[Hidden-tech] Does anybody have HughesNet or DirecTVsatellite web access?

[John W. DeWitt]

Greetings,

We used WildBlue satellite service for nearly three years. No issues with
getting cut off for exceeding traffic limits, but we definitely experienced
the other issues related to latency and less-than-satisfactory web surfing.
Beats dialup for sure, but is much less satisfactory than cable/DSL.

A much better solution, which we now have been using for nearly a year, is a
wireless data card -- but you've got to have cellular coverage. We have a
Sprint data card running on a Linksys router supporting 4 PCs with very
decent performance. Even though the specs on bandwidth indicate it should be
much slower, actual performance (primarily due to the lack of latency) is
generally much better than satellite for web surfing, online banking,
routine e-mailing, and everything else except for streaming high-bandwidth
video and up/downloading large files.

Hope this helps.

_________________________
John W. DeWitt
JW DeWitt | Business Communications
978-544-1918 Office
646-232-6620 Mobile
978-544-1928 Fax
john at jwdewitt.com | www.jwdewitt.com     
_________________________


-----Original Message-----
From: hidden-discuss-bounces at lists.hidden-tech.net
[mailto:hidden-discuss-bounces at lists.hidden-tech.net] On Behalf Of Julie
Strothman
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2009 10:01 AM
To: hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
Subject: Re: [Hidden-tech] Does anybody have HughesNet or DirecTVsatellite
web access?

   ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
   ** If you did, we all thank you.


Hi,
I have HughesNet, and they are AWFUL. We've been with them for the required
two-year contract and and we pay $70/month for a limit of 300mb of
traffic/day. We only stick with them for lack of access to cable or DSL, and
indeed, it's a significant improvement over dial-up.
The latency on uploads is a major cost in terms of work efficiency.
My major beef with HughesNet is the download limit per 24 hours. (There is a
no-restriction time period b/w 3am and 6am.) When you exceed your limit,
your access is clamped down to completely unusable for 24 hours. Before we
upgraded to the 300mb plan, we would often find ~100mb-downloads on our
usage log when no one was home and all computers were off, causing us to be
frequently under "Fair Access Policy," i.e. throttled to nothing. HughesNet
of course never admitted that the data is faked and a ploy to get you to
upgrade, but it _stopped_ once we upgraded to 300mb. Of course, we still
exceed 300mb accidentally from time-to-time, given that many os and major
software upgrades these days are between 100mb - 300mb, and we have multiple
computers online. (Ensuring 5 people don't exceed 300mb all the time is not
easy.) (We also have our DirecTV cut out sometimes b/c of bad
weather--HughesNet cuts out less often and usually for shorter periods of
time.) Good luck, Julie


Julie Strothman, Project Manager
Landmark College Institute for Research & Training
River Road. Putney VT 05346
802.387.7137
jstrothman at landmark.edu
>>> "B. Melville" <bmelville.pgs at verizon.net> 01/09/09 9:47 PM >>>
   ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
   ** If you did, we all thank you.


Out here in dial-up country, these services look very attractive. 
However, I wonder if they are as fast as they say. HughesNet has 6 
levels of service, and the cheapest level doesn't look that much 
faster than dial-up. I don't know how the speed of their cheapest 2 
levels compares to the speed of cable (which stopped 3 houses before 
us).

Another concern is reliability. Our DirecTV service sometimes cuts 
out in bad weather. I assume that the same would be true for 
satellite web access.

Does anybody have experience with either of these services?
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