Satellite Internet

[Beau Cassidy]

Well after moving here about 7 months ago it looks like I will be staying. I have a contract on a nice house and am debating on what to do for internet service. Right now I have DirectTV. My internet is thru a Verizon MiFi which works real good because I am basically in town. Right now I have an old Verizon contract with unlimited internet use. The house I am getting is a few miles outside of town. I was looking to get ATT Uverse service and internet but it isn't available where I am moving to. Cell signal sucks, too, so I am not considering Verizon as a primary internet service. What I am now considering before going to cable is satellite internet. With the vast knowledge base here I am sure more than a few members have it. I heard download speeds are good but the upload speeds suck. Any input from anybody?

[OBIII]

You get what you pay for. I currently have Starband satellite internet, and get about 500k down, about 170k up. Not speedy enough for watching 360p videos, but it does ok for 240p. Satellite is also basically useless for VOIP due to the time lag up and down. That said, I am currently paying 49.99 per month. I could double my up/down speeds by paying 99.99 a month, but I'm not going to do that. Often times, rain and snow cause outages. You will probably need a separate provider for tv, either Dish or Direct (I've been happy with Dish for over 20 years), satellite (Starband, Hughesnet are the main players), and if cell service sucks maybe a land line. Good luck whatever you decide.
OB

[Beau Cassidy]

I was looking at getting the DirectTV internet service.

[JeffinNZ]

OBIII hit the nail on the head. My I.T. friend spoke about the time lag the other day. All a factor of the speed of light.

[jmsj]

We have Hughesnet here, it was the only option for where we live. Our house is on the end of a old phone line that is 12 miles outside of a town of 600 people. When my wife went back to school and started taking online college courses, we used a dial up modem. The upload speed was 19kps. Obviously this was not going to work.
Once we got sattelite we had to get an upgraded package($100.00+) to allow her to do her classroom chats. We did have problems w/service in the beginning, the customer help line sent you to somewhere in India (I think) and the only way to speak to someone in the U.S.A was to threaten to cancel your service. The technicians they did send out came from either Santa Fe (140 miles away) or Farmington (5 hours drive).
Things are much better now. The only time we have trouble is when it either snows or rains. This is the only option we have and it is better than dial up but not nearly as good as the fiber optic service we have at my work.
good luck, jmsj

[BoolitSchuuter]

We have Wildblue.net. It tests at about 200k, but realistic up/down has been around 100kbps. We get the usual snow/rain/heavy cloud cover issues. I've also noticed bandwidth issues in the evening (high usage period i think).:coffeecom
Can't wait till they get that fiber optic finished out here. I live in a lake development with enough houses to make it worth the effort to put it in.
:guntootsmiley:

[kreyten]

We use WildBlue and it has been ok....

Can't stream anything because of fair usage policy but it beats the only other option we had which was dial up...

I am hoping to get back to either cable or dsl soon...the fiber artery for the entire Pacific NW runs about a mile from my house...now we just need someone to tap into it...

Good luck

[montana_charlie]

What I am now considering before going to cable is satellite internet.
If it's available, you will be much happier with cable internet than satellite internet.

I had satellite back when it was called DirecWay, and the hardware could be manipulated to achieve best performance. Even then it did not compare to any wire-type high speed internet service.

Better than dial-up, certainly, but not functionally competitive with cable or DSL.

CM

[Phat Man Mike]

we have Hughesnet at home. and it's better than dial up. you have to make sure not to go over on your band width, or get FAPed . but we watch it and do ok

[Jailer]

If you can get a cell signal at all, you might want to consider a cell signal booster.

I live in the Bermuda triangle of cell signals. You can get a decent signal just a few miles in any direction from me but at my place is sucks. You're lucky to get one bar.
I went up on the roof with my phone and got 5 bars standing at the peak.

I got a Z-Boost brand and I've been real pleased with it. Haven't had a single dropped call since I got it. I don't have my internet through my phone but a co worker does and there service works great since they got their booster.

Just another option to think about.

[JIMinPHX]

Cell boosters work if you have some signal to start with. Wilson makes most of the better ones. Some of the Z-boost hardware is next best. Many of the other brands are not so good. You need to make sure that you get a booster that works with the band of cell phone that you have. Most of the duel band boosters (like most Wilson & Z-boost types) will cover just about all US cell phones except for Nextel. The positioning of the outside antenna is about the most important thing when you install one of those devices. The #2 consideration is to put the inside antenna where it will not get cross talk with the outside one.

[Beau Cassidy]

It looks like I will go with cable internet. I have considered a cell signal booster and have looked at the Wilson and Z-Boost. I wasn't going to go that rout because I wasn't sure about them. I was also going to talk to the folks at Verizon and Radio Shack before considering one, too.