Rural Internet Access: Help my Dad get a connection that can actually let him stream..., well, anything!

I saw "small central Illinois community" and started to recommend http://www.prairieinet.net/ but reading further into your post it seems that may be what he is currently using. If Prairie inet is his provider, then he should be getting better speeds than he is seemingly getting. We regularly stream Netflix, my hubby pays online games regularly and we can do both at the same time (yes, there are slower times than others and weather can be a factor). If prairie inet is not his provider, have him look into it!

Latency is still a major issue with satellite providers; that is, the turnaround time between clicking a link and seeing the page actually start to load will be longer than you're used to, even if the bandwidth is high enough that it comes through quickly once it starts coming in. Knowing the town he lives in would be helpful in narrowing down what his options are, but it sounds like the WISP ("Wireless Internet Service Provider") he's using now is sorely in need of an infrastructure upgrade (or there's something the matter with his particular setup.) Has he called them to complain, or to ascertain whether the level of service he's getting from them is all they can provide? It's unfortunately standard practice with a lot of ISPs to leave their customers at whatever speed and monthly payment plan they signed up for, even as the basic plan gets faster and the prices come down. Often all it takes is a phone call to get yourself bumped up to current standards (which they'll act like is some big favor they're doing you, rather than something that should really happen automatically.)

@contraption He lives in Danforth, IL. Small, rural town 3 miles south of Gilman.

To anyone interested, he is currently using this - http://www.conxxus.com/. It's absolute garbage.

Last time my parents were on WildBlue it was pretty bad. Speeds downstream were 0.5, 1, or 1.5 Mbps. And as @contraption mentions, latency was very high. They could load webpages, but never could get a video to play. Now they're on microwave relay, which sounds like what your dad is using (it's a square, usually grey antena). But you should be able to get higher speeds than what you're seeing. Trees are a particular problem for microwave relay because water absorbes microwaves. I'd see if you couldn't place his receiver on that higher TV antenna. The only other option we've found in our area (rural city outside Peoria, IL) is possibly a Verizon MiFi hotspot. But we haven't explored yet what type of signal we'd get at their house (AT&T barely works there, for instance). Does your smart phone get a good 3G/4G/LTE signal while at your dad's place?

Having gone through this with internet at the farm, I'm not really sure any of us can help. Wireless coverage is too variable from location to location to give useful advice. Our neighbors all use services with good result that simply don't work for us. In the end we just had to grind through it and give everyone a try. Rural wireless companies tend to have free trials, so give them a try. If you get decent Sprint coverage, give Virgin Mobile's Broadband2Go a look. (We activated a trial month of service for $10, so we were out the $10 when we couldn't get reception and returned it, but $10 was worth it to give it a try.) I believe Broadband Blue and most other similar companies use Sprint's network, so if you don't get a good signal to a Sprint tower, you're likely SOL. It's possible your father is using the same tech as our farm, which is a duplexed GSM signal, and is doing good to get 0.5Mb. How old is it? There's a possibility that the provider has upgraded the tech but is slow in rolling out new equipment to their subscribers. Give them a call. (Unfortunately not an option for the farm since Verizon bought them and retired the tech. Can't wait for the rural fiber to get switched on in the spring.)