Satellite Internet!

[G-ManBart]

So we move into a nice community a little bit away from town so we can have a little bit of land and a quiet neighborhood, but nobody offers cable or DSL here....d'oh!

We need high speed for my wife's business, so we go with a satellite provider that advertises being one of the biggest and best. When it rains, the internet goes out. When it snows, the internet goes out. When it really snows I have to go up on the roof and brush off the dish to get it to work...big fun!

Last night it started working intermitently. We spend at least two hours on the phone with customer support to learn that our transmitter is failing...wonderful. Then they say that we'll be contacted by a technician by the end of the day tomorrow to schedule a replacement...within five freaking work days! UGH....I'm here plodding along with dial up (they were nice enough to give me free dial up for the next 7 days) with no idea when I'll be back to high speed (relatively speaking).

We had cable internet before coming here and it was SO much better I can't even begin to describe it...this sucks!

Thanks, I feel a little better

[JThompson]

So we move into a nice community a little bit away from town so we can have a little bit of land and a quiet neighborhood, but nobody offers cable or DSL here....d'oh!

We need high speed for my wife's business, so we go with a satellite provider that advertises being one of the biggest and best. When it rains, the internet goes out. When it snows, the internet goes out. When it really snows I have to go up on the roof and brush off the dish to get it to work...big fun!

Last night it started working intermitently. We spend at least two hours on the phone with customer support to learn that our transmitter is failing...wonderful. Then they say that we'll be contacted by a technician by the end of the day tomorrow to schedule a replacement...within five freaking work days! UGH....I'm here plodding along with dial up (they were nice enough to give me free dial up for the next 7 days) with no idea when I'll be back to high speed (relatively speaking).

We had cable internet before coming here and it was SO much better I can't even begin to describe it...this sucks!

Thanks, I feel a little better

I feel your pain, back when I lived in a little town in Georgia, I had the same issue. What I did was to sweet talk an ISP into giving me two accounts and then I used two phone lines and bonded them together to get 2X the speed. Since we already had three lines it was no big deal and worked pretty well. You have the same problems with Sat as you do with TV sat. There is no real solution for you. There is a bright side. When you get all those people, who you moved away from, to move next to you, you will get cable back.

Best,

JT

Edited June 27, 2007 by JThompson

[Kimberkid]

HughesNet is absolute dogshit. We just got it after several YEARS of trying to find any form of high(er) speed internet than dial up. No one else offers anything, not cable, not DSL, and HughesNet was the only satelitte place that said they could help us. After a significant pain in the ass install, on a pole in the yard, and digging a 75 yard trench to bury the cables under the driveway, it is totally useless. When it works, which isnt often, it is usually slower than dial up. It does however work very well between the hours of 2am and 5am. I dont know why, but thats how it is.

Everytime i see their commercial it makes me want to go to the corprate headquarters and start randomly beating the hell out of any employee i see.

Hope your luck is better than mine.

[AK74]

When we moved out in the middle of no where. We had a lot of problems with our land line, static that would come and go, cross talk, at least every month or two the phone would go dead, some times for several days.

Dial up speed 14 to 28 if it worked at all.

Over a year a go I canceled both the land line and dial up service, we then got satellite internet from a company call Wild Blue.

Could not be happier, works fine for us, using a wireless network we run up to 4 computers a one time, no problem.

Not as fast as cable or as cheap as DSL but they were not an option for us any way.

Yes we lose our connection in heavy rain, but not for long and no snow here.

Edited June 27, 2007 by AK74

[chuckbradley]

One problem with satellite is its a managed bandwith. I am sure there is a technical terminology i am not using for this. If you exceed you allotment then it basically shuts you down for a time period. I dont have long outages just when a big storm rolls over between the dish and the satellite. Sometimes its really slow like yesterday. I did pay the extra 10.00 a month to increase my allotted bandwith, it did help.

There is a relatively new technology called wifi. It works like satellite but it is line of site to water tower or building. I wanted to try it but they wouldnt prove to me first or guarantee it would work better than satellite. I figured it was better to get a signal through a storm than to get it through 20 miles of rain or snow. Thats how far the receiver is from me. If you are close I am told it works really good.

