# satellite internet



## labrat (Jun 3, 2005)

Until recently, we lived in town and had the luxury of cable internet. We now live out in the county where we love our life, however, we are on DSL and we are at the end of the service area. Thus, our high speed internet is not so high speed. Does anyone have any experience with satellite internet? Any response, positive or negative will be helpful. Which service do you use?



In advance, thanks.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

You're better off crippling along with what you've got. Satellite Internet can download large files quickly, but it's sluggish for web browsing and unsatisfactory for VoIP.


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## Rakkasan (Sep 27, 2008)

labrat said:


> Until recently, we lived in town and had the luxury of cable internet. We now live out in the county where we love our life, however, we are on DSL and we are at the end of the service area. Thus, our high speed internet is not so high speed. Does anyone have any experience with satellite internet? Any response, positive or negative will be helpful. Which service do you use?
> 
> In advance, thanks.


If you have DSL you are far above satellite speeds. Depending on what you are paying for, DSL speeds are more than enough for most websites.

With even the basic DSL, you should not have any real delay accessing Web Sites.

It is possible that you have some issues with your phone line. If that is the case you will have to determine if it is inside wiring or outside wiring. If the problems are in the phone company lines, you need to call them and say your having problems. 

Actually either way, you should call your phone company/internet provider and give a complaint.

DSL even at the most basic rates gives virtualy instant access to most web sites.


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## Mechanic Intern (Jun 10, 2007)

Nevada said:


> You're better off crippling along with what you've got. Satellite Internet can download large files quickly, but it's sluggish for web browsing and unsatisfactory for VoIP.


not to mention that they generally have VERY strict traffic limits (hughesnet has 500MB for their best plan @ close to $350/mo, excluding the 200 for equipment purchase). I don't recommend satelite any more than I'd recommend ISDN (lord have mercy, that's slow). Instead, I'd see about getting wireless broadband through someone like sprint, verizon, att, etc... I don't exactly like the latter 2 because they tend to be VERY shoddy in their service, and they put adverts out that are completely false. Anyhow, just puttin that out there.


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## Rakkasan (Sep 27, 2008)

Mechanic Intern said:


> not to mention that they generally have VERY strict traffic limits (hughesnet has 500MB for their best plan @ close to $350/mo, excluding the 200 for equipment purchase). I don't recommend satelite any more than I'd recommend ISDN (lord have mercy, that's slow). Instead, I'd see about getting wireless broadband through someone like sprint, verizon, att, etc... I don't exactly like the latter 2 because they tend to be VERY shoddy in their service, and they put adverts out that are completely false. Anyhow, just puttin that out there.


Well she said that she is at the very end of DSL and they can have some problems with signal on the edge of their limits. ISDN is far slower than DSL even though they both use a digital signal. 

DSL, if it works, is going to give you better performace than any of the "Wireless Broadband" carriers. Wireless Broadband if it is available is going to give you better performance than any Satelite.

Its a pain in the grits, but if you have DSL you should be able to get better performance than anything short of Cable in your area. I think you should call your DSL provider and see if they can clear your line and make it work right.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Mechanic Intern said:


> not to mention that they generally have VERY strict traffic limits (hughesnet has 500MB for their best plan @ close to $350/mo, excluding the 200 for equipment purchase).


Yeah, I used to have Hughes and the Fair Access Policy (FAP) was no more than 160mb/hour, but they used to FAP me of I reached 150mb/hour. Their excuse was that it wasn't them who was violating the contract, it was their software that was doing it.

:stars:

While I, of course, have no problem with them using software to administrate their contractual obligations, they are solely responsible for anything that software does.


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## OntarioMan (Feb 11, 2007)

I once had a DSL connection at the end of a run - it was a nightmare - not only was speed extremely slow for a DSL connection, it was extremely unreliable. After talking with various technicians from various companies, they all said the same thing - not much can be done when the distance is too great.

As some other have mentioned - I'd look into wireless before I went to satellite. Wireless providers often concentrate on areas just outside of DSL and cable boundaries, since there will still be a fairly high concentration of people in those areas - potential customers. Wireless equipment is also far cheaper than the equipment required for satellite.



labrat said:


> Until recently, we lived in town and had the luxury of cable internet. We now live out in the county where we love our life, however, we are on DSL and we are at the end of the service area. Thus, our high speed internet is not so high speed. Does anyone have any experience with satellite internet? Any response, positive or negative will be helpful. Which service do you use?
> 
> 
> 
> In advance, thanks.


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## chickenmommy (Aug 24, 2004)

This is probably of no help at all, but before broadband I had Net Zero high speed. I couldn't watch a video on u tube without pauses, but page to page was as quick as broadband. Downloads were obviously slower, but if I had to give up my broadband I would go back to Net Zero without hesitation.


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## redroving (Sep 28, 2005)

I live in the country and out of range of DSL or cellular service so all I had is dialup at 28.8 kb speed. I just found SkyWay USA that is phone out and satellite back so it sped me up to 256kb so a noticeable improvement. I just got it so not able to say how reliable it is so far. My phone line is very bad and have had to get service out on old wiring down the street (1 mile away that affects me). Anyway except for a few times not getting on the speed is vastly improved and can now allow photos and pictures to download. Before I had to go into advanced and uncheck the show pictures mode.
I have their lesser package at $29.95/mo so not bad in pricing for an improvement on my speed.


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## plumbersfriend (Jul 8, 2008)

I would also recommend wireless rather than going to satellite. I had Hughes Net and boy, was it slow. If it rained or the wind blew you might not have service at all. I live in New Mexico, so the wind blows about 80% of the time. I live too far out for DSL, so went with wireless and for about half the price of Hughes Net, I have great service. Their tower is on a mountain about 5 miles from my house. If you can find wireless, it is definitely the way to go.


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## Willowynd (Mar 27, 2005)

I have hughes net and though it is much faster than dial-up and I really do not have issues with the speed of most pages loading or files downloading on most days- there are occassions it is slow. Really cloudy days I notice the difference- but it is still as fast or faster than dial up during those times. I get lots of wind here because I sit in a very high spot and never had wind knock out my service even though I have roof top mount. Maybe installation is the difference. That said, it is way more reliable than my dial-up used to be. I can count maybe 3 times I have been down completely on satelitte in the 2 yrs I have had it. I got rid of my landline because the service would go out whenever it would rain it seemed. I now have cell phones and satelitte internet and rarely have an outage. The part I hate though is that ----ed FAP policy- it is over 20 MB per hour on my plan (the cheapest) that throws you into FAP land. My son or husband would do some downloads or updates and throw us over- and they will NOT take it off (say they can't) no matter what. I know that my geek neighbor was hitting into my connection and threw me over a few times too. So you definately need a high security router with a complicated password to safe guard against that. Once on FAP it is slower than dial up. I used to get 256k with no problems on my land line, so that is what I am comparing to. I have looked into DSL/highspeed in my area and the one company that service my area came out and said they could not get a signal- even though the tower was about a mile down the road. My trees were too tall and blocked it. So I am stuck until something or someone better comes along.


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