Satellite Internet - A Good Choice? - Comments Page 1

I have been a HughesNet customer for 6 yrs now. It is not that bad. I tried Verizon wireless which I had to turn into a phone to keep from paying the termation fee.The TWC is just 300 ft from my home and they will not connect me. I offered to pay extra. I will keep HughesNet because I always have good service, and they fix any problems. If needed they will suppend your account for up to six months. I bought my system. Love it keep up the good work HughesNet

We live in a remote area as you describe, in Muskoka cottage country, Ontario. No DSL or cable service. But, in addition to satellite service, we have wireless service from towers scattered throughout the area. Speed is much below that of DSL but still perfectly acceptable. So glad we don't have to use dialup.

I live 'out in the sticks' as we say here in the UK and my broadband speed courtesy of British Telecom's land-line was about 900 Kb/s - only just useable. It took 3½ hours to download a 1 hour HD television programme!
Since subscribing to satellite broadband my speed is more than 10 Mb/s and the same tv programme takes approximately 20 minutes, so although it costs about 3 times the monthly fee (£50/$80) I consider it worth the outlay.
The UK company I'm with is Avonline (recommended) and latency is 750 ms. but I don't play on-line games or use VOIP telephone.

I'm considering getting a "Hot Spot" from Verizon Wireless, since we have our family cell plan with them. We currently have Comcast for our ISP. The quality is pretty good, but if I can get internet service through my cell carrier for our three home laptops with a shared hot spot for a $10 extra line charge, I might be interested.

What do you know about the quality of useing a hotspot? Our cell phone service appears to be one of the best, as we've never even experienced a dropped call in the 8 years that we've used them. Does that mean the internet hotspot would also be really good? Anyone who's had experience with one of these, please let me know your thoughts.

EDITOR'S NOTE: If you can get a strong 3G or 4G signal on a mobile phone, then the hotspot should be of good quality as well.

Yes - I do have satellite Internet from a company called Xplornet. The service I get has no cap - but it is throttled according to a fair-access-policy so if I am using it heavily I don't even get the speeds I'm paying for. Xplornet now has new plans that do not include this, and are cheaper, but have monthly caps. I am waiting to switch to a terrestrial wireless solution that should be available (from a different company) next month (the tower is there, it just doesn't have any antennas on it yet).

I have to agree with the general recommendation that it is way better than dial-up but significantly worse than typical "high speed" connections. I often refer to it as medium-speed Internet.

I am using Hughesnet. I outrun my 20 gb every month. Before moving out to the boonies I had cable. Since moving my magic jack doesn't work except to get voicemail by email. It's sometime inconvenient but better than dial-up. I think DSL is available. Is DSL faster than satellite?

Satellite internet service stinks. DSL and cable are a mere 1.5 miles away from my house--and we are still saddled with this painfully slow connection. Time Warner said that for 44 thousand dollars (you read it right) they could bring it to my house.

In today's world--this means my kids suffer academically, I can not work from home, and the value of my home takes a serious whack.

For all the "government money" that was set aside to expand high speed internet--it never made it to the countryside--it allowed FiOs to move 1/2 mile out of the city limit and did nothing for the rest of us in the outer suburbs or in rural America.

I have been using Clearwire internet service for about 1 year. They suck. All speeds are slow, really slow. Their service sucks. Whenever you call them they only tell you to "move your modem to another location." Their biggest problem is that there re trees between me and their towers. Duh - I live in Oregon. We have a lot of trees. I do not recommend their service to anyone.

We lived full time in a large motorhome travelling all around the country. Email...not internet surfing was via hooking up the modem to a cellphone. We are talking 9600 -14400 baud back then. Ugh! If a campground allowed the use on 1 specific phone line then you might pay a lot of money and only get minutes to use it. Then we found The Datastorm System which was mounted on the roof of the motorhome and the system raised the dish up and rotated it and when it found the assigned satellite we generally hooked up at 400 Kbps and when you are used to 9600 baud and only get your email if your cellphone was close to a slow tower 400Kbps any time or place you want...well it was just slicker than that owl stuff! The equipment was expensive but for a fixed location could be much cheaper. The service is expensive...perhaps less so now for more speed...times have changed in the last 10 yrs for the better.

If you live out there in the middle of no place and want to surf the internet, then probably satellite service is for you if you can afford it. If you cannot afford the price for satellite then you have to put up with dial up or....move closer to a city/town where there is cable

I enjoy your newsletters my friend.
Chris

We have WildBlue satellite for the exact reasons above, and the service is as stated. Heavy rain, thunderstorms, or snow drop the speed, or sometimes we don't get a signal. Bandwidth is also a problem - we had to upgrade to business service so my sons could take on-line courses. Video usage is a "no-no" except on exceptions. But it is better than having no internet service or dial-up.

