Satellite Internet

[Gas Sucks]

Live outside city limits and cant get DSL, wondering who has Satellite Internet, what kind and how do you like it. I havent gotten it because my parents live near me and pay $70 a month for Hughes Net and it sucks, only works about half the time, its slow, and you cant download anything without getting the fair access policy and then it wont work for 24hr

[rdc]

Only other vendor (that I know about) is DirectPC, from DirectTV. But I
believe it is one way only, with a telephone connection for the uplink. I don't have it, so can't comment on performance.

[bulldog84]

I had OIFNET in Iraq. It worked pretty good for Iraq standards. There was 10 of us on one satellite.

[wingnut]

we get wildblue thru dish network. all in all it aint bad...not as fast as broadband, but not as slow as dial-up either.

for getting wildblue, they give us a discount on our satellite service. both of em per month is just under 100 clams, but thats with a basic programming package.

we dont have ANY of the issues that you referred to

[rdc]

Originally Posted by wingnut

we get wildblue thru dish network. all in all it aint bad...not as fast as broadband, but not as slow as dial-up either.

for getting wildblue, they give us a discount on our satellite service. both of em per month is just under 100 clams, but thats with a basic programming package.

we dont have ANY of the issues that you referred to

I didn't know about them.
It's been a while since I've researched it, since we FINALLY got dsl
out here in the boonies a couple years ago ...

[wingnut]

WildBlue: High Speed Internet via Satellite - official website

...essentially the direct competitior to hughes

[FordGuy100]

We have wildblue here as well. It is pretty decent, but as mentioned it isnt even close to DSL. It gets the job done. Sometimes its fast enough that I can watch a youtube video without having to wait, other times it will go for 15 seconds, stop for 5, then go for 15 again....so I just let it buffer for a minute, no big deal.

The only problem is we had ours mounted on top of our roof (two story house), and when it snows you will loose reception from the accumulation (like you would with satelite TV) so you have to go out and get the snow off.

[NIT2WN]

Wild Blue also, You have to buy $300 or so worth of equipment but it's better than dial up. You can get 3 different levels/speeds. The cheapest is around $50 a month which we have. Like said before, it won't quite stream live video but it's not far behind. It also doesn't work in the rain, no snow here in 5+ years so don't know on that. If you move it's a 2 year contract so it goes with you and I think we paid $100 for it to be moved.

[Jarrod B]

look into internet cards through the cell phone companies. data cards are cheaper like 60 a month for att up to i think 2mb.

[elibenson]

I have a Sprint USB wireless card. It gives me up to 1.5mb at my house, and a little more when you are not somewhere out in the sticks. I have never had it fail to work anywhere I can get a Sprint signal. Cingular and AT&T use the exact same piece of hardware on their networks too, so I think they offer the same kind of service on their networks too. It costs about $69/month. That might be a little more than the basic Wild Blue service, but it works anywhere, and there is no install fee, or equipment to purchase. There is *NO* fair use policy keeping you from downloading large files. Satellite providers are really bad about that. I can stream nearly all Youtube videos with out a problem. When I download, I get about 150-180 kb/second. Not bad for me, since there is absolutely no hope of getting cable or DSL out here. I use it on my laptop, which means that I have internet anywhere I happen to be. I chose the USB version because I could plug it into a desktop if I wanted to. The laptop PC card is only good for a laptop. More than that, with the USB version, I double-stick taped it to the top of my window, and ran a long USB cable to my laptop. It gives me better reception. It would work without that, but the more signal you have, the faster the service.

Sprint let me use it for 30 days with the option to return it and get my money back if the service was not any good where I live. You ought to ask the various wireless providers about something like that.