Directv vs. Dishnetwork

[RAllen]

Bird
If you do not have another choice, Sat system is an OK atternative. Be prepared for outages- They have a bad habit of doing maintenance during business hours. Another small problem, at least for those of us living in the north, is the sat dish is white. It attracts ice and snow does not melt easily.

The two way system requires professional installation. It is VERY hard to capture a good signal on the sat.

Let us know how it works. Its better than what you know have but do not trust "sales". Look at your agreement carefully, I bet they do not guarantee any speed. On regular downloads the system will automatically slow you down after the first couple of MBs. This is done by lowering your priority on the download.

One last thing. During the beta and up until a coupe of months ago. Two-way speeds, uploads, never approached 128bps. The best I saw was in the 80-90bps and the other testers had similiar experiences.

Goodluck, remember its still better than a modem line.


Rick

 

[TerryinMD]

RAllen,

From what I've been able to research, your statement is very true. That goes for both two-way satellite systems.

For the average Internet user, two-way satellite systems are a good alternative if you live "in the sticks". A nice was of saying DSL providers don't want to service your area. DSL is not cheap to install for all carriers. Not to get into geeky specifics, DSL needs a couple of pieces of hardware to go between you, the phone lines, CO, and finally into the Internet. The cost of the equipment and the pipes in-between is expensive.

Also, you may have read about distances from the CO. That is one of the biggest determining factors in the bandwidth you finally receive. The farther you're away from the CO, the lower the bandwidth available.

You might be better off with a two-way dish rather than DSL due to the distance to the CO. Be careful when buying into DSL, make sure that you are getting decent bandwidth for the money. DSL providers have different tiers depending upon the bandwidth you buy. However, you may sign up fro 760kbs and get 380kbps due to the distance to the CO.

Now if you were to order a T1 line to your house, you would use the same wire as DSL. But you would be guaranteed your 1.544mbs. The difference is in the technologies. DSL is a poor mans T1.

Terry

 

[MikePA]

<font color=blue>Now if you were to order a T1 line to your house, you would use the same wire as DSL. But you would be guaranteed your 1.544mbs. The difference is in the technologies. </font color=blue>

And the price /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif, for you non-techy lurkers out there.

 

[Bird]

In the sticks? You better believe it; in fact, they call this area Brushie Prairie./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif I don't think I'm much more than 15 miles from the CO, but since this old system wasn't profitable for GTE, they finally sold it to Valor Telecom, which I'll bet you never heard of./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif Anyway, I think I'll drag my feet a bit before I try a satellite system./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[MossRoad]

Talk your brother into it? Did you get him into alot of trouble when you were kids, too? /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

<font color=green> MossRoad </font color=green>

 

[TerryinMD]

Mike,

I kept away from the pricing. No sense in causing anyone to have heart failure. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Terry

 

[MikePA]

Terry,

Good idea, avoiding the price. But the thought of a T1 into my house instead of 'just' DSL makes my mouth water almost as much as one of those deep fried turkeys Bird was talking about the other day!

 

[Bird]

<font color=blue>Did you get him into alot of trouble when you were kids, too?</font color=blue>

Nope, he didn't need any help./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif But he thinks even less of our phone company and ISP than I do, and besides, he's a sucker for new gadgets./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

 

[TerryinMD]

Mike,

Let me tell you a little story.....

A few years back (less than two!!), people (not me) who had to provide tecnical network support got T1 lines, routers, hubs, and servers installed into their homes. Just in case you had to correct a network outage during off hours. They had free range to use it as they please otherwise.... /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif That has gone by the wayside with current economic times.

A few years of T1 access cut back to dial-up modem, oh, unless you wish to pay for the service. /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif/w3tcompact/icons/mad.gif

Terry

 

[MikePA]

Terry,

We've always paid for a second phone line for support people but that's it. If they go to DSL, etc. we still only pay for the cost of a second phone line.

Mike