O/T Anyone here have satellite internet?

[mattinky]

I'm stuck with dial-up internet in my area, the only high-speed option is satellite. I was wondering if anyone here has it? If so tell me about it, I'm a little sceptical.......... I'm looking at Wildblue, what troubles me is that it's described as up to 30X faster......... so is it 30X faster or not? I'd hate to spend a bunch of money for something that is'nt all it's cracked up to be. Any comments good or bad will be appreciated!
Matt

 

[maccall]

Don't know anything about the specific service you mentioned, and I don't have anything like it myself, but I did try it out about 10 years ago. I was then amazed by the 1: The speed. It was absolutely incredible compared to a modem, and 2: That it actually worked at all... And since then everything has improved!

Generally speaking it's always "up to" for several reasons:

1: You are sharing your downlink with everybody else who is using it at any specific moment. More simultaneous users, less speed to every single one of them.

2: You will still be depending on your modem for outgoing traffic, and most of your outgoing traffic will be acknowledgments of what you're downloading, so if modem speed is low one day, satellite link will be slow that day. The ratio is about 10:1 meaning that for every 10MB coming down the satellite link your modem will have to send out 1MB in acknowledgment packets.

Since all your outgoing traffic will be through your modem, speed will not improve at all when uploading pics and videos to AS for example...

Still, if it's your only choice and the price is reasonable, then why not?

 

[Jim Shockey]

I had Hugh's, thru Direct Tv,for years and liked it very well. It was slow up loading but it was very fast down loading compared to dial up. I have ATT now and that is faster both ways and a little cheaper. It would not bother me If I had to go back to Hughs Satellite.

Jim

 

[ents]

Hugh's is offered in my location and they advertise that there is no longer a need for a L.L. modem, everything is thru the satellite. However, the last time I checked $$ it was very expensive, like $60/month. May have changed but I don't think so. You should be able to find out a lot more by searching the internet. Try it, see how it compares. If you don't like it, cancel it. Drop a note back here and report on what you find. If the price ever goes down I may want to try it.

Good hunting,

 

[russ61]

We have a service through EMBARQ.We had dish tv for years hi speed was not available in our area at all.Sprint wouldn't let anybody in this area.Embarq seems to really work well,the only thing I've noticed is when it's about to rain the internet gets slow to not working.Not a big problem this summer!!TV is fine though.Call embarq and check ,when we called they said it would be 3 months and within 2 they had service in our area.Overall it's really fast on down loads,it used to take 45 miniutes to load a song,now I can listen to it and look for something else at the same time if that give you any indication of the speed.:hmm3grin2orange:
Good luck Russ

 

[Locoweed]

I have been a Wildblue customer for just over a year. I have been very satisfied with their service. Some of my neighbors have Hughes and have no major problems. It is very important to get a competent person to do the installation

 

[Shipper50]

I have been a Wildblue customer for just over a year. I have been very satisfied with their service. Some of my neighbors have Hughes and have no major problems. It is very important to get a competent person to do the installation

I too live in the country and satellite is my only option as of now. I am on dial up and connect at a whopping fast 24,000kps. If one is to go with a wildblue or hughs, how do you ask for a competent installer? Do you call them and say I don't want someone who doesn't know what they are doing?

I have Dish network with high definition and they sent a guy out and he couldn't get the signal in enough. He went back to the shop and they sent out another and he put the dish in another area and it works fine.

Living in the country and having the Internet is not fun on dial up.:taped:

Shipper

 

[kurtty]

there are a few disadvantages taht satellite has in compairison to other highspeed connections such as DLS/Cable/wireless
satellite has terrible pings. meaning the amount of time time (measured in milliseconds) it takes for a bit to make it from you to the server your trying to connect too and back again to you. you getnerally will never get under 100ms on satlelite where as better pings can be acheived with dialup. the speed satelite has is decent usually being able to download from 30-150kbps depending on who you sign up with. although, if you really wanted to spend the money they can give you what ever speed you wanted though.
also satelite bandwidth is expensive so expect a monthly cap on the amount you can download meaning that if you go over say 10gb of data a month they will drop your speed down to that of dialup. so if your into downloading lots of movies and music then you can forget about satilite.
also due to the bad pings with satilite, online gaming is not practical at all, and always results in whats known as Lag.
the hardware you need to buy for satleite is expensive, usually around 300-500$ depending on what kind of contract you sign. and your monthly bill is usulaly around 75$-100$
but if your just into browsing around, sending e-mail and some minor downloading then satelite is a BIG improvement over dialup.

but before you jump on the satilite bandwagon lookinto if anyone offers "highspeed wireless" in your area. it works on the same pricipal as cell phones and is much better all around.

 

[tawilson]

Right now I'm using Hughes at home and AT&T wireless at my summer camp. The satellite is better at downloading, the AT&T works ok and is better than dialup. Shortly, the AT&T "Accelerated" network in my area is going to become a broadband connection, they are in the testing stage now. The other day they must have had it turned on because I was getting over a megabite/second download speed. I've had satellite for ten years or so, and it's done the job, but I think better wireless options are just around the corner, in my neck of the woods anyways.

 

[Bowtie]

I have satellite internet and I think its a joke. Its better than dialup, but not much. If I had dsl or cable modem, I would switch in a minute regardless of price. Unless satellite is your only option, I wouldnt do it. See above posts for reason. Its slow, slow, and did I mention its slow? And you are seriously limited on your downloads.

 

[IchWarriorMkII]

If its your only choice, maybe its worth it.