[Rob Boudrie]

A very effective technology if you can find a decent flat rate plan is a cellular modem. Wifi heeds ot be near an access point; Satellite has reliability and latency issues; but cell internet is available anywhere you can get a cell signal from your provider. You won't confuse the speeds with cable modem, but you won't mistake them for dialup either.

[whizz]

Is there no way you can get 3G "broadband"?

Here in Sweden almost 50 to 60% of the country can get that kind of broadband. Perfect when living towards or actually in the countryside when not connected by fiber or DSL. The four major mobile phone service operators here all offers flat rate broadband via 3G. In some areas (increasing month by month) even by turbo 3G which increases bandwidth from 384 Kbit/sec to 3.6 Mbit/sec.

Satellite broadband never was any hit around here...

Edited June 27, 2007 by whizz

[j2fast]

The US is way behind in true 3G deployment compared to places like Europe and Japan. What we do have on a widespread basis is no where near 3Mbs; that said I would definitely try it. My company uses Sprint and Alltel for some of our traveling sales folks with good success. I gave it a try and could easily run Outlook along with several internal apps using a VPN across Sprint's network. Check with your local cell providers to see if they offer anything that would work for you. I had Sat for a while and just about any of the high speed cell stuff is better than Sat Internet.

Edited June 27, 2007 by j2fast

[WillM]

A quick check of Verizon Wireless' coverage map shows that the Santa Fe, NM area has Broadband Wireless/VCast coverage. I've used a Verizon Wireless

AirCard for almost three years in my laptop. I just got the latest version with their enhanced service and it is smokin' fast, even comparable to

cable in my experience. Even outside the broadband coverage area I get service faster than dialup anywhere I can get a cell signal.

We live in the sticks and have no cable or other coverage, so we also have had Wild Blue satellite service for about a year now. I banged the dish by

accident the other day and they came right out and not only fixed it but did some sort of upgrade. We run a local area network for the four members of

our family and my wife who's the computer whiz is very pleased with it as are several other local folks we know who have it. Don't really have too much

trouble with the rain here [north of Seattle where that would be a deal breaker if we did] unless it's a really heavy downpour. In that case my cell signal

also seems to slow down on occasion.

When I recently upgraded I learned that the new air cards can also work on a desktop unlike my original which would only fit in a laptop's card slot - the new

ones can use the USP port and an external antenna is available. Between the air card and the wild blue we have solved 99% of our connection problems, which is a good thing because we are so isolated with so few potential customers in the area that we'll probably never get cable even though we're surrounded by large populations within five miles. In looking this over I sound like a commercial but I have no connection with any of these companies other than the bills I pay -

I'm speaking as one who suffered with dialup in a broadband age for the five years before I got the satellite and air card. Good luck, Will M.

[G-ManBart]

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. We looked at the AirCards when we moved here and I don't recall the reasons, but didn't think it would work for us. I hadn't heard of WildBlue before and just checked out their home page. They show service in our area and the price is cheaper for a faster connection, so I'm going to call them soon. Our service contract is up in a few weeks so we may just switch and see how it goes....can't be much worse!

[Joe4d]

I have Hughes, and believe me if there was an alternative I wouldnt. After some start up problems the first few months I am pretty happy with it though. A few pointers, the tech who installs it will throw it up, usually on a nice sunny day and as long as the signal strength is 1 point over failing he says good to go and takesoff. The minute a cloud comes by you loose connection. Either demand tech adjusts for maximum posible signal or do it your self. I have installed direct tv many times and the process is the same, hook up a computer so you can see it and bring up the signal strength meter. then make tiny adjustments up and down to max signal, then left right, then up down, then left right, I raised my signal strength from tech installed 55 on a good day to 80 and only loose signal if it is really heavy thunder storm which I usually dont run my computer in anyway. I have used Sprint and Verizon wireless cards. on one now infact and they work very well and are at dsl speed. However Sprint doesnt work at home in fact cell phones from Verizon, Tmobile Sprint dont work either, so it is pretty much Hughes or nothing.

[Kimberkid]

Even when ours show "very good" to "excellent" signal strength, the speed is still at the total whim of the gods. Sometimes it works, sometimes it dont. I am sure hoping that the quality of this service improves with time.

[Lee]

My Dad has the Hughes Sat deal. He hates it. I think he said the limit is 200MB in 24hr then you dropped back to dial-up speed for the rest of the day. I have cable internet and he loves downloading at my place.

