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harvey
Join Date: Sep 2000
Posts: 1550 Moravia, NY
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2005-03-26          108763

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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kwschumm
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 5764 NW Oregon
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2005-03-26          108775

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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AV8R
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 882 North Central Wisconsin
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2005-03-26          108797

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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jimbrown
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 56 Cochise cnty Az
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2005-03-26          108799

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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kwschumm
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 5764 NW Oregon
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2005-03-26          108807

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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harvey
Join Date: Sep 2000
Posts: 1550 Moravia, NY
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2005-03-27          108830

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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dkheckmanl
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 134 Middleton, ID
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2005-03-27          108859

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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lucerne
Join Date: Sep 2003
Posts: 192 Lucerne Maine
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2005-03-27          108886

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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greg_g
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 1816 Western Kentucky
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2005-03-28          108904

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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metastable
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 78 North Plains, OR
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2005-03-28          108931

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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metastable
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 78 North Plains, OR
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2005-03-28          108932

If what you currently have is tolerable, you could also wait for WiMAX. It has been designed for us rural people, and is expected to start popping up around the US this Fall. It is not line-of-site, so it even works when there are small hills and trees in the way. http://www.wimaxforum.org/home ....

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kwschumm
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 5764 NW Oregon
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2005-03-28          108956

The cellular service where we live is poor to nonexistent, but for fun I called Verizon about it. They said they do not allow cellular modems to connect to their system as a primary internet connection due to bandwidth constraints. ....

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funchy
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 128 north eastern corner of Maryland
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2005-03-29          108965

I had Starband for a few years because it was the only way I could get highspeed internet in my rural area. I dropped it once Cable Modems were available because of cost.

It worked pretty well and was alot faster than dial-up, but it was really expensive. Cable was half the cost. Look at the monthly cost, the equipment cost, and any cost you might have to pay to run wires.

The thing about satellite is that it's designed to be superfast for sending info TO you. When you have to send info back to the net (running a web server, playing an interactive game, uploading to the net), it's much slower. Because of the slower upload speeds you also can't do realtime multiplayer games well (this is called latency -- the delay in getting groups of information back and forth to you). This isn't the end of the world unless you (1) live for realtime games, eg. Doom (2) plan on hosting your own fast web site locally It does work VERY nice for downloading software and music and such.

Technically in my opinion, any of these can be considered "broadband" as they are all significantly faster than dial-up and are always on.

Some of the providers try to limit what you can do. Most of these limits are easy to circumvent. For example I can run a Web server on my home computer even know my cable internet provider says it's not allowed.

....

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metastable
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 78 North Plains, OR
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2005-03-29          109010

Verizon does offer wireless data services (in our area too Ken). The sales people are frequently uninformed because most are working from overseas and could care less. Check out the link below. You are looking for "Wireless Internet". The unlimited plans are called "NationalAccess" and "BroadbandAccess". Coverage is spotty throughout the US, so check out the coverage map. I tried the AT&T version--it was ok, but not great for me since nearest cell tower is 10 miles away. Might work better where you live. ....


Link:   Verizon Wireless Internet

 
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kwschumm
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 5764 NW Oregon
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2005-03-29          109014

North Plains? Howdy Neighbor! We really wanted to buy and build on a lot there on Dairy Creek road but the seller would only sell if we bought both his tax lots and one of them was awful. Argh.

Anyway, my cell phone won't work well at the house unless I walk up to the top of the driveway and the weather is just right but I'll check it out. Maybe a better antenna would do the trick. Thanks a bunch for the link. ....

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kwschumm
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 5764 NW Oregon
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2005-03-29          109019

metastable, are you on West Oregon Electric? If so you probably know about Columbia Broadband, where they are slowly rolling out broadband service on fiber to the areas they serve. They published a projected service map and, wouldn't you know it, they are planning service to everyone around us but the map has a hole in it where we live. No service for us. Aw, heck, that is 10 years out anyway. ....

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harvey
Join Date: Sep 2000
Posts: 1550 Moravia, NY
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2005-03-29          109029

I use Verizon wireless on my laptop now. It is not all that great. The land line is just as fast or faster.

The cell phone option is great on the road for quick access, to stay in touch, check weather etc.

I've never liked the NOAA broadcast on the road cause I never knew where they were talking about.

You have to have a solid digital signal also. ....

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limpincoyote
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 19 Edgewood, Texas
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2005-03-29          109039

I've been using Direcway for just over three years now and have had few problems. The only real problem I had was when my receiver went out, but Direcway replaced it at no cost to me. Sent me the new receiver which I installed easily and returned the old one to them.

The speed isn't as good as cable, which I had in the Dallas area, but here in rural East Texas I don't have either cable or DSL available. This has been a good solution for me. ....

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metastable
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 78 North Plains, OR
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2005-04-04          109400

Ken--Am at the top of Pumpkin Ridge, so cell service is really bad. Am on WOEC, but didn't know about the broadband. Thanks for the input! If you have any line of site to Forest Grove/Banks/Gaston, you can get WiFi service from http://whiz.to or http://www.wifi-nw.com. I have too many trees in the way for that too.

Tom ....

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kwschumm
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 5764 NW Oregon
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2005-04-04          109402

Tom, I didn't know about the WiFi solutions, thanks for the link! I don't have a line of site, but I could probably knock down a couple of trees and get one. That, or get creative with antennas. Our south view is down a valley almost right into Banks. ....

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Hal DeWitt
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 22 New Brunswick, Canada
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2005-04-08          109602

Hope you don't mind input from a Canadian engineer. WidBlue are deploying on Telesat's new Anik2 satelite. Their footprint will cover the continental US using spot beams. I am project manager and network engineer for Barrett Xplore a Canadian wireless ISP. We are going to deploy off the same satelite as Wildblue but with a Canadian footprint. We use Motorola equipment for our wireless (towers and dishes not satellite)services. It works excellent. Primary drawback is there needs to be line of site from the radio on the tower to the subscriber. By definition broadband is anything greater than 56kbps, the bandwidth required for one voice communication channel. ....

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harvey
Join Date: Sep 2000
Posts: 1550 Moravia, NY
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2005-04-09          109612

Thanks Hal. Here you live in a valley or on a hill.

Sooooo things tend to be extreme be it radio, tv or weather.

There is a WB seminar June 7 in Syracuse gotta check it out. ....

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dkheckmanl
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 134 Middleton, ID
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2006-01-04          122242

Any one with Direcway satellite service had problems this winter. I had pretty good service for the last two year up until about the middle of Nov. of 05. Since then it seems like I have not had service about 50% of the time. I know some of it is the weather but now days it seems like if it clouds up I lose service.

I found out the other day I can now get Qwest DSL. I am thinking about switching although I hate to lose my investment in Direcway equipment. For those that have Qwest how has their internet service been? ....

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Peters
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 3034 Northern AL
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2006-01-05          122301

I would check your base signal strength on the system. You many have some thing blocking you or has your alignment moved? I had a problem in the summer with the direct. I finally tracked it down to the trees growing taller and the leaves on the trees in the Summer. ....

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