I know a lot of people are happy to kick satellite for DSL, but I don't know how many would rather the economy of dial up vs. the slight speed gains (at a $$$$) for the satellite.

 

[Blazer]

Hughes Satellite

I live in Illinois and switched from 24K dialup to Hughes about 3 years ago. Our satellite usually downloads at 900 KB/second per pcpitstop.com bandwidth speed test .Its MUCH faster than dialup and if its your only option as it was ours then it is for sure worth it. Wild Blue has since become available in our area but they always seem to be maxed out on customers.

Another big advantage over dialup- we could only use one computer at a time- now we have a wireless router and can all be on at the same time.

We did upgrade from the 59.99/ month package to the 69.99/ month modem and don't see a lot of difference.

One disadvantage- most times when you call for technical help you get a call center in India- not Indiana !!!!- those folks know their business and are pretty helpful - but for a Midwestern boy it sure gets frustating trying to understand them !!

Still hope to have access to cable/dsl some day !! but it works for now

 

[Mr_Super-hunky]

I have WildBlues basic $49.00 mo satelite service. The speed is halfway between dial up and high speed cable. It is much faster than dial up, but much slower than high speed cable.

I don't know how much better the higher rate plans are.

 

[Bill G]

I have little to no knowledge about internet speeds. I have dial-up at home and a T1 line at work. I want to increase my speed at home. The only option is wireless. How will that compare to the T1 line?

Bill

 

[Hard Knocks]

I switched to direcway (now Hughes) about 3 years ago. It is a two way system that sends and receives. I could only connect at 26.4 on dialup. It was so slow that my computers would lock up when loading large PDF's if I even touched the mouse.

With the satellite I now have a broadband connection that is way faster than dialup. Downloads are at around 100kb/s uploads are a bit slower. I paid $1000 for the equipment and $80/month. With no regrets! Our computers no longer lock up when downloading web pages and opening PDF's. I will defiantly switch to highspeed when it comes to our area (never I am told from bell tech's) but for now I can defiantly live with the satelite.

 

[zopi]

Wildblue's customer service SUCKS. If you have a problem, post install...good frickin' luck.

 

[SteveH]

We've been with Wildblue a couple yr. Before that, all we had was cellular phone with software that essentially means the phone is a modem. The speeds were incredibly slow, only acceptable for email and even that was pathetic. No phone lines here. But with satellite, it's a dream for us. No real problems with Wildblue. Someone said their basic plan is $49/mo. That's for 512 kbs download/128 kbs upload. The other options are for faster rates, up to 1.5 Mbs at the highest, which costs $79. Other options between those. We are on the slowest/least expensive and are happy with it. If we were running a business from home or downloading movies or something, we'd want the faster thing.

Customer service has been ok, ranging from great at times to "can't get thru the phone hell" because you wait for hours. Mostly, however, it's been ok. Any issues have been addressed promptly and the technicians have spent a long time on line with us when we needed assistance a couple times. We're in Colorado, don't know how that compares with other areas....

Don't recall just what we paid to get the equipment, think it was around $300, and then installation $150. But they've since had numerous "specials" with either the equipment no cost or the installation free or whatever.

 

[TopJimmy]

Man, I feel your pain. I live in the country and cannot get DSL or cable. My dad lives 10 miles north of me and was able to get DSL. He had satalite. It was faster than dial up if it was not raining, but for me the performance was not worth the cost. In my area we have Pixius which is wireless broadband, but we cannot get a strong enough signal. They just swithed to 900mghz and they were sure that they could get a signal. They were out today and got a signal, but it was not strong enough. I am working on a bracket to mount the receiver 10 feet above the silo. Hopefully that will work for us. People who have Pixius around here love it and say the speed is as fast or faster than dsl. My only concern is that Pixius will only service us to the demarcation point which will be in the shop. From the shop I will have about 300 foot cable to a switch that will supply the rest of the house. Hopefully this will work and allow me to dump my dial up.

I spoke to an engineer that used to work for cisco systems. There is a prototype that he was telling me about that uses two receivers and satalites that is supposed to be fast. Apparantly you would have to have an internet connection somewhere (office, friends house, ect.) and you would install one receiver there and the other could travel with you and would create a hot spot whereever the other receiver was. As I understand it it would allow your mobile computer to act just like another computer on your network and the speeds are very fast. He said that it would use existing satalites and would not require a monthly service (like using gps satalites), but he assumed that the equipment would be very expensive. He saw the prototype in use and was inmpressed.

Good luck,

Jim

 

[Hard Knocks]

Man, My only concern is that Pixius will only service us to the demarcation point which will be in the shop. From the shop I will have about 300 foot cable to a switch that will supply the rest of the house.
Jim

I have a similar situation with my setup. I bring my satellite into the house router that supplies the whole house by wire. I then shoot wireless to the shop about 300 feet away. I have a DLink booster antenna on my wireless switch and a booster receiver antenna on the shop computers. I get full signal strength everywhere in the shop even without the booster receiver antennas. Our laptops work great everywhere in the 6000 SqFt building.

 

[shawn.m]

wildblue with the $80 package. it is ok as it is all I can get at home. my latency runs 1000 to 1500 milliseconds. Plus they routed all secure websites like wellsfargo.com to the bottom of the routing table. takes me 5 minutes to do my bill pay instead of the 2 minutes it used to take me.

try dslreports.com to see what is available in your area.

WIldblue is offering $200 setup and then the monthly fee. which is really cheap if you compare it to Hughes or Directway