Need opinions on satellite internet

[ScottyB]

My mom needs to get higher speed internet (than their modem connection) and satellite internet is their only option.

My mom does mostly bills, but I could see her getting into youtube type websites with faster internet. My dad needs to do some video-based training for his work.

Which company is better for their needs? Hughes or WildBlue?

Hughes has a daily limit of 200 mb, and WildBlue has a monthly one of 7000 mb. I don't know which ends up better in practice. WildBlue theoretically has a bigger monthly allowance, but could be a problem getting dropped in speed for however many days.

 

[TwiceOver]

Did you check to see if there was a WISP in your area rather than satellite?

 

[ScottyB]

Originally posted by: TwiceOver
Did you check to see if there was a WISP in your area rather than satellite?

It's an $800 start up cost for the local one.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: ScottyB

Originally posted by: TwiceOver
Did you check to see if there was a WISP in your area rather than satellite?

It's an $800 start up cost for the local one.

i came in here to suggest the same thing...but christ, thats steep. i wonder how the hell they can even get customers with that kind of price. is that with an install and a service contract?

 

[ScottyB]

Originally posted by: xSauronx

Originally posted by: ScottyB

Originally posted by: TwiceOver
Did you check to see if there was a WISP in your area rather than satellite?

It's an $800 start up cost for the local one.

i came in here to suggest the same thing...but christ, thats steep. i wonder how the hell they can even get customers with that kind of price. is that with an install and a service contract?

* $50.00 Startup Fee and $100.00 Install Fee applies to all services


require equipment costing between $700.00 and $1,200.

 

[amdskip]

Contact them and ask if you can supply your own equipment.

 

[SphinxnihpS]

lovely latency with satellite

 

[KMFJD]

Couple of youtube videos and you've reached your daily cap and are back to dail up speeds, satellite internet is unfortunately over priced/slow/restrictive and the only alternative for a lot of rural areas...

 

[thecoolnessrune]

Originally posted by: KMFJD
Couple of youtube videos and you've reached your daily cap and are back to dail up speeds, satellite internet is unfortunately over priced/slow/restrictive and the only alternative for a lot of rural areas...

What? I had satellite internet for 3 years. And yeah, (DirecWay before it was HughesNet). It was a pain in the ass with the download caps. But you could watch nearly 2 hours worth of youtube videos before hitting the 200MB cap. I had it back when it was a 125MB cap. The thing is that it is limited to 200MB in a 14 hour period most likely. But the benefit is that even when you're capped, it's only for about an hour, then you're brought back up to normal speed as long as you dont start downloading heavily again.

I would personally due WildBlue. My Uncle has it and it tends to work pretty well for them, and has fewer outages than when we had DirecWay. Plus, it will be nice to be able to download that certain large file when you want to and still be conservative the rest of the month, unlike DirecWay where any file over 200MB is simply off limits to you.

Still, I would give WISP a look. Satellite solved the issue between the three year period of having 3 computers and being stuck with either dialup (impossible), or satellite. (we didn't get broadband options till 2006). You can't play any sort of multiplayer games. I remember reverting to using my neighbors dialup account while he was at work simply because it had better latency in games than Satellite. (he was ok with it btw ). But if you aren't doing any sort of gaming or constant high download instances, than Satellite will be fine for what they need.

EDIT: I will say though that the high latency of satellite does take away alot of the "zippy" feel of broadband. Pages don't load that much quicker really, they just come up all at once rather than a few pieces at a time. The only place they'll see a difference is in videos. Web pages themselves wont really load any faster believe me.

 

[TwiceOver]

Originally posted by: ScottyB

Originally posted by: xSauronx

Originally posted by: ScottyB

Originally posted by: TwiceOver
Did you check to see if there was a WISP in your area rather than satellite?

It's an $800 start up cost for the local one.

i came in here to suggest the same thing...but christ, thats steep. i wonder how the hell they can even get customers with that kind of price. is that with an install and a service contract?

* $50.00 Startup Fee and $100.00 Install Fee applies to all services


require equipment costing between $700.00 and $1,200.

OUCH!. Our install is $199.99 and we retain equipment (since it is pretty much useless for anything else). $39.99/mo for 5/512.

Do they have a website, I'd like to check them out.