Satellite Internet Is A Total Rip-off (You Have Been Warned)

Vanity | 07-12-08 | self

[gost2]

Warning young Will. Danger Danger!

[Paladin2]

Potato chip can, high gain antennas to your (friendly) neighbor?

[cripplecreek]

My comcast cable internet is pretty good aside from the fact the company sucks.

[gorush]

I couldn’t agree more, I had them when they were still Direcway. I download books, great speeds for 1/4 of the download, then less than dial-up...if you never need to download large files it may serve you well, if not...run away as fast as you can.

[Secret Agent Man]

Thanks for the heads up.

[LeGrande]

You forgot to mention the lag time too. It is a killer if you play games or anything that requires quick response times.

[easternsky]

What mine failed to tell me is they go down quite often always after midnight. Hello do they think us vets sleep.

[ThreePuttinDude]

I just got back today from vacation, and my bro-in-law has that company...
I asked him what the heck was he thinking...
he told me the salesman really did a good job, and he signed a contract

YIKES what a scam if you aren’t in an area with cable or DSL

[Brett66]

I was about to mention that, there’s no way a satellite can return a signal fast enough to keep up with a fast-paced FPS online. You jump to avoid gunfire and your signal won’t reach until about a second later. You’ll absolutely be owned.

[kc8ukw]

Caveman internet. Now that’s a fun image.

[HAL9000]

Yes, satellite internet is pretty bad. But if I had to use it, I’d go with WildBlue.

In a couple of years, there is a good chance that you will be able to get wireless terrestrial broadband service that will be much better than satellite.

[autumnraine]

Thanks for posting this. I was considering it, but I’ll stick with dial up.

[easternsky]

Thats the one I'm talking about. They have some cables down south, and they are always shutting down working on them.. Their Techs did not even know they shut down like this. If you call them every 15 days they will tell you when they are shutting down for the next 15 days. Like I'm going too.

[easternsky]

You sent this to the wrong person.

[apocalypto]

Thanks for the warning.

[Kieri]

Wildblue, my ISP, uses a 30 day rolling average FAP. When I signed on in August of 2005 I got 10,000MB per 30 days. We were well within FAP limits until they lopped 25% off all packages — reducing it to 7500MB — and didn’t lower the cost. I was up against the ceiling all the time.

Satellite internet is fine for what it is, but it is NOT comparable with cable. No way, no how. You can’t use VOIP, latency makes online gaming impossible, and downloading movies is out of the question.

Take heart, though, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. More and more wiMax and wireless companies are putting up towers in rural areas, mine included. Since we subscribed with Wildblue, Verizon extended their reach and put us in EVDO territory. The town north of us also put in a wiMax transmitter which *might* reach us, giving us cheaper and faster internet access with NO latency and NO FAP!

There are problems with both Hughesnet and Wildblue. I get my service through a co-op, and this is one case where having a middleman has been priceless. People with Wildblue direct have far more horror stories involving installation and customer service than I do.

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

Ping

[oldsalt]

I've used Wildblue for three years and given the alternative of 28K dial-up I'm very satisfied. I was a beta tester for them in Florida and was told that I was the first subscriber here.

It's not perfect by any means,especially during bad weather like thunderstorms which are frequent in N.Fla,but overall I'm a happy camper.

[ShadowAce]

[hatfieldmccoy]

No,it’s not a scam, it’s available-—solitude has a downside-running the copper/fiber to deliver high speed whatever to your location doesn’t make financial sense to local communication providers. This technology has been around for years and it has always been “broadband of last resort”