Posted on 06/09/2006 11:27:44 PM PDT by HAL9000
Excerpt -
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Satellite TV providers EchoStar Communications Corp. (DISH) and DirecTV Inc. (DTV) signed five-year distribution agreements with WildBlue Communications Inc., a satellite-broadband provider, to provide Internet access targeting rural consumers.~ snip ~
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
They installed WildBlue at a friends house just today..
I was there and made some short vids...I uploaded them to
youtube...here are the links.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obH98uZcKVk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMVHJpSlhX0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9sLqQ2RVJQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNHSdU6wzYg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89KVy-wzc-U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Goo5nijGR5o
A friend has satellite. He says it can go flakey or dead for a while if clouds or weather are bad.
Looks like the Arizona desert?
We have a cabin in a rural area and I pay $45 a month for basic sattelite service for the tv. I called last week to see about internet service and they wanted $100 a month plus the $45 for service. That is really way too much. I hope that this new service will be cheaper
I'm with you. It's past time for affordable broadband in rural areas. I'm paying $125 for ISDN - 128k.
Unfortunately I have to have a fixed IP and reliable service.
I'm a bit worried that satellite will be too variable with the weather. However, it may be the answer for regular consumer service.
Wildblue starts at $49.95 per month for the "Value Pak" (128Kbps up/512Kbps down) all the way to the top tier, "Pro Pak", for $79.95 per month (up to 1.5Mbps up/up to 256Kbps download). You can see their pricing structure for home users here.
I haven't signed up with them yet, but the local telco is offering installs, as Wildblue is also a member of the National Rural Telephone Cooperative, as is the local telco. Wildblue and their installers offer free installs. First payment would be steep ($299.00 for equip), but after that, the costs go down, and would be even cheaper if you shared your connection (they allow up to 8 simultaneous connections on one Wildblue modem).
My folks and I are going into it together this fall. I'll have the satellite equipment set up at my house, with a wireless hotspot tied into the system, and the folks will connect via a wireless connection next door.
We live on a farm, so interference wouldn't be an issue.
They have dial-up access (an option), but if your dish was aligned and peaked just right, you shouldn't have too many signal drop offs from what is called "rain fade". I get that occurance from my satellite TV service, but the signal dropouts are far and few between, and when the signal goes out, it usually stays out until the heavy downpour passes.
The dialup access would give someone something to fall back onto until the signal has be reacquired by the satellite modem.
I have the "el-cheapo" Wildblue package. 50 bucks a month, no local taxes/fees and it's always on. There are the usual cloud cover problems and the connection goes dead at times for no reason, but othere than that it's great. There is a FAP- fair access policy that restricts downloads after you have downloaded so much (5 gigs per month) or whatever your limit is- that kicks you back to 56k.
Thanks for the page. I put in my zipcode and it is not doing installations in my area....damn.
We are also using the $50/month package. I set up my own wireless network for our Apple computers. Wildblue has zero support for Apple as far as optimizing software, etc. We do experience no service during rain storms if the rain is heavy enough. The connection does go dead for no reason on occasion, one time when I was on eBay bidding; bad timing for an unexplained blackout. We were nailed by the Fair Access Policy once when we were downloading many movies over a period of a week or more during a film festival. Typically we are at 1/3rd of the allowable monthly download quota. I now monitor our use because we were really surprised by the violation of the FAP. More often that I would like, the service seems slow, as though there is an imposed system-wide slowdown.
Satellite and some DSL are still significantly higher priced than cable Internet in some areas.
In my small town, they both cost the same or double cable, yet their upload/downloads are much less.
Right now, my cable is 4Mbps at $39.95. Phone company DSL offers 250Kbps up to 3Mbps and they won't even publish their rates on their website. Their 'package deal' (lowest speed) starts at $25/month. Satellite that I've checked range from $49 to $79 for about 1Mbps.
Cable here still has them beat. And comparable basic extended cable is about $5 more per month than the satellite deals. The cable combination for TV and Internet is still significantly less than satellite.
I found they had a FAP also, as I read that on a WildBlue user group site. I hadn't realized it was 5 gigs per month. No doubt that will be exceeded in a hurry, as I tend to listen to streaming audio as there are no talk stations here locally. Beyond that, it will be a shared connection, as I mentioned earlier in the thread. I'll have to find that user group site again, as I think each tier has their own FAP limit. The folks and I are going with the $80/month package (split $40 per household) when we finally get it installed later this year.
Wildblue currently uses one satellite (Anik F2), and they continue to add more load (customers) to their system, so that might be why you notice when the service comes to a halt even on cloudless days. They did launch a second satellite "Wildblue 1", and that will be put into service at the end of the year, and will no doubt accomodate more users and lighten the load off the Anik F2 satellite.
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