Anyone use satalite internet

[woodsman]

The only internet ill be able to use once in Alaska will be satellite. So for those of you that have it now what tips do you have? what are the ins and outs of it? Would you recommend one company over another?

[CB54BS]

I've used Direct TV and currently use Dish network. They are both about the same. In my area Dish was a little cheaoer, because I get my TV thru the Satellite also.

There reps will come out and see if you have the correct southern exposure. You can check what they have to offer on their websites.

You do lose your signal when a real thick cloud cover passes thru. Direct TV seemed more suseptible to this problem than Dish and internet service is also more suseptible than TV reception.

But overall, I'm very satisfied with my service.

CB

[sally]

Wow, I didn't know Dish provided internet as well as TV. Sounds convenient, though I've heard complaints about lag with satellite internet. It's way better than dial-up, certainly.

[King Hugh]

Are you able to transmit and received through satellite? I always thought it was a one-way proposition and that you needed a phone line and modem for the "send" part.

[woodsman]

Yes it is 2 way. search for Huges net, starband or wild blue.

[sbemt456]

HI all, I have had Wildblue for almost 2 years now. When I first got it I was forever getting kicked off the net or losing signal. We have Dish Network TV and wildblue internet service and they are on 2 totally separate dishes. I have the cheaper package from WB and it does fine now. Only advice I can give is that when it is installed, watch the technician and make sure the dish is very secure. When mine was first installed he got the dish aimed a little off so I was alas losing connection. You could sneeze outside an my internet was gone because the dish was moving also. About a year later another tech came a realigned the dish and tightened it down and i rarely lose connection now. It will lose its mind if we get really heavy cloud cover and heavy precipitaion. Other than that its all good. Hope this helps a little.

HAve a great day!

stella

[marshall]

I agree with sbemt456, of the two primary providers Hughes net and Wild Blue, wild blue wins. There is more information about what to expect from your satellite Internet connection here:

http://ezinearticles.com/?Top-3-Cautions-About-Signing-Up-For-Satellite-and-Internet-Service&id=3547490

[flatblack]

To get the most out of a satellite internet connection, make sure your browser is using some form of adblock/flashblock. You will not have any extra bandwidth to waste on ads.. If you are running Wildblue, the company has an extension for firefox on their website you can install that will also help a little bit with speed, as it will change the name servers and the way pages are fetched to try and streamline a narrow bandwidth, high latency connection.

A big part of "being happy" with satellite internet is about adjusting your expectations. It's a slow connection, but it's better than dial-up. (Marginally)
You won't be pwning n00bs on XboxLive, you won't be using skype, or downloading movies on bittorrent, or checking out YouTube videos all day, or any of that high bandwidth stuff. Just not a realistic expectation. Sorry. :(

But for basic connectivity, when the sky is clear, it's OK. Tighten up your browser though! I can't stress that enough.

[CB54BS]

Are you able to transmit and received through satellite? I always thought it was a one-way proposition and that you needed a phone line and modem for the "send" part.

Yeah I can send and receive thru Satellite, no phone or no modem. My internet service is thru Wildblue, who works with Dishmail in my area. Skype is a little slow and depending on the time of day YouTube is fine, but sometimes ya gotta let it buffer, but in my area it is much much faster than modem.

[ShieldWolf]

Hi.
I have hughes and am satisfied with it. I wanted wild blue but isnt available here yet. since i have always been on dial up this is a great improvment.

[cinok]

Well I bit the bullet and Hughes net is being installed tommorow. I checked with a local company that installs for the company that had the coupon in BWH and they had the same discounts so I kept soem of the money local.

[cinok]

Been about a week and so far I am pleased. Much faster then what we had need to try out skype with someone. The intial pay out was tough to swallow but waiting on rebates (hopefully not to long). We will be upgrading to tthe next package up to make sure we do not go over the daily down load and it will also increase speed. We asked for the better package but someone miskeyed the order. So far except for the first day we havent even com close to the limit, but we just found out about instant downloads form netflix and tried them out and it worked well.

[Siuslaw]

We're had Hughesnet for 3 years. Only in the heaviest rain do we have a problem with reception and if it snows you have ot wipe the dish off a lot. We put carwax on the dish to help the snow slide right off.

We only had 24K dial-up before, this is a great improvement. Definitely block all adware, use a streamlined browser (chrome!) and play internet radio on low-bandwidth settings. A really cool thing about satellite, if you have power, it works. No lines. We barely have enough line of sight over a tall mountain ridge (22 degrees above SSE horizon) but it works, dammit!:meeting:

-pbt-

[readra21]

I have been with Hughes Net for about 2 years now. Direct TV does not offer internet services.
As with internet services, the illustrious government only allows you a certian amount of time that is allocated to each individual user. Usually it is about 500 MB per 24 hours, if you go over the alloted usage, you are shut down to 56k speeds. Hughes Net resets it every evening at 11 pm where Wild Blue shuts you to 56k for the rest of the month, they only reset it every 30 days. I have friends that have WB and they hate it.
I hate the fact that with Hughes Net you have to speak to some one in India when ever you have an issue and usually they pick their American name before each shift they work.
Other than dealing with an outsourced workforce, the service is alright.

But if the current king has his way and is able to kill the internet anyways, we need to start looking at alternative media sources.

Hope that helps.
Don

[cinok]

Also with Hughesnet you get 1 token a month for free to reset your download threshold.

[Justacowboy]

I have 2 hughes net systems and have been with them since it started out as direct way.. I have one at my camp and one at my farm in the valley. The one at camp I run off of a solar system or generator.

I really haven't had much trouble with them.. Like everyone when I do I just hate to call and talk to someone in India. I use Skype to communicate and it works fine from computer to computer but when you call to a land line its kind of iffy.. there is always a delay and most of the time its garbled up..

If you exceed your download threshold you can use your free token for the month or you can purchase another for 10 dollars.. We don't have alot of choice at my camp. There is no cell service and we are 8 miles from electricity.

[Pigzzilla]

When we finally finished building our home here, DH called Hughesnet to get service set up. The extremly rude woman he spoke to kept demanding we contact them online and could not understand why we were calling on the phone. Forget them!

We asked the people down the road who they recommend and they said Wild Blue and gave us the phone #. They came right out and got us hooked up. No problems. BUT all the billing is done thru Dish. If we have a question or problem, we have to call Dish and get a big runaround because we are 'with' Wild Blue- not Dish.

The car wax on the dish to slide off the snow is a good idea. Will try that this winter. Thanks.........