Satellite/Directway Internet? Any Opinions On Satellite ISPs or Their Systems?

5/29/02

[Joe Hadenuf]

1. How is Directway or satellite internet in the mountains, approximately 6500' elevation?

2. How bad does wind affect the dish, or snow? Should it be installed in an area where it would possibly be more shielded from wind?

3. We already have a direct TV dish. Is it worth dumping the TV dish and buying the kit to combine both into the directway dish. Anyone know how much the kit is? And can it be self installed? Are there benefits to separate dishes?

4.We appear to be 1 mile to far for the regular DSL connection offered up there. What's the deal, if your over the 3.2 mile advertised distance there is no connection at all, or is it just reduced or the losses to great?

5. How is gaming on Directway or any satellite ISP?

6. I will be networking 3 computers together. Any warnings? Any advise

Thanks to all for any information or advise. I never had a satellite dish for an internet connection, only DSL over the telephone lines, and standard dialup.

[RedWing9]

1. Don't know.

2. Weather can affect a dish greatly. I have a Dish 500, and when it rains or accumulates snow my signal drops.

3. Not sure what directway is. Is it a DirecTv system? If so, then you should be able to replace the dish and keep the recievers. If it is not, expect to replace everything.

4. Anything over 15000' from your nearest telco station is unreliable and would not be supported by the ISP. Even >10000' is worrisome for most ISP's since they have to listen to you bi***.

5. Gaming is affected by latency.

6. If you intend to have an always on connection, I would recommend a hardware firewall/router (Linksys/Netgear/etc) (don't lose the software firewall to protect against trojans). Other than protecting your network from hackers, just make sure you tweak your network settings to allow the highest throughput.

Lastly, I recommend you spend some time at DSLReports. There are many discussions, tools, and guides to help anyone through the mess that is broadband. You can especially find help in deciding on your ISP and latency.

Good Luck!

[the]

(One of my good friends from Law School has the Pegasus Satellite internet/TV service. The following remarks are based on my using his system for a few hours over the past 6 months or so.)

Latency, Latency, Latency. While the download bandwidth seemed a bit less than my 1.5 Mbps cable modem, the truly frustrating part about using the satellite service is the latency, or turn around time, for requested information.

I don't know if it comes from the system using a time-windowing method, or if there is just a certain delay to be expected in sending a signal ~100,000 miles (Up-back-up-back), but it is certainly noticable compared to my cable modem, my offices 384K DSL, and even a good fast dial-up connection.

Not a lot of info, but I hope it helps.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Directway is from Direct TV. Oh, and PacBell website says they can do 50,000'.

Thanks for all your information.

[Dog Gone]

5. Gaming is affected by latency.

AMEN.

The lower your ping, the more teenagers you can blast into gory smithereens and the studlier you appear when internet gaming.

Give me a ping of less than 20, and I can reduce a teenager with twice my talent to tears.

[Dubya]

You may want to check this one out. I'm in Texas though, no mountains here around me. Dish must be able to receive from the south. Be SURE the installer knows what he is doing.

HERE

[Joe Hadenuf]

Yeah, we have a clear, unobstructed shot to the south. Thanks

[mvpel]

The speed-of-light delay alone in satellite internet connections is just under half a second (0.47746 seconds, to be precise.) That's a LOT of latency in Internet terms, and that's the ABSOLUTE minimum you can expect with a satellite link -- "I canna' change the laws of physics, Captain!!" Starband sat internet includes software to cache pages locally, reducing the perceived delay, so that may be another consideration.

[the]

How does that old joke about latency vs bandwidth go, something like
"You can always build a bigger pipe but you can't bribe God."

[abner]

. Weather can affect a dish greatly. I have a Dish 500, and when it rains or accumulates snow my signal drops.

Spray some Pam on the dish face, it will keep the snow and ice to a minimum. It just slides off of the dish. Thick thunderclouds is the only thing that interrupts our Directv.

[Dubya]

Good. I really like mine. Before I got it I asked here on FR and a lot good Freepers told me about it.

[rwfromkansas]

I look at the site sometimes....it seems like everybody only reports if they have a gripe though. I have seen complaint after complaint with Swbell's DSL service. I have not had much in the way of problems....I have never had a slow connection and only have gotten kicked off like twice.

[tubebender]

4.We appear to be 1 mile to far for the regular DSL connection offered up there. What's the deal, if your over the 3.2 mile advertised distance there is no connection at all, or is it just reduced or the losses to great?

I was talking to a PacTel manager the other day and I believe he said that technology is coming to push out that 3 mile limit. I live within the 3 miles of the switch but I went with Cox Cable on advice from Freepers. Four days and I had the service. Only problem of theirs was a microwave went down for 10 hours. PacTel is running cable up 101 to Eureka but Caltrans sees a new revenue source so the project is on hold. Once it is completed Cox will buy in and drop the microwave.

