Well, unlike most lucky enough to have "true cable" (or unlucky enough depending on your luck with your cable provider) we are stuck in the boonies, where most of the responses from the Sprint C.O. are "DSwhat" and the cable company around here just recently added MTV to their lineup and has plans to add a "WHOLE T-1" to provide Internet access within the next 2 years(progess, I'm telling you)
We are the proud parents of an oversized piece of plasic that has the latency of a pair of tin cans with a string between them. Starband is a decent system if noting else is available, but if a gnat passes wind within a 200 square mile radius, the signal drops for a second. When StarBand works, it works great, however it is much better at not working than it is at working.
When the tech did the initial install and the LOS preview, we found out that the dish had to be pole mounted at near the center of the back yard. Most of the wire was run underground, then through the basement. The problem arose when the wire exited the basement and started up the side of the house. This being a much older house, the foundation is a bit weak, and initially the two wires (one RX, one TX) were "tacked" to the side of the house at foundation level. Within days the wires fell to the ground, and we have kept the pushed to the side, out of the way of feet, cat teeth, and vicious lawnmowers.
The woman who normally cuts our grass, had a helper yesterday who did a wonderful job. Not only did he succeed in chopping out TX line in half, but also in mowing down a nice sized rose bush. That takes skill, I'm tellin' ya.
Luckily an emergency call to the tech last night, who happens to be a close business associate, got him here at 0845EST today. He ran a temp splice and screwed the cables down to the side of the house. He should be back within a week to re-run the feed due to possible line-noise and signal degredation due to the splice.
You would think, at least, I would think, that if one were cutting grass, they would keep an eye on the ground and make sure they are not running over anything... ya know, wires, rose bushes, large rocks, their own feet...
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