Does anyone on here use a satellite dish to get their internet connection? What does that cost per month, who is the provider and how dependable is it? Our local phone company has a monopoly on the area and charges excessive fees for local and long distance service as well as internet service. The DSL service works intermittently all day. Since my wife and I both have cell phones, we are thinking of ditching the whole package and using a satellite internet service.
Satellite Internet
- Thread starter ryansride2017
- Start date
- Status
Live WAAAy out in the country, sattellite is only option beside dialup (sucks). We have Hughes Net, the new name for Direcway Sattellite. Have also talked to others with Wild Blue (newest sat. service I think) and Starband (least I think that's the name for Dish Network's sattellite internet spinoff) Best I can tell, they're all faster than dialup, but they are EXPENSIVE and trouble prone. Ours is $69. month AFTER initial 18 month equipment payback, was approx. $120. till equipment was paid for. Service interruption anytime heavy clouds either here or at uplink base. Horrible tech service (just can't understand them India Indians).
Would loose intrest in using computer if dialup was all I had, but certainly not happy with what I've got! Any thing better comes along and I'll jump ship in a heartbeat.
Bob
Would loose intrest in using computer if dialup was all I had, but certainly not happy with what I've got! Any thing better comes along and I'll jump ship in a heartbeat.
Bob
You can always try cell phone based internet.
Just get an adapter for your desktop and get a contract with a cellular company (around $60-80/month for unlimited).
This is the way I am going to get my dad setup when he moves to the country in a few months. He luckily has a cell tower about 1/4 mile from his house, so reception should not be an issue.
Just get an adapter for your desktop and get a contract with a cellular company (around $60-80/month for unlimited).
This is the way I am going to get my dad setup when he moves to the country in a few months. He luckily has a cell tower about 1/4 mile from his house, so reception should not be an issue.
If you have the ability to use something other than sattelite internet things will be much faster for you and it will be a better plan for you. It seems that Hughesnet(formally Direcway) is the only option now for the consumer market. Intermittent high speed service is not fun, I am having the same problem with Comcast in my area, but in other areas people have it better. Is cable internet an option where you live, if not blupupher's recommendation would probably be a good idea, it's about 50 bucks a month and the speed of EVDO is respectable and the speed of EDGE should be decent, although not as fast as your DSL is right now.
JHZR2
Staff member
We've tried this two ways and were not impressed with either. When my fiancee was living in Philadelphia, we set it up with a bluetooth enabled phone and a bluetooth equipped laptop. It worked, but it was slow.
When I was in Auburn, AL for 4 months, it wasnt worth it to set up for internet, etc., so I bought a PCMDCIA card that used my phone account for internet. This was a real adapter, not a cellphone beaming a signal to a laptop. It wasnt much faster.
Neither are as fast as a v.92 specced 56k dialup with the accelerator type system on it that downloads graphics wth subpar quality...
Apparently Verizon and sprint now have higher speed ones, but I bet they are $$$$... the most we spent on our t-mobile system for unlimited was $29.99/month.
JMH
The sprint PC-Card service is $60 month for unlimited access, the person I support who I suggested this to, has ditched his DirectWay service for this. The only key is getting decent Sprint signal.
JHZR2
Staff member
Thanks for letting me know the price...
My parents have a weekend house, and currently they only have dialup, because they can use the same ISP at both places, one in NJ and the other in PA. They want high speed (though their ISP's v.92 'accelerated' internet works quite well for most stuff, even virus scanner update downloading), and have been weighing the options. So far, it seems that the only real methods to have internet in two places is to (a)keep their current setup, two landlines and one dialup ISP, (b) get dsl at both places at $17.99/month or (c) drop both landlines, convert to sprint and use this for $60/month.
Right now, it seems that their t-mobile plan and dialup is by far the most cost effective. This stinks, becaue the sprint service would be a killer deal if it cost what t-mobile charges ($29.99/month for an addon to a line). It seems like a great option if it was cheaper, but at this point, i cant see them going to it.
JMH
My parents have a weekend house, and currently they only have dialup, because they can use the same ISP at both places, one in NJ and the other in PA. They want high speed (though their ISP's v.92 'accelerated' internet works quite well for most stuff, even virus scanner update downloading), and have been weighing the options. So far, it seems that the only real methods to have internet in two places is to (a)keep their current setup, two landlines and one dialup ISP, (b) get dsl at both places at $17.99/month or (c) drop both landlines, convert to sprint and use this for $60/month.
Right now, it seems that their t-mobile plan and dialup is by far the most cost effective. This stinks, becaue the sprint service would be a killer deal if it cost what t-mobile charges ($29.99/month for an addon to a line). It seems like a great option if it was cheaper, but at this point, i cant see them going to it.
