Any expereince with WildBlue satellite internet?

[Rex "Hawk" Smith]

Hello folks,

We're in process of making a move "out of the city" - to a little spot of land in the woods of East Texas.  There's no cable there - so our high-speed internet options are pretty much limited to satellite internet services.

I'm looking for personal experiences with the choices for satellite internet services.  I've found: Hughes Net, as well as WildBlue.  HughesNet - I've seen an installation of - and the customer was never able to get 2 brands of an off-the-shelf wireless router to talk to the HughesNet system...  So I'm not really keen on HughesNet.   

Does anyone on-list have experience with WildBlue satellite internet?  Any "gotchas" I need to watch for in their service?  Any feedback on their limits of 15Gig/month DL limits plan? ($79.99)  I'm paying that right now for unlimited internet through TimeWarner... but alas.. no cable where we're headed.  (And that's probably a good thing!)

Thanks,
Rex "Hawk" S.

[BlueBee]

They change the names of these things so often that who knows who has tried what.  I did have Dish’s satellite internet here for a while.  I hated it, but when you don’t have a choice, you kind of have to grin and bear it.  This was a few years back and the system used the phone line for unloads and the satellite for downloads.  This resulted in more delays than I expected/desired.  Once the thing was streaming from the satellite, the data rate was good.  So your level of annoyance might depend upon the type of surfing you do.  If you’re constantly jumping between sites, the uplink latency is more of a factor than if you spend most of your time downloading files or streaming. 

Of course any inclement weather would kick me off.  However this might be more of a problem at my northern latitude.  The Satellite seems to be located over the southern US.

Wireless internet is now popping up around my area which gives people in rural areas more options.  You might want to check availability in your area.  It’s basically cell phone like technology; terrestrial uplinks/downlinks.  Not as fast as fiber, but it’s a price you pay for living outside the city.

[Rex "Hawk" Smith]

Thanks BlueBee!

Even with our cellphones, we're lucky to get 1-bar of signal - if we go outside to talk on the porch.  So we're destined to get sat. internet & a landline for our business calls.  I'm sure the relatives will want to get in touch with us every once in a while. ha!

[buzzbee]

If you like to watch a lot of video content,be sure to check the fair usage or something like that in the contract. When you hit a limit,it could shut you down for the rest of the day or month depending on how it's set up.

http://www.wildblue.cc/wbfap.htm