Hughesnet ISP

[67november]

I've been thinking of breaking the land line for the ISP service and am wondering what kind of service they provide? good, bad, weather problems?

thanks in advance for you comments

[brushfire21]

I have a few friends that have Hughesnet/Directway and 2 of them love it and one of them has had a few problems. Clicking through websites can be slow becuase of the delay as the commands have to go from your computer, uplinked to the satellite, downlinked to the ISP, to the internet backbone, to the server and then back the same way.

 

Uplink is slower then downlink, so keep this in mind.

 

But its doable and was better than dialup in my humble opinion when I played online at there places. Don't know about weather problems though....

[67november]

Thx BF21, if you can findout bout the wx from your friends that would help, also how the price compares to dial up!

[brushfire21]

Were I am at here in Norcal (between San Fran and Sacramento in the Wine Country) we don't really have really bad incliment weather (snow storms etc) so I don't think it will help.

 

I looked into satellite internet about 6 months ago for our family business (using an expensive but very fast T1 becuase DSL/Cable is not available). I do know that the price for sat is alot more than dialup as I am sure you know. My old dialup account was $16/mo prepaid from my local ISP, and I know directway/hughesnest is alot more than that depending on which plan you have. We opted not to go the way of sat becuase of the latency delay and having the best uplink/upload speed.

 

If you worried about incliment weather realiability, go with one of the bigger commercial/faster hughesnet units. They usually have a bigger dish and higher output transmitter.

 

You can also look as Wildblue as well, they are similiar to Hughesnet, but I don't have any knowledge on them, other than what I did on research.

 

Side note, whatever speed is advertised, its usually based upon optimum conditions (good weather, excellent installation and aiming etc) and don't expect to get those speeds all the time. Hope this helps!

[delorean]

It sucks. We have it at work and it's nothing but problems. HOWEVER, if your only alternative is dial-up, it's great!

 

Seriously though, if you are used to DSL, cable, whatever, you are going to be very disappointed. There is a delay when click a link since it has to be bounced off the satellite to the network center, then retreived from the www, then bounced off the satellite back to you. It seems that it loads all at once, rather than picture by picture if you know what I mean. Because of this delay, remote desktops (like citrix), won't work very well or at all.

 

It's very flaky when it comes to WX. You think you have problems with your TV, this thing is ten times as sensitive. Also, since your transmitting, then dish has to be adjusted much more accurately and by a certified person (so you don't accidently point it at a spy satellite).

 

Their tech support is all offshore. The tech support gets the problem fixed quickly, but they're hard to understand. Wait time is short if it's something confined to your system. If you get a 60 minute wait time quoted to you, hang-up, it's the whole network and they won't be able to do anything for you.

 

The basic system is says it's for one computer only, but you can hook up as many as you want. But disconnect them from the internet when you're not using them, or all the "background" upgrades and such will really slow things down on your browsing.

 

We can only connect at 21K via dial-up where we are, so satellite is the best alternative until DSL becomes available. I get about 52K at home through dial-up and am not going to spend $70/month to barely double or triple that.

 

We're only 20 minutes from downtown St. Louis and still cannot get high speed internet. Blows my mind. Those wireless cards for laptops are cool, but there's no way I signing a 2-3 year contract for one.

[67november]

Thanks for your replies, at this point in time I'll seek other forms of ISP providers as this doesn't seem to be a good alternative at this time.

 

thanks again for your comments, you saved me some further headaches

[FauxZ]

My folks have HugesNet and I'll agree with the statement "it's better than dialup." That's about it really, if you're used to normal broadband, it's exceptionally frustrating.

 

For what it's worth, the bank I work for has been looking into using cellular broadband for small offices. Sprint (i think) offers a small unit which works as a hub for a few wireless machines. Out testing shows they work great, of course this will depend on your location and cell provider. If it's all you can get, then maybe the 2 year contract or what not might be worth it. Haven't looked at costs for those, so I can't comment there.

[RotorRunner]

Delorean...

 

I just talked to Verizon and they tell me that they now have cellphones that you can get highspeed internet through without having to have a seperate wireless card and contract. You can turn on/off the service from month-to-month without a longterm contract. It has to be a "V-Cast" compatible phone for highspeed.

 

RR

[lwalling]

Or you can just spring for a cell modem for your laptop, not sure if they have a PCI adapter at this point off hand but you can definitely use an adapter to remedy that if necessary.

 

I can say I am very pleased with my Verizon data device for traveling. At home in Rural North Carolina I see about 120kbps down, though I have a data T1 for normal use in my home office. In nearby Mooresville then out to Charlotte I see 1.5-2mbps down! Latency is still a problem (similar to dialup) so don't expect latency sensitive applications to run well but otherwise its alot better than a two way dish.

 

If someone ever comes up with a commercially available 2 way dish that uses low ear orbit sattelites that would be cool for those that are isolated from cabled-services.

 

The only one to avoid for data off hand is Cingular, terrible throughput by design. The Native Nextel data network is also limited to 64kbps - I don't believe Sprint is marketing that any-longer though.

 

Delorean...

 

I just talked to Verizon and they tell me that they now have cellphones that you can get highspeed internet through without having to have a seperate wireless card and contract. You can turn on/off the service from month-to-month without a longterm contract. It has to be a "V-Cast" compatible phone for highspeed.

 

RR