Anyone using satellite for Net access?
August 19, 2005 by Mike Wendland
I regularly hear from readers in rural areas of the country not serviced by cable, DSL broadband or 3g wireless phone data packages who want to know about satellite access.
>From my research, it appears to be consderably slower and more costly than its terrestrial rivals.
DirecWay costs $599 for the hardware and then $59 a month.
For that, you get download speeds of just 500 kbps, which is way, way slower than DSL or cable.
WildBlue charges $299 for the hardware and has packages available starting at $49.95 a month for 512 kbps and up to $79 a month for 15 mbps.
Anybody using these services? How reliable is it? Are there other satellite broadband alternatives?
My wife’s uncle has Direcway at their cabin home in Wisconsin, and it works quite well. The best they were able to get on dialup was 28.8 kbs, so Direcway is many times faster. The only real problem is the latency (the time between your click and when your page starts to load), but once a page starts coming, it seems quite quick. Latency is quite understandable when you realize that data is travelling to and from space, but it makes VoiP or gaming impossible, but for anything else, even receiving streamed broadcasts, it works quite well.
The uncle got some plan where he pays a little more each month (I think $99) and that includes payment on the equipment, so after a certain time he’ll own the dish and modem without having had put down $600 for it.
I showed him how I could hook up a wireless router to his satellite modem when I visited this summer, and latest news is he bought his own to share the connection with guests who visit.
Not like home, but a lot better than surcharged AOL 800 number for 28.8 kbs when I go to visit.
My sister and her family use Starband. Dialup at best is 24k for them outside of Traverse City. But with Charter unwilling to run a line to their house, even though in runs in front of there place, it works for them.
But when I visit latency is horrible and pray there is not heavy cloud cover, or worse fog…….
For satellite broadband there are indeed other options for faster and better performance. For example, WorkAnywhere.net offers up to 2 Mbps download with 512 kbps upload speeds.
Such satellite services are for the serious surfer, or better yet, best for businesses small and large, because they are not cheap. For example, equipment is going to cost you a minimum of $2,200. Monthly access for 512 kbps down and 128 kbps up will run you about $525 per month. However, you can share this connection with your neighbors via Wi-Fi and split up the bill.
Why the big difference in price? The residentially priced connections are shared with numerous other customers. Talk with a number of Direcway users and ask them about difficulties in uploading. The WorkAnywhere.net solution is oversubscribed by a factor of no more than 20:1. Ask Direcway and WildBlue what their ratio is. The difference in price determines whether or not you are going to have access when you need it and at the speed you need it.
Conclusion? There are other options. Residential price-sensitive customers that want their very own connection should buy Direcway, WildBlue or StarBand. Business users and neighbors that would like to share a better connection should look at more serious solutions such as those from WorkAnywhere.net.
John M. Willis, CEO