[dirtboy]

Can you get a cable modem? Those tend to be more widely available than DSL.

[TexasNative2000]

I'll be away from the computer for a large portion of the day - I'll respond to any input later in the day. Thanks again.

[bwteim]

Check with N3WBI3 who maintains a tech ping list in chat.

[yellowdoghunter]

I understand you problem. Where you and I live cable is not available, only satellite.

I have not tried the satellite for internet but have known two people who have and were not happy with it. It was not HughesNet but another provider. If I recall correctly they kept losing the signal, etc.... and for the price thought it should have been better service.

Anyway, that is just what I know of the matter. I understand the "pain" of dial-up...:)which is why I love FR...no graphics, pictures, etc.....:) We have been told where I live that they will be laying fiber optic cable in the next two years....at least it is something to look forward to!

But I still wouldn't trade the peace and quite of my rural lifestyle for high-speed internet!

[HAL9000]

If you can get the emerging terrestrial wireless service in your area, it's better than satellite.

There is also another satellite company worth checking out - wildblue.com.

[dawn53]

My sister lives out of the country (in Central America.)

They use hughes.net and we don't seem to have any problem sending or receiving emails, and I've never heard her complain about her service (except when the electricity goes out, but that's a common occurrence in a Third World country and not hughes.net's fault.)

[Waverunner]

One of our field AE's up north uses it.
Download rate is pretty fast 1 mbps or faster, uploads are at about 100kbps
He's happy, except like all satellite systems,
Bad weather disrupts it somewhat.

[js1138]

If you can get Verizon wireless or equivalent, it's about the same monthly price, and a lot more portable. Clearwire is a lot cheaper, but not available as many places. If you are in the boondocks, you are stuck with Hughs.

[N3WBI3]

Any Input on HughesNet for TexasNative2000?

[tj_2004]

I have had HughesNet (Direcway) for about 6 years with very few problems.

[PureTrouble]

I have seen Earthlink sponsor a satellite Internet connection.

There are also Internet connections by way of Transmission tower to your home.

Also, a lot of cell phone companies are offering high speed connections for Laptops ~ $60 to $80 a month.

[gondramB]

>considering using a HughesNet satellite internet <

Hughesnet is the recently renamed Directway - sattelite internet from DirecTV. Its about as reliable as DirecTV which is to say it is not brought down by local power or cabling problems can effect cable modems and wired DSL but it is succeptable to rain fade and requires open sky toward Mexico i.e Southwaest for East U.S.

The speed should be fine but the latency is high compared to other services. You are unlikely to notice this for internet surfing and it is unimportant for file transfers but will drive you nuts for online gaming.

Good luck.

[WayneH]

Try Wild Blue. It's cheaper and faster.

[KoRn]

I don't know if satellite internet access has improved since I have last seen it. I mostly saw it when I was installing DSL and people were having it replaced.

I did use at someone's house, and it was barely faster than dialup downloading. Of course it was a cloudy day, I don't know if that makes a difference. If I were you, I would find someone who is using it so you can see it for yourself. Based on what I've seen satellite isn't worth the additional for such little increase over dialup. It's been 3 years since I've seen the satellite internet, it may have been improved since then.

Can you get cable TV in your area?

[HDCochran]

We use HughesNet because neither DSL nor cable is available. We used Comcast cablenet at a prior location. HughesNet is neither as fast nor as reliable as Comcast cablenet was for us. HughesNet has made a complete dog's lunch of the transition of emails from Direcway.com to Hughes.net and our Direcway.com messages are still not being forwarded as promised.

All that being said, however, HughesNet is MUCH better than dial-up and is faster than DSL. The internet browsing service is fine if you can tolerate several brief (5-10 min) outages almost every day. The email service has been OK except for the botched transition noted above. Telephone support is available and usually competent; however, a wait of 30 min is not uncommon.

If we had a choice, we would certainly switch to cablenet and probably switch to DSL.

[trebb]

I used DIRECWAY before Katrina trashed the area. It was a lot better than dial-up, but there were some drawbacks too. Bad weather would hose the Internet portion way before the TV was affected because the transmitter is pretty weak and can't punch its signal through. Sometimes uploads were fair, but they never topped 6-K or so and downloads would be anywhere from 175K to 600K with 240K being a average. Plus, it was a lot more expensive than cable or DSL - the initial cost for equipment/hookup was over $300, then the service was about $60/month.

I'm holding off making a decision to go satellite again in the hopes that Cable will be available by the time my house is put back together again. If it doesn't seem likely, I will go back to satellite, but reluctantly.

[mountainlyons]

Well this is the way I have it figured. Dsl and cable are not available. The phone is $25 a month and DAV Internet service is $12.95 a month. Modem speed is 19 to 28.8k with 28.8 being undependable. So if satellite was 100 times faster I could get my stuff done in a few minutes at a cost of $50 a month. It is not worth it to me.

[Allen In Texas Hill Country]

We're moving to Texas in a few weeks. No cable out where we're going and the phone company has been less than helpful. Even with a street address they won't tell me if DSL is available. They say they have to come out to determine DSL availablility but won't come out till there is an order and won't take an order until there is a house.

I put in an order with HuhgesNet but canceled it after looking into WildBlue. Here's a phone number 1-866-624-9453.

[dhuffman@awod.com]

From the perspective of a rural and isolated Islander...

Satellite downlinks fine but uplinks via telephone line just like DSL/dial-up.

[Quix]

My AMD DUAL PROCESSOR ATHALON CPU MOTHERBOARD XP-P machine is giving me fits. It appears that something's been corrupted. Have scanned with several anti-spyware, anti-virus programs and it's supposedly clean.

Had to uninstall Norton System Works 2006 and haven't reinstalled it. Still have Zone Alarm running and all it's features turned on given that Norton's gone.

Before I uninstalled Norton, Utilities FIX-IT did not solve the problems.

But it was worse before I uninstalled Norton. Clicking on something and taking an action would hang the computer for 30 seconds to maybe 5 minutes. Then it would release and I could do some things. Still often hard to get the hidden task bar to appear.

Anyway--I must solve this and I absolutely rebel against the idea of reinstalling WINDOWS XP-P. It's such a nightmare.

Are there any good fix-it software programs I could use? I have SYSTEM MECHANIC 5 and it's done about as much good as it's going to do, too.

I have AntiCrash but it got sidelined somewhere along the way just before all this started and I haven't got it going again yet.

Any ideas would be most welcome.

Thanks