95 / month in this area. I found this home on sale for $89,500 on 2.37 acres and it looks like a contractor’s dream (listing here):





Hope this helped inspire you! Let me know what other beautiful rural areas you know have fiber to home.