What do you think of DiRECWAY satelite broadband?

[MrHappyMonkey]

At my father's office, DSL or cable is not availble. The only option that we have that seems _mildly_ inexpensive is DiRECWAY satelite broadband. here is a link to their pricing and specs for their service.

Anybody used or have any experience with the service? Can you think of any other options for broadband service for a relitivly small office (about 5 people who would be using the net connection throughout the day)?

 

[Tallgeese]

Does anyone offer fixed wireless in the area for businesses? That can be a good option, if the ISP is reliable, etc. etc.

Here is what I've seen with satellite broadband

- HUGE latency (gaming is OUT...which I realize is not in play here)
- Good download speed
- Can be affected by weather
- 2-way (what DirectWay uses) is better than 1-way (which ties up a phone line for uploads and requests)

After looking at the posted specs, the only thing that REALLY bothers me about DirectWay is the fact that it REQUIRES a USB port.
Which means no RJ-45 connection, which means no direct networking, which means software-based proxy on a PC (running a 32-bit Win OS, also a requirement) = blech.

Not a great way to share a connection in my experience, but for the size you are talking about, it might be OK.

g/l

 

[n0cmonkey]

FAP

I hope you dont plan on downloading a lot.

Fair Access Policy

To ensure equal Internet access for all DIRECWAY subscribers, Hughes Network Systems maintains a running average fair access policy. Fair access establishes an equitable balance in Internet access across Turbo Internet services by service plan for all DIRECWAY customers regardless of their frequency or traffic usage. To ensure this equity, customers may experience some temporary throughput limitations. DIRECWAY Internet access is not guaranteed. This policy applies to all service plans including "Unlimited" plans where customers' use of the service is not limited to a specific number of hours per month

Hughes Network Systems is a horrible company. Their "tech support" (based in Atlanta, GA last I heard (I would have lost my job because of the move out of my area to GA if I hadnt gotten fired first)) is full of morons, but atleast in the newer location they can speak English. The tech support company is the Sitel Corporation, which also does some tech support for Palm (Wisconsin (used to be Herndon with a long distance number to Chicago)), AOL, ATT (worldcom?), Capital One, and several other big name companies.

The billing dept sucks. They would terminate your service but continue to charge you. They will take every dime they can out of you, provide half-assed or no-assed service, and screw up anything they can. Their software (for DirecPC which is the 1-way satellite service) had buggy software which could easily bring a system down. They take forever to write drivers (win2k drivers came out in 2001 I believe).

FAP is another nasty little thing. I tested FAP with their 1 way systems and it can hit at any time. Even on the company machines (I used to work tech support for DTV and later DPC).

alt.satellite.direcpc for more information

 

[MrHappyMonkey]

hmm... so what is the exact reason for FAP? The net conneciton will not be doing alot of heavy downloading, just normal surfing, and e-mailing. Occational use from PC-anywhere woudl happen at nights.

From what I have read from ther newsgroup, I dunno if this is the correct solution.

Are there any other decent satelite broadband ISPSs out there, or any other alternatives?

 

[dexter333]

One of my friends is at his grandparents house in Texas right now. His connection is really slow then it starts to rain and it gets even slower. He's hating it right now. On Tuesday I'm going to a LAN party and he's going to attempt to play us over the 'net. If the latency is too bad he might try dialup. We'll see. Try fixed wireless or a T1. I've seen them for about 250-300 a month here in San Diego.

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< hmm... so what is the exact reason for FAP? >>



I dont have the numbers right off (they were estimations at best anyhow), but it boils down to not enough bandwidth to cover the number of users. People were downloading a lot (like anyone with broadband does really) and all of the connections were slow. People began to complain and FAP was introduced. Download a lot (subjective term really) and you get FAPed. They will cut your bandwidth in half if you are lucky, they will let it trickle to less than 56k speeds if you are not.



<< The net conneciton will not be doing alot of heavy downloading, just normal surfing, and e-mailing. Occational use from PC-anywhere woudl happen at nights. >>



PC-Anywhere might be a pain with the latency.



<< From what I have read from ther newsgroup, I dunno if this is the correct solution. >>



Its a good resource for finding out what customers really think. alt.satellite.direcpc was started up to complain about DirecPC.

Lloyd Parsons Goober Darrel Toepfer and David Graham were the people I remember dealing with the most in the newsgroups. They knew what was going on. I dont think they would mind me telling you to do searches on groups.google.com for their names and read some of their posts. Im not sure if they are still active, but a couple of them were long time DPC users.



<< Are there any other decent satelite broadband ISPSs out there, or any other alternatives? >>



EchoStar was one I have heard about, but I dont know how good they are. Microsoft was also supposed to release their own satellite broadband alternative...

EDIT: Just wanted to throw in this link. It discusses FAP. (Doesnt start at the beginning of that thread.)

dexter333, dont even bother. Try an EASY 800ms ping time. Thats to yahoo.com, not to a game server

 

[DapperDpm]

From a personal point of view i do not beleive that DirecWay broadband service meets up to its expectation, atleast not yet. It is still somewhat a brand new technology and spending alost $900 for installation does not justfy 300k to 400k download speeds(assuming that you get the full download speed).

 

[dexter333]

Whoa n0cmonkey. I knew pings would be bad, but not THAT bad. That's horrible. Why do people put up with that?

 

[Tallgeese]

<< Whoa n0cmonkey. I knew pings would be bad, but not THAT bad. That's horrible. Why do people put up with that? >>

Having only one option will make people put up with HORRIFIC things.

Case in point....M$

 

[n0cmonkey]

<<

<< Whoa n0cmonkey. I knew pings would be bad, but not THAT bad. That's horrible. Why do people put up with that? >>

Having only one option will make people put up with HORRIFIC things.

Case in point....M$ >>



Thats basically it. Many of the people I talked to about DirecPC did not have phone lines going to their house. They used some kind of phone radio thingy (I dont know, I tried not to talk about it).

But 800ms was about average from what I remember. On DirecPC the data had to go something like 22k miles into the sky, and then back down. Now it has to do that twice...