[HAL9000]

Be sure to familiarize yourself with DirecWay's "Fair Access Policy" that kicks your connection speed way down after you download 300 MB or so in a session.

You can see a lot of customer discussions at alt.satellite.direcpc

Hopefully, some of the new systems coming along in a couple of years will be better (e.g. SpaceWay, Teledesic, and maybe WildBlue, etc.).

[general_re]

Some answers already for you, but I'll toss in a few cents worth...

Nos. 1 and 2 will be similar to your DTV experience. You already know how it behaves in wind and rain - you can expect the same for D-PC. No. 3 - you've already got one dish in place, why rip it out if you don't have to? There no particular advantage to two dishes, so unless you have some aesthetic preference for one, I'd say don't bother.

4) depends on the phone company. If you call them, it's very likely they'll tell you you're too far and you're out of luck. And that'll be the end of that.

5) People have alluded to the latency of the connection already. I'll tell you straight up - you can forget about online real-time gaming with a satellite connection. It just ain't gonna work - the latency is waaaayyyyy too high. You can try, but I promise you won't find the results useable.

6) Get a hardware firewall/router and plug the satellite modem into that, and pass the connection through it to the computers. You'll sleep a lot better at night, trust me. ;)

Last of all, I assume you're aware of the price of all this - Directway ain't cheap. And the other thing you should consider is that Hughes has serious, hard transfer limits. If all you do is websurfing and email, mostly, you'll be fine. But if you do a lot of filesharing, or other large downloads regularly, you're going to hit that cap REAL fast. I suggest you take a good, hard look at D-PC's Fair Access Policy to see if that's something you can live with...

[Joe Hadenuf]

Thanks general, and to ALL OTHERS for the information and advise.

The gaming is for my son, so it doesn't look like he would be to thrilled about it.

Do you know why DSL over the telephone lines are only good up to about 3 or 3 1/2 miles from the CO? It kills me that we happen to be a little over 4 miles out at our place up in the mountains. What is it, signal loss of some type?

[general_re]

That's it exactly. The signal degrades over distance - if you have a look at this thread from a few days ago, there's a discussion about the technical limits of DSL, and some possible new technologies to extend it somewhat. There are lower speed possibilities - SDSL (symmetric DSL) can go out to 25,000 feet or more, IIRC. But it's slower - like a 128k ISDN line, and comparatively expensive. And your telco may not even offer it.

Have you seen DSLreports? They have a DSL finder that you can try out - plug in your address and your phone number, and it'll tell you to within a few feet how far you are from the switch, and whether there's a provider in your area that will hook you up that far out.

I'm sympathetic, I really am - I'm in the same boat. I'm just a hair over 20,000 feet from the CO, and Verizon won't go any farther than 17,000 or so. So no DSL for me either. :^(

[Joe Hadenuf]

Thanks general. I am sure the telcos are working on this fast, as there are surely more folks outside these 3 mile limits than within them. Money will drive this technology. Like I said, we are about one mile to far up at our hideout. Fortunately, were I am located here, we are within the distance and am currently DSL connected. Thanks again.

[Dubya]

Dear StarBand Customer,

No Change to Your StarBand High-Speed Satellite Internet Service Network is Up & Running Business as Usual for StarBand Details at: www.StarBand.com/InfoCenter Today StarBand announced it has taken a difficult but necessary step to regain control of our operational and financial future by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. Chapter 11 does not mean that a company is out of business. On the contrary, it allows a company to restructure its finances and continue operating its business while seeking debt relief.

The press release we issued today can be found at the following link: www.StarBand.com/InfoCenter.

So how does this event impact you and your StarBand service?

No Change to Your StarBand High-Speed Satellite Internet Service From a service perspective, StarBand should look the same to you. Our network is up and running and our customer service and technical support teams remain in place to support you and to answer your questions.

Business as Usual for StarBand StarBand plans to be your high-speed Internet service provider for the long term. Through bankruptcy court, StarBand intends to restructure its debt, bring an infusion of new equity into the company, remove any impediments created by existing shareholders and emerge with a plan that will achieve our goal to hit profitability.

If you have any service related questions, please refer to your online customer support tools at www.StarBand.net. To get the latest up-to-date information on today’s events as well as a set of customer FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) please visit: www.StarBand.com/InfoCenter.

You don’t need to do anything at the present time other than continue enjoying StarBand high-speed satellite Internet service.

Thank you for choosing StarBand.

Zur Feldman StarBand

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

[Dubya]

That is an email I received yesterday Joe.