DirecWay satellite internet

Anonymous Poster · Mar 20, 2003

I will be moving to rural Alabama in the next couple of weeks, and I can't wait! However, one thing about city life that I am going to miss is DSL internet service. Can anyone shed some light on the DirecWay 2-way satellite internet service? Two-way is a must, since I upload large files in my business.

WVBill · Mar 20, 2003

See This thread

chrisjbell · Mar 20, 2003

I'm running it right now. I'm pretty happy with it, overall. No other way to get high speed access out here - the phone lines are lousy, so even if you think you could live with dialup I'd bet that you'd be lucky to get decent connection speeds.

But for uploading it isn't super fast. The "down" channel is quite speedy - I usually get in the neighborhood of 1Mb. Up is another story. Faster than dialup, but not much. I'd say it is still probably your best bet, but be aware that there is a huge difference between "up" and "down" (wow, that sounds kind of silly doesn't it /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif).

Hank · Mar 20, 2003

I've had DirecWay for a couple of months now, since moving to rural AZ.

As mentioned, there is a huge difference between up and down. There also appears to be a huge difference between night and day (well, between peak hours and off-peak hours).

I see speeds in these ranges:

off-peak:

1000-2000 Kbps down, 30-90Kbps up

peak:

150-500 Kbps down, 5-40 Kbps up

During peak hours the return channel can be much worse than dialup.

The biggest single thing I hate is the latency. Once you get a data stream moving, the speeds above apply, and this works well for http and ftp, but not for VPN or telnet or gaming.

On a LAN, latency is typically way less than 10ms. Go to a T1, and it can go from 10 up to 100ms depending on how far you are going. Dialup runs 150-250ms. The theoretical minimum latency you can get over a satellite return system is in the neighborhood of 650ms (due to the distance the signal has to travel). More realistically, you will see off-peak latency around 800-1000ms, and during peak it can surpass 2 seconds.

Couple of good online forums to check out, for lots of good info and tweaks:

DSL Reports satellite forum

Copperhead

Anonymous Poster · Mar 20, 2003

Thanks for the info.

How much are you guys paying per month, and what was your initial startup cost? Their website says the 2-way satellite link (as opposed to satellite download but dial-up upload) gives much faster uploads. But you're not seeing it on your setup?

Finally, if you had it to do over again, would you just go with a dial-up internet account, or is it really worth the money to go with the satellite?

Hank · Mar 21, 2003

<font color="purple"> Finally, if you had it to do over again, would you just go with a dial-up internet account, or is it really worth the money to go with the satellite? </font>

I use both; dial-up for VPN access to the company's internal network is much better for interactive things like telnet or Windows networking GUI tools.

It all depends on what you need to do. It is very handy to be able to download files at 1-2 Mbps, or even to upload them at 70Kbps.

DirecWay is not cheap, $60/month (I think) for CE (consumer edition), and $90/month for BE (business edition). BE gives you a fixed IP address and a larger FAP bucket. If you download lots of stuff, FAP (fair access policy) can be an issue. CE gives you a 169MB FAP allowance; download more than that within an hour, and you get FAPped, and your speeds slow to a crawl for several hours. BE gives you a 500MB FAP allowance.

I think the equipment was $399, plus installation, plus $99 fee from DirecWay for starting up. A satellite return system has to be professionally installed. This is an FCC requirement, because you are transmitting to the sky, and with a slight mis-alignment you could interfere with other satellites.

chrisjbell · Mar 21, 2003

<font color="blue"> Finally, if you had it to do over again, would you just go with a dial-up internet account, or is it really worth the money to go with the satellite? </font>

I'd do it again, for sure. Dialup out where I live is really bad - the phone line infrastructure is old and we're a long way from the switch. Even getting a new line is difficult, as they are short on "pairs" - there simply isn't enough copper out here to service everyone. Anyway, when using dialup I rarely am able to connect at a decent speed - 14 is typical and if I get 26 I'm lucky.

Latency is an issue sometimes. I'm under the belief that if you keep a constant stream open by downloading a music channel, for instance, that the latency decreases. Could just be wishful thinking, but I don't usually see a huge hit (I don't think I've had a 2 second delay yet).

It is expensive, though. I just got mine installed a month or two ago. Equipment cost plus installation is nearly $600. That includes a new dish, the up and down adapters, and installation. Monthly cost for residential is $59. They are offering no interest financing where you pay an up front $99 and then $99 / mo. for both service and equipment for a year. Then your equipment is paid for and the rate goes back to the standard monthly charge.

You might want to try dialup before you make the plunge. But if you're used to DSL you'll be suffering with dialup, even if you're getting a good connection. However, it wouldn't require much of an investment and would probably be a good experiment. If you hate it, then you can do the Direcway thing (even if you have to buy a new modem and pay a monthly fee you should be able to come in under $50).

Don't forget that you're never going to get an upload speed of 70Kbps with dialup - the fastest that will give you is 33Kbps - or was it 52Kbps? - (don't think the FCC allows it to upload at 56, even if you are lucky enough to get that connect rate). I've seen mine hit over 100 up, and rarely less than 50 up. Beats dialup any day (for most things - the other comments have done well in noting shortcomings).