Satellite Internet Anyone??

I looked into it but the latency on the connection is just way too high. Even with decent advertized download speeds, the latency makes it feel sluggish. My recommendation is to look into a mobile broadband connection or fixed wireless service if you can get it. If nothing is available, Satellite will definitely be better than dialup.

About four and a half years ago, I went with 3G broadband from Verizon Wireless (averaged ~1.5 megs down, 384 up), and then last January I upgraded to one of their 4G LTE cards (reliably 15 megs down, 5 up). The only problem with VZW was the monthly bandwidth limits. It wasn't too hard to stay under them (for just regular home use), but it was still a little annoying. I think the satellite providers have some bandwidth limits too that aren't much different than VZW.

Last month, I realized that a company in my area is providing a point-to-point fixed wireless service, and had expanded their coverage so that they could now provide me service. About two weeks ago switched to their service, and have been pretty happy so far. This new service is 4 megs down, 1 meg up. Not as fast as the LTE modem, but it's unlimited.

If I weren't working from home now, I would have kept the LTE connection since it's faster, but I was going way over my data allowance and it was getting expensive.

-SF

I have had Wildblue since I moved into the woods here in 2006. I had cable where I used to live and loved that, but no DSL or cable back here. I got it with realistic expectations, and aside from some equipment issues eraly on, I am happy with the performance for the most part. It sure beats dial up. On heavy wet snows, once in a while I do have to go out on the roof and clean the dish off. I assume any satellite is going to have that issue, although I don't have a problem with the Direct TV dish. They are separate with the Wildblue having it's own dish.
The bandwidth limit sucks, but I have only gone over once, and that was from my ex's daughter downloading videos all weekend. Need less to say I was pissed as I work from home and have to send files out all the time.
Took like 3 weeks for the speed to get back to normal, but they are changing that also. I have the business plan with limits of 17 down, 5 up. Its usually the down that gets used more, as I watch youtube, videos, listen to music etc.

The good news: Wildblue has merged with Viastat and they just launched the most powerful satellite there is in space. They say it is (supposedly)more powerful then all the other put together. So I will be staying with Wildblue unless cable or DSL comes back here. All the satellite internet providers are fairly expensive. My plan is $79.95 per month. Prolly stick with the comparative when I get on the new bird. The new top one is $129.00 a month I think, and you can watch movies, netflix etc on that one. I have not need for that. They supposedly are going to be working on the VOIP capability also.

Not sure about gaming, I used to be able to play less demanding online games,. but they raised the ping and hosed that. With the new bird, gaming will be possible, but due to latency, unless your playing against other satellite players, you will be way behind and at a huge disadvantage, and be dead most the time.

My neighbor's kid had the wireless, and said it ain't no better than satellite back here, same connection, weather issues etc. Mine will go out in real bad storms, and since my beam originates in Texas, I can have great weather here and still lose it once in a while when Texas or down south is getting pounded by bad weather. All in all, its not bad, and better than dial up.
The other issue with wireless is the bandwidth limit is far less than satellite i think. I need what I have for work.

Hope this helped.
Good luck.

Here is a link to Viastat & info on the new bird & pricing.
http://www.viasat.com/news/announcing-exedesm-viasat-12-mbps-high-speed-broadband-service-for-50

I was also wondering agbout the satalite service. I have verison and had them when it was alltel so I have unlimited
data that verison don't offer now. It's OK but still get some buffering on videos due to signal strength. I think
verison allows 5,000,000 kb last month we osed 7,500,000 so I'd hate to see what the overage would have been had it not been unlimited. No 4 G towers close to here yet, but coming soon.

Co-worker who lives out in the willywags went with Wildblue . . . when I was exploring options I asked him about it . . . he said it compared pretty favorably in terms of speed to DSL here at work although he did say it was just a tad slower, but a heckuva lot better than dial up.

i had wildblue for a few yrs. it is better than dial up, but not close to dsl. i started getting us cellular service and got their internet and it is over 2x fast than wildblue and cheaper. if you get cell phone service you can probably get their internet.

We are lucky to have a sprint tower near us, supposedly slated for 4g in 2014. 3g works pretty well but not for streaming movies. Doesn't seem right the cable co's get franchises but aren't required to go for more than the low hanging fruit.

Have had Wildblue for about 2yrs. Like the others have said, better than dialup, nowhere near cable. Really has been pretty reliable, much better than
the Dish TV which goes out whenever it rains hard or snows. Can't watch videos without stopping for loading every 10 - 15 seconds. Service really slows down at peak usage times. Have most basic service and no limit issues so far, but don't download much.
Would only recommend if its your only choice other than dial up (as is here-damn!).

Had Wildblue for 4 years. Better than dial up but expensive. We had their top plan when our teenage sons were living at home. We constantly hit our monthly download threshold which slowed the speed down to a crawl. We switched to a company here that started a wireless service which is much faster, no limits, for half the price.

We had Hughes net for a while. We got rid of it, as it was the most over priced junk we had ever used.

Had HughesNet for 3 yrs as it was the only thing available. I hated it. Then we got a wireless connection....way better. Then DSL opened up in our area and it's just awesome.

I had Wild Blue for years until a wireless provider came into town--absolutely hated it. It was slow (a little better than dial-up, but not much), expensive ($70 a month for the middle range plan) and the customer service was absolutely horrible. For what it is worth, my brother-in-law had Hughes net and found that to be marginally better, especially their bandwidth policy. If you can get a wireless connection go for it.

The only problem with wireless if the bandwidth caps suck., much worse than Wildblue or HN
Great for surfing, not for sending and receiving large files for work.

wetwood said:

Had Wildblue for 4 years. Better than dial up but expensive. We had their top plan when our teenage sons were living at home. We constantly hit our monthly download threshold which slowed the speed down to a crawl. We switched to a company here that started a wireless service which is much faster, no limits, for half the price.

Click to expand...

I ahve never heard of a wireless company with no broadband limits. Who are you using?

Havnd teco. It's a small area phone company. A tornado took out their old wireless system a few years ago. They recently replaced it with a new system. The new system is only serving something like 5% of it's customer capacity so maybe that's why no caps. Don't know that much about bandwidth speed but here is the results of a speed test I just did:

Download Speed: 6113 kbps (764.1 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 969 kbps (121.1 KB/sec transfer rate)

Don't know how good that is but it's way faster than anything I ever got with Wildblue and half the price.

Edit: Like I said I don't know that much about bandwidth so I could have used the term no limits wrong in my first post. :shut: I'm sure if a customer used an ungodly amount of bandwidth they would make you move up to a business account.