We have had satellite internet since 2007. We are very rural, so dial-up was our only other option. Dish Network partnered with Wildblue and we jumped on board. By the way, Wildblue is now being "upgraded" to Exede. Satellite internet is just about as reliable as satellite TV which we also have. Thunderstorms here in Florida sometimes knock out both internet and TV for a while. Our daughter is in college in Scotland now and we Skype regularly with her. The latency is barely noticeable. We are very satisfied with our satellite internet and TV so far. Looking back to my first modem, a 2400 baud, this is a fantastic leap forward.

I live in a fairly remote area and don't have a land-line 'phone or cellphone coverage. All our comm's are by satellite internet. We use Skype for 'phone calls.

Latency is quite a problem as it varies between 800ms and 1600ms. Rain-fade is rarely a problem, but does happen. We can expect to lose our link at least once a day, but the cause of this may well be due to the number of subscribers. We notice that the upload/download speeds are influenced by the time of day (number of subscribers).

Our downloads are supposed to be 3mb and uploads 1mb. When using Skype, we can usually hear the callers OK, but they have problems hearing us. Video is usually pixelated. This is most probably due to the reduced upload speeds.

I tried Starband several years ago. the installer could not make it work then left me to call for tech support.. He then said it was my computer I had a compaq back then.. He said I needed to put an ethernet card in.. He installed one for me. Still could not get it to work. When I called the company they refused to stand by the product.. this was around the time the world trade center went down I went back to dialup . recently I got the 3g from alltel and am very pleased with the service just costs an arm and leg. 66.91 a month..

You have accurately described the pros and cons of satellite service, which we have. It is definitely better than dial up but no competitor for DSL or cable. The one trouble you didn't mention is snow (which can pack the dish) or sleet (which can coat the dish and, like snow, drop the signal strength to 0.

Updated my wife's Garmin GPS and the size of the download kicked us into the speed-limited, data cap BS. But they don't give you credit when the speed slows to a crawl (usually) or drops out completely (almost every time there's a rain storm anywhere nearby). Only option for rural use but I wish we could move, it sucks so bad. (WildBlue)

I've used Hughesnet for about 4 years now and their claimed download speeds are greatly exagerated. With the exception of three to four hours daily (3-7AM), my downloads are not much better than dial-up.
I am about to switch to the new Exede service.I've talked to a local installer who claims they are much faster.Just going to have to hope and pray for the best. Right now it takes forever to download a photo, and watching a video is impossible.

I had the sad experience, of being a Hughesnet customer, for about eight years. The most aggravating issue, was the customer service, handled from Pakistan. All they knew to do, was read from a list, so no one would truly listen to your problem, nor would anything get resolved.
The second problem, was the large swings in download speeds, the reasons having to do with peak usage times. Sadly, that coincided with coming home from work (about 5:30 PM). Of course, over the years, interactive websites and video downloads became more prevalent and therefore added to the bandwidth usage. So did the Microsoft updates, pushing me closer to the dreaded FAP ( fair access policy ). Even upgrading to the highest consumer level available, soon didn't matter and the FAP was reached. Now, they don't just throttle you back, mind you. Once you are under FAP, download speed is reduced to less than dial up, way below 55k.
They then came up with allowing one to purchase "get out of FAP" tokens at $10 a pop, usually I would be forced to get 2 a month, that would bring the bill to around $120.
When calling for assistance, I was told to turn my internet off, to safe money and bandwidth! Really?? When I wanted to know, if there would be any other options, or service level I could pick, willing to pay a little more, I was advised, that I was actually getting more, due to being grandfathered under "the old" plan. None of their new plans, would give me over 20GB. As far as speed is concerned, I never ever got "up to" 15 Mbps, ever!
They may have different plans or better customer service now, I don't know. My experience was dismal and we parted ways 2 years ago. Now have a Verizon MiFi, don't get 4G out here in Upstate New York, but 3G does work. Customer service is exceptional and in clear English. Still not cable class and speed, but better than dial up, sadly the only solution available to Rural inhabitants.

I'm at present on holiday on a little island 600k off the Oz coast where satellite broadband is the only option. From an article in the local news sheet the other problem apart from those you've mentioned is that one is at the mercy of the provider - and if their installation job is less than terrific bad luck. Caveat emptor if you do have a choice. I've found it a bit slow and unreliable - took several tries to get into this site for instance, so very difficult if you really rely on it.

My sister lived in Spain, relied on Satallite for football on TV. The spanish watching in a nearby bar, were cheering a goal Before she knew that an attempt was being made !!!!!

Satellite Internet is moderately fast; consumer data plans range up to 15 Mbps. so i m Love it keep up the good work HughesNet.