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Satellite Broadband
I am going to the sky. QUESTION: who all is using the satellites? Are there any problems? What are typical up and down load speeds?
I am looking at: Directway, Starband and a new one Wildblue. WB is not up and running yet.
Comments are most appreciated. TIA Harvey
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Satellite Broadband
I have been looking at these for a long time and am holding out for WildBlue. I heard that both DirectWay and StarBand have had financial problems and have been sued for performance that is substantially less than promised. DISH Network was an investor in Starband and got out of it. I just didn't feel comfortable investing ~$1k for a service that many people are dissatisfied with. WildBlue uses better technology, spot beams, where they can dedicate satellite channels to specific regions which should give better performance. WB is supposed to arrive in our area 2Q so I'll be giving it a try.
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Satellite Broadband
My roomate at school uses starband at his home. His comment has been that download may be faster than dialup, the upload speed (from your computor to someone else)can be as slow or slower. The two directions of data travel may have very differant speeds.
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Satellite Broadband
First. Satellite is not broad band. It is high speed internet. Second they all have limits on how much you can down load (unless you buy the commercial package). If you have any other choice, dsl, wisp, cable it is better and cheaper. I have direcway. It is probably the best choice for individuals who have no other option. I have no phone line thus no other option. Starband is primarily a business service. Wild blue is an unknown. If you go here and read a while it will answer most of your questions.
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/sat
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Satellite Broadband
If you have to VPN or play multiplayer games satellite service isn't a good option either. Some VPN clients are better than others but the slow latency on sat links causes problems with those applications.
For lots of us there are no other options. My dial-up speed on a good day is a whopping 21.6 kbs. We're on a shared microwave link with dozens of others and it will be years before we get cable or DSL (if ever).
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Satellite Broadband
A couple of good links.... Thanks
I guess I need to understand broadband, bandwidth, dsl and how all the above relates to a connection to the internet or an ISP.
I just assumed all things faster than dial up were broadband and you have a certain amount of data that can be moved at any time thus bandwidth to connect 2 or more computers or a network, a ISP or the internet.
I have used dial ups for over 20 years connecting at 300 baud then on the old bullentin boards prior to the internet for the masses.
I was in Atlantic City, last week, and had my laptop hooked to whatever they have. It was my first time on something fast and I liked it.
My home in the boonies will have something fast soon one way or another. But I guess I can wait for another couple of months and do the research.
We are out far enough and in a valley we do not have cell service. Land line services will never (in my life time anyway) be avaiable here. I have asked Verizon and they will not even discuss the possability.
We have been on C-band for 13 years and am looking at options there also.
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Satellite Broadband
I have had sat. Direcway for just over a year now. I chose it becuase nothing else was available here in rural Idaho except regular landline which was extremely slow. My Direcway is not quite as fast as the cable I had in the city but sure beats the landline service availabe. I had a little trouble losing service last winter when we had snowey weather. This past winter was better service wise because we had very little snow. My ownly complaint is the monthly cost of $50.+/month. Also e-mail service is not as good as I have had in the past.
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Satellite Broadband
I have direcway, it is wide open to anything so a good spyware and antivirus is a must CA is good. You need a good shot at the southern sky, the further north the closer to the horizon the satelite is so keep that in mind. If you get bad weather it might stop it but I have found it is usually snow build up on the dish, wipe it off and your up again so think about mounting it where you can access it. Also if they have bad weather you might be down, remember they have to send the info your sending or recieving over their ground based dishes, so if they are snowed in then you are down. You would think they would put their home bases in Fla but mine is out of DC.Service, there is none. Once you spend the money for the equipment and sign the bottom line your pretty much on your own so get a good local instalation company that will be there when you need them, Direcway is useless, you call and are connected to India to someone reading a book to you. They all say the same thing every time. Deleeet yur cooowkies.
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Satellite Broadband
There are dedicated Direcway/Starband/Wildblue forums, all of which have FAQ sections that might help in your quest
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/sat (free)
http://www.copperhead.cc/ (pay)
http://www.starbandusers.com/index2.shtml (pay)
http://wildblue.com/ (commercial)
A couple to avoid are equorial.net and alt.direcpc
//greg//
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Satellite Broadband
If you can get cellular service, you might consider getting a cellular modem. They can be about 5x faster than the fastest modem, and don't have the latency problems that satellite does. Prices are better than satellite also. Check out AT&T or Verizon to start.
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