Satellite Internet

[Pushing_Tin]

Have tried looking into Verizons or ATT mobile broadband? We have Verizon Mobile broadband in the boonies but get four bars on signal strenght and get download speeds of up to three megs. Cost is 59.99 a month. Not bad for us since it came with a free mini laptop and will work almost anywhere in the us.

This is what my dad ended up doing. He had hughesnet for a few years and HATED them. Since AT&T dropped a 3G cell tower nearby he got an aircard and now he averages over 2mpbs a second. Satellite is better than nothing, but not by much.

 

[Western]

Have tried looking into Verizons or ATT mobile broadband? We have Verizon Mobile broadband in the boonies but get four bars on signal strenght and get download speeds of up to three megs. Cost is 59.99 a month. Not bad for us since it came with a free mini laptop and will work almost anywhere in the us.

Same thing we have done. Only thing I don't like about verizon is the 5g monthly limit, then it gets expensive...

 

[Jriffe108]

Any one have Wild blue or Hughes net Internet service around south Texas area ? How are they ??

Howdy there,

I had wild blue for a little over a year in south Texas, Saint Hedwig to be exact.

Bottom line, it sucked. Outages half the time, the other half never obtained anything close to the 1.5 Meg speed I paid for. Speedtests indicated less than a Meg, around .80-.90m most of the time with a 1200-2000ms ping time. Absolute junk
Also, they have a 17g download cap which is BS.

If you have cell phone coverage, go with virgin mobile, they have unlimited data plan now with no contract. It uses sprints network. Also try clear if you are in they're coverage area.

 

[scoutcub]

Another vote against Hughesnet. Just bought a home in Ohio with a Hughes dish on it....talked to the seller who discouraged me from getting it. Said it was very slow and expensive. Went with Verizon mifi and although somewhat slow, much better than satellite.
good luck!

 

[framer]

Look up pixius they use small antenna to pick up from towers rather from
satellite.Works great. It is a small company set up to serve rule areas.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I had Wild Blue for three years in the PNW. They always delivered the download speed they sold me. I don't download lots of videos, so never got close to the download limit. For web browsing, it's very similar to dialup because of the delay imposed by the speed of light. Every handshake (two round trips to orbit) requires half a second, and some web pages need a dozen handshakes to load. Photos, software upgrades, etc. download rapidly. It's great to be able to install your own router to share the connection among multiple computers.

I bought the 512k service for $49 a month. By the time I switched to DSL, that was getting pretty slow for streaming video. I would recommend the 1 Mb service. Don't expect to hook it to your satellite receiver to download movies, because your bandwidth limit is going to be about two feature length movies a month.

I rarely had trouble with weather outages, but Oregon clouds don't have the water content that Gulf clouds have.

You should also look into tethering your cell phone as an internet modem, if you have 3G service at your house. That has the advantage that if you use a laptop, you can have a high speed internet connection anywhere you can get cell service. I use the browser on my Blackberry in both WiFi and 3G mode, and there isn't much difference between the two. An unlimited cell phone data plan will cost about the same as a 1 Mb satellite connection, but you would have to live without a router and being able to share the connection. Air cards do the same thing without the cell phone.

 

[Rocksprings]

I had Wild Blue for three years in the PNW. They always delivered the download speed they sold me. I don't download lots of videos, so never got close to the download limit. For web browsing, it's very similar to dialup because of the delay imposed by the speed of light. Every handshake (two round trips to orbit) requires half a second, and some web pages need a dozen handshakes to load. Photos, software upgrades, etc. download rapidly. It's great to be able to install your own router to share the connection among multiple computers.

I bought the 512k service for $49 a month. By the time I switched to DSL, that was getting pretty slow for streaming video. I would recommend the 1 Mb service. Don't expect to hook it to your satellite receiver to download movies, because your bandwidth limit is going to be about two feature length movies a month.

I rarely had trouble with weather outages, but Oregon clouds don't have the water content that Gulf clouds have.

You should also look into tethering your cell phone as an internet modem, if you have 3G service at your house. That has the advantage that if you use a laptop, you can have a high speed internet connection anywhere you can get cell service. I use the browser on my Blackberry in both WiFi and 3G mode, and there isn't much difference between the two. An unlimited cell phone data plan will cost about the same as a 1 Mb satellite connection, but you would have to live without a router and being able to share the connection. Air cards do the same thing without the cell phone.

I only have excellent AT&T cell phone reception. Does this mean I have AT&T 3G reception also ? What you say is what I had in mind about using the cell phone to pick up the Internet and somehow plug it into my laptop to view the bigger screen.
Haven'T herd one thing positive about satellite Internet.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I have hughesnet (many yrs) and a verizon MIFI(10 months). Hughesnet, while not perfect, is much better than dialup and is even faster than the MIFI. I used to have the Earthlink branded version of Hughesnet, and used to never get FAPed. Earthlink has turned it over to hughesnet, who lowered my monthly cost $10, but now I get FAPed a lot. Matter of fact, two days ago, while my Hughesnet was down for about 20+ hours due to the rain storm, when it came back, I was FAP'ed. I tried to call customer support, but after a failed call transfer, I gave up trying to find out why. Fortunately my MIFI was still working during the rainstorm, because yesterday my mifi went belly up and won't work at all. Hughesnet does offer higher bandwidth options. If you can get DSL, it will be better.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I only have excellent AT&T cell phone reception. Does this mean I have AT&T 3G reception also ? What you say is what I had in mind about using the cell phone to pick up the Internet and somehow plug it into my laptop to view the bigger screen.
Haven'T herd one thing positive about satellite Internet.

No, having good cell phone reception does not guarantee the high speed data 3G link. Have somebody with a Blackberry or iPhone come over and see if you get 3G. On my Blackberry Bold 9000, it will say 3G right at the top of the screen if the high speed data connection is available.

You tether the computer to the cell phone with a USB cable, and the cell phone acts as a wireless modem. AT&T does have the service available for the Blackberry, which is going to cost you about as much as the satellite dish. ($200)

Satellite internet is the last resort for broadband. I don't get cell service at my house, and nobody is ever going to string cable down my road. The phone company finally offered DSL, and I switched in a heartbeat. After it was set up and working, they found out I don't qualify because I am too far from the switch, but I already had it. At the best I get 1.2 mbps and 190ms ping times. If I had cell service, I could do better with wireless data.

Besides the cell phone, you should look into an aircard. I doubt it would cost any more. You just slip it into the PCMCIA slot in your laptop.

 

[rekees4300]

Looked at the Verizon and ATT coverage maps. Rocksprings is not covered by Verizon. The ATT coverage is the following (not 3G):

"EDGE/GPRS: The areas shown in the medium blue represent AT&T owned GSM network providing Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution with typical speeds of 75 to 135 kbps, advanced mobile services like video and music clips, full picture & video messaging, high-speed color Internet access, and email on the move are possible."