I live in a very rural area and have been on dialup forever. I am considering satellite internt. Does any one use this if so what brand and what has your experience been. Thanks
i havent used it..but some of my friends use it.. it isnt as fast as dsl or cable..but atleast better than dial ups...but then again..its kinda expensive.. if you really need it and dial up is bothering..then go ahead..with it..
The cost is the main problem. The speed has improved over the last few years but still is not as fast as cable.
no idea how it goes there... perhaps google is your friend? (found something like this by typing "Northern Vermont, USA satellite internet" to the search)
I visited a friend in Texas who is using satellite internet because it was the only option where he lives. It's slower than DSL or fiber (I've got Verizon FIOS - love it!) but definitely a lot faster than dialup. I think it costs around $100 per month.
Do a search on google for 'satellite internet vermont' , there are a number of listing there. Alternatively, look at your local newspapers, they should have some adverts for satellite internet too.
I had direcway and it sucked! Outages all the time, slow speeds. If it's cloudy, windy, rainy it can go out. They also have times when the sat itself in orbit is out of whack and they have no idea when it'll come back in. Plus they limit how much you can download, if you hit a limit that you have no real way of knowing about you get throttled and or totally cut off. It's basically impossible to download big files, you have to download a chunk with a download manager, wait until the next day and download another small chunk of it. If it's all you have I 'guess' it's ok, at times dial up was much better though. Ohyeah, HORRIBLE support.
My friend who tested for a year had connectivity issues with snow, rain, ... It is pretty maddening to have work to do and be knocked offline.
thas the problem with sat's..like rain..snow..and then if it gets disoriented even slightly..ure gonna ryn into issues... why dont u try for wifi?
I would have to agree with the past few posts. I had Directway when it was known as DirectPC. That was a few years ago before cable was avaialable in my area. (You could only download through the satellite then and had to upload through the phone line.) Service was poor at times; support was poor to horendous; and it was expensive even then. Additionally, and I didn't know it at the time, my computer would crash at least twice a month and I would have to reformat the entire computer. I dubbed my computer "the crash master". When I finally got rid of DirectPC for cable, my computer stopped crashing....appears DirectPC was conflicting with my virus program......it was a horrible experience. Jim
I have hughesnet now which used to be direcway. I have had it for about hmmm 5+ years. I have NO other option besides 28K dialup here so it really seems awesome here where I can't get cable etc. Yeah it goes out in storms and it is limited but over dialup I will take it any day. http://www.hughesnet.com The only other I know of is http://wildblue.com/ I haven't tried it and it's pretty new compared to direcway/hughesnet You can read some stuff at http://copperhead.cc but to enter the forums (which used to be free and are awesome and busy) you have to pay. I haven't paid yet as I was able to do all my investigating when the forum was free so I don't know what's in there now.
I have used a number of satellite internet services in the past. If you are on C-band satellite, rain/snow will degrade your service but if you are on KU-band, you will experience outages. Speed is entirely dependent on what bandwidth service you purchase. Obviously, the bigger the bandwidth, the deeper your pockets need to be.
The most important when you get a satellite connection is that you get it two way. Because if you get it one way satellite internet then you still have to dial up to get upload.