Internet for students and homework in Northern Nevada

Schoolwork has moved onto the internet, and a student without a steady connection falls behind in small ways each week. This page uses Census numbers to show how common that is in Northern Nevada and then covers what a student actually needs at home. It makes no claim about school or government programs.

How many homes here have no internet?

The Census counts 5.3 percent of Nevada households as having no internet access, which is about 63,600 households, against 6.5 percent for the United States (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2020-2024 5-year, table B28002). Some of our places are higher: about 19.8 percent in Wadsworth, 11.0 percent in Yerington, 10.4 percent in Sun Valley and 7.2 percent in Fallon. Small-town samples have wide margins, so read them as a general picture rather than a ranking. The homes without internet data page lists every place.

What does a student actually need?

A reliable connection for video, a way to upload assignments and some patience at peak hours. By the FCC's figures, HD video is 5 to 8 Mbps and downloading files a minimum of 10 Mbps, each for one activity at a time. A student on a class call while a sibling streams still sits within what Bronze lists at up to 500 Mbps down. The upload side matters when a student sends a video or a large project; every plan lists up to 200 Mbps up.

Group study is worth planning for too: three teenagers on three video calls is the case to picture, and each call is its own stream. Then there is the device. A school Chromebook may need to be set up on your home Wi-Fi, and the article on Chromebook network setup shows how.

How do I keep homework time under control?

Most routers have parental controls, and a DNS filter can cover every device in the house. The guides on parental controls basics and DNS filtering for families explain what each does and does not do. Time limits, a bedtime and a filter are settings on your router, not on High Desert's network, so a parent can change them in minutes and no call to the office is needed. Test them on one device first, then roll them out to the rest, and tell the students what is blocked and why. The guide on guest networks and Wi-Fi passwords says how.

What about the data limit?

Homework itself uses little. Video classes and game downloads use much more. Each plan has a data transfer limit, sizes by email at info@hdiss.net, and the service agreement charges $1 per gigabyte over it in a billing cycle. A teenager who streams and downloads games can use more than the rest of the family together. The monthly data estimate helps a family plan.

Which plan fits a student household?

Bronze at $50 a month fits one or two students and the usual evening streaming, Silver at $75 and Gold at $99 add room for several students online together. Plans can be changed with a call. The company says there are no contracts, so a family can start with the lower plan and move up if a school year proves busier than expected. Some students also need to be online while the rest of the house is asleep or away, and an evening-only test of the connection will not show how it behaves at other hours; run the speed test from the guide on running a speed test at different times of day and write the results down before you call us.

Send your address and a person looks at the path from the nearest tower, then calls you back. If you live where the path is blocked, we say so, and the guide on when cable stops explains the choices.