[PHolsted]

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. We looked at the AirCards when we moved here and I don't recall the reasons, but didn't think it would work for us. I hadn't heard of WildBlue before and just checked out their home page. They show service in our area and the price is cheaper for a faster connection, so I'm going to call them soon. Our service contract is up in a few weeks so we may just switch and see how it goes....can't be much worse!

I would really look in a verizon, at&t, sprint or alltel wireless broadband account. I had you same problem and I was able to get an air card from alltel 2 years ago. At the time I was only getting like 385 down but compared to my 14.4 dial up I was in heaven. Now I am with at&t and am getting like 4 meg down and 2 meg up. Most everyone has a if you don't like in in the first 5 days bring it back for free deal.

So it might be worth it to give one of them a try

Good Luck

[Alan Meek]

I have had both DirecPC (Hughes) and Wildblue, the performance was better from Wildblue. Plus you can purchase one of three different levels of connection speed. But I cancelled Wildblue service back in March and am still being billed. :angry: :angry:

Alan

[dajarrel]

Unfortunately, your view on the performance of a satellite internet connection would be based on what you had previously. If all you ever had was dial-up, you would be tickled with it. But coming from a cable/DSL connection to satellite I can see where it would suck.

FWIW

dj

[Kimberkid]

all i ever had was dial up and i would love to go back to it after now having gotten HughesNet

[lmccrock]

Generally those of us far enough into the boonies to not get DSL and cable also will not get 3G cell service. I can get unlimited data service from Cingular, but IIRC it is in the 70-140Kbps range, and even that is not guaranteed. Better than dialup (which for me is 14K) but not sure if it is worth ~$60/month. I get satellite (Hughes through Earthlink), about 1Mbps down/maybe 20K up. The limit (last time I looked) was 1GByte/day, then they drop the speed by half. Not a problem, since I do not download movies. Browsing, work stuff, the occasional off-color attachment from my brother-in-law, no problem.

Yes, satellite has issues. I cannot connect to the VPN at work. When I have to download a home copy of the work software tools (about 1GB), I transfer by memory stick rather than use allotment. During torrential rain or ice storm it does not work. The alternative? None yet. And, Wildblue does not service this area.

Lee

[Merlin Orr]

I will be moving into my new house next week and now...........WTF? No cable or any sort of broadband there. And now my hopes for Hughesnet being a good choice are dashed. My cellular card from Sprint will just barely connect at my new, future location.

[tightloop]

I will be moving into my new house next week and now...........WTF? No cable or any sort of broadband there. And now my hopes for Hughesnet being a good choice are dashed. My cellular card from Sprint will just barely connect at my new, future location.

Lack of technology is a bitch when you are used to it and now can't get it.....

[j2fast]

I will be moving into my new house next week and now...........WTF? No cable or any sort of broadband there. And now my hopes for Hughesnet being a good choice are dashed. My cellular card from Sprint will just barely connect at my new, future location.

Lack of technology is a bitch when you are used to it and now can't get it.....

Happened to me, I had cable and was able to work from home for a few years when we lived in a townhouse. When we upgraded to our own place the only drawback was lack of high speed internet. Luckily for me (3.5 years later) Verizon has finally blessed us by allowing us to rejoin the 21st century. So I feel Merlin's pain, hopefully it won't be that long for him to get a high speed connection again.

[Bronco]

Just got Hughes Sat. this spring after 11 years of dialup and 3 different providers last one was earthlink gag, choke, puke! My installer was ok but did adjust after he left and got another 15 points of signal. The 200 mb. of download FUP (fair use policy) sucks and have told them as much. They don't make it easy to find out about it either. But all said my service has been good and will keep it till something better or cheaper is available. I hate Sprint and they have a cell tower 1 mile from the farm, they are just so hard to deal with. The fiber optic Cox cable runs right by the house but won't let me on. Merlin welcome to my world.

[Front Man]

I tried Hughes last November for 9 days, tech support sucked and they didn't want me to use Outlook for my email!

Went back to my wifi provider after they finally fixed their problems (this will be temporary).

I have not heard anything but good about Wildblue.

When my line of site provider goes down again that is what I'm switching to.

FM