JMH
Guy I work with has Sprint on his laptop and is connecting at ISDN speeds (100-200 kbps) most of the time. If right by a tower with good signal, maybe up to 500. While still not the fastest, it is better than the satalite problems I have heard about (but it is getting better from what I have been reading recently).
They are supposed to be putting in a new land line switching station closer to my dads place in the next year or so, so he will probably be able to get DSL then.
They are supposed to be putting in a new land line switching station closer to my dads place in the next year or so, so he will probably be able to get DSL then.
JMH,
Sprint's unlimited data plan is $49.99/mo up until the end of this month. The Pantech PX-500 PC card is also free.
In addition, Sprint's site is pretty neat for coverage maps. Pop in your address and it'll tell you the signal strength at your location...and it's accurate for my house at least.
Sprint's unlimited data plan is $49.99/mo up until the end of this month. The Pantech PX-500 PC card is also free.
In addition, Sprint's site is pretty neat for coverage maps. Pop in your address and it'll tell you the signal strength at your location...and it's accurate for my house at least.
The Sprint map shows my dads place being right on the line of fair/ no coverge, but Cinguar is Best/Good.
If a person is using a cell connection in a fixed location and has any kind of usable signal on the phones built in antenna, they should get an excellent signal by using a small yagi antenna or other high gain antenna for their cell phone. Beware of the miracle antennas that don't really work though.
This one looks legit, but i have no personal experiance with this company
http://www.alternativewireless.com/cellular-antennas/yagiantennas.html
I'm on dialup with Net Zero and am surprised at how fast it is for dialup. It costs $15 a month for what they call Net Zero Hi Speed 3G. Here's a link to the service if you want to check it out:
http://account.netzero.net/s/landing?action=viewProduct&productId=iso-acc-monthly
http://account.netzero.net/s/landing?action=viewProduct&productId=iso-acc-monthly
I'm out here in the sticks, and my only two options are dialup and satellite. The cost of the latter is ridiculous, and there are too many complaints about service interruptions from clouds and the like. Also, I've heard about extra fees for "excessive" broadband use if downloading more than a certain amount per month; can anyone explain? So this left dialup.
But I'm pretty content with the setup. We set up a second landline with a separate number and told the carrier it was for data. This step was necessary because I absolutely could not tie up our primary landline due to job responsibilities at the time. That's an extra $20 per month for the extra number; the wiring already runs into the house, since your main landline uses only one pair of the two-pair cable the phone company runs. The second number uses the other pair.
The ISP is Internet Express at $12.95 per month. I'm happy with the service and have only occasional problems. The modem is V.92 configured, and I use two different kinds of antivirus and antispyware software which I will not specify. The dialup connection uses a phone number local to me, so I have no long distance charge and therefore no need to set up a long distance provider for this dedicated line. Total cost each month for the dedicated line + the Internet Express ISP: call it $33.
Because the primary antivirus/antispyware software really slows things during automatic update downloading, I disable the automatic updates and instead download the updates "manually" every few weeks. This takes about an hour. The system usually runs squeaky clean and fast for dialup. With patience I've even downloaded lengthy PDF files. However, if I'm doing a lot of PDF downloading and printing, I do go to the library to use its faster DSL connections and laser printer.
There are alternatives to more expensive service. Dialup doesn't have to be bad. This combo seems to work well for me, and since I'm home now full time taking care of family, having Internet access at home has been even more of a boon than I thought it would be.
But I'm pretty content with the setup. We set up a second landline with a separate number and told the carrier it was for data. This step was necessary because I absolutely could not tie up our primary landline due to job responsibilities at the time. That's an extra $20 per month for the extra number; the wiring already runs into the house, since your main landline uses only one pair of the two-pair cable the phone company runs. The second number uses the other pair.
The ISP is Internet Express at $12.95 per month. I'm happy with the service and have only occasional problems. The modem is V.92 configured, and I use two different kinds of antivirus and antispyware software which I will not specify. The dialup connection uses a phone number local to me, so I have no long distance charge and therefore no need to set up a long distance provider for this dedicated line. Total cost each month for the dedicated line + the Internet Express ISP: call it $33.
Because the primary antivirus/antispyware software really slows things during automatic update downloading, I disable the automatic updates and instead download the updates "manually" every few weeks. This takes about an hour. The system usually runs squeaky clean and fast for dialup. With patience I've even downloaded lengthy PDF files. However, if I'm doing a lot of PDF downloading and printing, I do go to the library to use its faster DSL connections and laser printer.
There are alternatives to more expensive service. Dialup doesn't have to be bad. This combo seems to work well for me, and since I'm home now full time taking care of family, having Internet access at home has been even more of a boon than I thought it would be.
- Status
Similar threads
