I am so fed up with dial-up internet and the pigheaddedness of the local phone company QWEST not wanting to invest in upgrading the phone lines in our area that I am once again looking into satellite internet service. I can't understand why the phone company would not want the increase in revenue they could generate if they would make DSL available to the many rural households in Clark County Washington that are just begging for DSL.
I only get 24K connections and that is so frustratingly slow. Luckily I have found an ISP that only costs $6 a month so I don't feel like I'm paying for nothing.
I would just like to have faster internet and not have to tie up my phone line for so much time.

__________________
DJ


84 300D Turbodiesel 190K with 4 speed manual sold in 03/2012

You can't get it over cable either? Wireless is ok, but its slow, and the neighbor's kid will be on it to.

DSL is only viable within 3 miles of the switching station; for most rural providers, there aren't enough homes within a 3 mile radius to make installation of the infrastructure worthwhile; the only reason they offer phone service in these areas at all is the legal requirement that they do so to receive their monopoly in more profitable areas (now that open service is offered in cities, I wouldn't be surprised to see some carriers drop landline service in the country). I don't know how far Clark County is from Douglas County, but check out www.vib.tv. We met with these guys about 18 months ago, and they seem to offer a popular way to offer services in rural areas. You can always check to see if they're coming your way anytime soon.

I am out in the woods in TN and all I can get is dial up, very slow...but they do offer satellite internet through Direct TV , about $90 a month and $700 for the box.. too much for me..

__________________
2000 Ford 7.3 Powerstroke 4x4
2006 Mazda Tribute
1983 Black 300 D (donated to charity)
1993 Teal 300 D (160K) Sold
"I love the smell of burnt diesel fuel in the morning, it smells like ....VICTORY"

Semper Fidelis
USMC 1973-1976

I really figured you all could get it with your cable TV - that's how its delivered out in the country in Texas. It's like a 30$ add on to your bill. It runs at about the same speed as DSL and is a lot more secure that wireless.

Dial up or Homing Pigeon

__________________
2000 Ford 7.3 Powerstroke 4x4
2006 Mazda Tribute
1983 Black 300 D (donated to charity)
1993 Teal 300 D (160K) Sold
"I love the smell of burnt diesel fuel in the morning, it smells like ....VICTORY"

Semper Fidelis
USMC 1973-1976

What about all those moonshine cookers? Can't you just point the coils at the old COMSTAT ? Just run a wire from that thing into your house.

Basically, I utilise a normal laptop hooked up to a nextel cell phone. This coupling is via a special cable hooked into a usb port.
The software is called "iden packet data network".
This system is provided to me through my employer. As a company "we" utilise the service to connect to our home office network.
The system is rather stable and fairly quick. NOT dsl or cable quick! Aprox as fast as my home dial up service.
However, one requirement is that you MUST have a connection via the cell phone. In my case, the nextel service. Here in the northeast, this works pretty well.
spo out

I investigated Verizon for a wireless (cellular) internet connection. Cost ranges from about $30 per month depending on the amount of hours spent on line. Bandwidth is rated at 200 to 500 kbps with up to 2 mb burst rate for downloads. Uploads are probably around 28 kbps. A friend has one and she uses it a lot in the family boat while around the sound, plus in their car. They claim it excellent. The gotcha is the need to be in the cellular network. As might not be obvious, if you are at the perimeter of coverage, a weaker signal is gonna cause loss of throughput.

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=phoneFirst&action=viewPhoneDetail&selectedPhoneId=1517

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

Paul,

Yes it does, as well as a twice annual satellite/sun orientation that lasts a few hours and blocks reception. I had a two way system that was pretty good, but very expensive, because cable and DSL were not available. Download speeds were ok, about half what you get with cable, but upload speeds were not particularly good. The system was a Hughes system offered by a number of distributors. I used Skycasters since they supported Macs, while most of the others did not.

All systems go down now and then, and the weather stuff with satellites is usually very short term. Rain has to be droplets of a size range and density to interfere with the transmission frequency. It happens, surprisingly, but not for long when it happens. Snow can cover the dish, as I found out, and change its "shape" enough to throw off the focus of the signal on the reception sensor. You just brush the snow off and the system is restored.

Overall it was much better than dial up, but no where near as convenient and useable as cable. Cable problems tend to be out of your hands to resolve and not weather related, so while the outages are fewer, they typically last longer. Jim

__________________
Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)

I guess my best bet would be to move then.
I was wondering how reliable they were as far as the companies were concerned, not so much the hardware. I've found only two providers out there, Starband and Direcway. Is one better than the other or are they both bad or both good?

__________________
DJ


84 300D Turbodiesel 190K with 4 speed manual sold in 03/2012

lietuviai,

I am not absolutely certain, but I think all the hardware is Hughes stuff, and I am fairly certain the satellites are also Hughes. Directway and the others, including the Skycasters outfit I used, license the Hughes stuff.

I thought the service from Skycasters was very good. Better than I get from Adelphia, my cable provider, which is not bad either. I am not complaining about either, but when there was an issue the Skycasters people could figure out where the problem was quicker. Which brought about a resolution quicker. I learned the "normal" fix for anything was to unplug and reboot the system. Overall, if cable was not vastly less expensive and if bandwidth was not as big an issue, I would have been happy to stay with Skycasters (I assume the same is true for Directway). But as my father used to say, "If a frog had wings he wouldn't bump his ass." And so, I use cable now. But satellite access is nothing to sneeze at if you only have dial up now. Jim

__________________
Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)

Well, last time I checked, satelites in geosynchronous orbit were at about 24,000 miles above the earth. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second, so it is not a "few seconds" but it is a delay. If VPN is handled with hardware at the server you make your VPN connection to, and it works fine (I use a VPN connection). Gaming is another story. I had a bandwidth limit based on cost that made gaming impractical. Jim

__________________
Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)