Satellite Internet

[Rocksprings]

Any one have Wild blue or Hughes net Internet service around south Texas area ? How are they ??

 

[phiferpharm]

I have Wild Blue in Ocala, Florida and it is not great. It is very slow to the point that some of the sites i have to work with will time-out.

 

[rekees4300]

I had Hughesnet for 2 years. At times it was slower than dialup. If you have access to DSL or wireless they are better than satellite.

 

[whistlepig]

Any one have Wild blue or Hughes net Internet service around south Texas area ? How are they ??

We were told to stay far away from Hughes net in Preble County, Ohio. They said that their service after installation was little or none. After the installation they say they are done with you. Have no experience with Wild Blue although available in this area. We have dishnet here. Not near as good as Roadrunner but a heck of a lot better than dial up.

 

[bigtiller]

Two households of my immediate family had billing and service problems when they bundled their phone, TV and Internet with Hughes. They each spent about 3 months trying to get everything straightened out before they gave up and then spent a lot of money getting out of their contract.

 

[JCB]

Not too many people are gonna have fond memories of satellite internet. I used Hughes for about two years before DSL became available. Hughes was marginally better than dial-up for everyday use, much better than dialup for downloading large files, and cost about 3 times as much as dialup.

Even though satellite internet was lousy, it was still better than dialup. I moved to DSL as soon as it was available.

 

[ayelvington]

I did WildBlue a la cart and maintained my own network (not with their software). It worked as well as satellite can. Lots of delay (1000 ms) and weather outages in the winter. We went to DSL as soon as it became available, but I have no regrets having gone with WB for the duration. One hint: Take the shortage contract possible. I paid for my equipment with a one year contract, and that made jumping to DSL a lot cheaper.

The word is that if you bundle WB with your satellite TV you will get a support run-around, so going direct to WB is a better idea.

Mind you, I have training in setting up networks, so I was doing things you might not be comfortable with.

 

[tungularafishcamp]

I have hughsnet and love it. Until 2 yrs ago all we had available was starband and besides being unreliable and expensive it was slow. I have hughsnet now and was able to install it myself in an afternoon with no special equiptment, just hook up your laptop directly to dish and point. ez peezee, cheaper than starband and since we have no phones, roads, elec, or anything else we don't provide for ourselves don't see cable or dsl coming in my lifetime or my kids either.

 

[MtHam]

I have had both Wild Blue and HughesNet and they both suck. Neither delivers the download speed they promise. Their weasel clause is "up to." They rarely deliver. Then there is the latency delay. However, if it is all you can get, it's not all bad if you learn to live with the limitations which include being "Fapped"! Exceed your bandwidth allowance, and they put you in the penalty box (too many downloads such as videos), where you will have an excruciatingly slow connection until they let you out. If you are truly in the boonies, it may be your only option if you want to be connected. Hughes, unlike Wild Blue, can travel via automated MotoSat systems which are often seen on expensive motorhomes and bus conversions, or do-it-yourself tripod set-ups for the common folk. If it is the only other choice, it's better than dial up.

 

[wykubotaguy]

Have tried looking into Verizons or ATT mobile broadband? We have Verizon Mobile broadband in the boonies but get four bars on signal strenght and get download speeds of up to three megs. Cost is 59.99 a month. Not bad for us since it came with a free mini laptop and will work almost anywhere in the us.

 

[Pushing_Tin]

Have tried looking into Verizons or ATT mobile broadband? We have Verizon Mobile broadband in the boonies but get four bars on signal strenght and get download speeds of up to three megs. Cost is 59.99 a month. Not bad for us since it came with a free mini laptop and will work almost anywhere in the us.

This is what my dad ended up doing. He had hughesnet for a few years and HATED them. Since AT&T dropped a 3G cell tower nearby he got an aircard and now he averages over 2mpbs a second. Satellite is better than nothing, but not by much.

 

[Western]

Have tried looking into Verizons or ATT mobile broadband? We have Verizon Mobile broadband in the boonies but get four bars on signal strenght and get download speeds of up to three megs. Cost is 59.99 a month. Not bad for us since it came with a free mini laptop and will work almost anywhere in the us.

Same thing we have done. Only thing I don't like about verizon is the 5g monthly limit, then it gets expensive...

 

[Jriffe108]

Any one have Wild blue or Hughes net Internet service around south Texas area ? How are they ??

Howdy there,

I had wild blue for a little over a year in south Texas, Saint Hedwig to be exact.

Bottom line, it sucked. Outages half the time, the other half never obtained anything close to the 1.5 Meg speed I paid for. Speedtests indicated less than a Meg, around .80-.90m most of the time with a 1200-2000ms ping time. Absolute junk
Also, they have a 17g download cap which is BS.

If you have cell phone coverage, go with virgin mobile, they have unlimited data plan now with no contract. It uses sprints network. Also try clear if you are in they're coverage area.

 

[scoutcub]

Another vote against Hughesnet. Just bought a home in Ohio with a Hughes dish on it....talked to the seller who discouraged me from getting it. Said it was very slow and expensive. Went with Verizon mifi and although somewhat slow, much better than satellite.
good luck!

 

[framer]

Look up pixius they use small antenna to pick up from towers rather from
satellite.Works great. It is a small company set up to serve rule areas.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I had Wild Blue for three years in the PNW. They always delivered the download speed they sold me. I don't download lots of videos, so never got close to the download limit. For web browsing, it's very similar to dialup because of the delay imposed by the speed of light. Every handshake (two round trips to orbit) requires half a second, and some web pages need a dozen handshakes to load. Photos, software upgrades, etc. download rapidly. It's great to be able to install your own router to share the connection among multiple computers.

I bought the 512k service for $49 a month. By the time I switched to DSL, that was getting pretty slow for streaming video. I would recommend the 1 Mb service. Don't expect to hook it to your satellite receiver to download movies, because your bandwidth limit is going to be about two feature length movies a month.

I rarely had trouble with weather outages, but Oregon clouds don't have the water content that Gulf clouds have.

You should also look into tethering your cell phone as an internet modem, if you have 3G service at your house. That has the advantage that if you use a laptop, you can have a high speed internet connection anywhere you can get cell service. I use the browser on my Blackberry in both WiFi and 3G mode, and there isn't much difference between the two. An unlimited cell phone data plan will cost about the same as a 1 Mb satellite connection, but you would have to live without a router and being able to share the connection. Air cards do the same thing without the cell phone.

 

[Rocksprings]

I had Wild Blue for three years in the PNW. They always delivered the download speed they sold me. I don't download lots of videos, so never got close to the download limit. For web browsing, it's very similar to dialup because of the delay imposed by the speed of light. Every handshake (two round trips to orbit) requires half a second, and some web pages need a dozen handshakes to load. Photos, software upgrades, etc. download rapidly. It's great to be able to install your own router to share the connection among multiple computers.

I bought the 512k service for $49 a month. By the time I switched to DSL, that was getting pretty slow for streaming video. I would recommend the 1 Mb service. Don't expect to hook it to your satellite receiver to download movies, because your bandwidth limit is going to be about two feature length movies a month.

I rarely had trouble with weather outages, but Oregon clouds don't have the water content that Gulf clouds have.

You should also look into tethering your cell phone as an internet modem, if you have 3G service at your house. That has the advantage that if you use a laptop, you can have a high speed internet connection anywhere you can get cell service. I use the browser on my Blackberry in both WiFi and 3G mode, and there isn't much difference between the two. An unlimited cell phone data plan will cost about the same as a 1 Mb satellite connection, but you would have to live without a router and being able to share the connection. Air cards do the same thing without the cell phone.

I only have excellent AT&T cell phone reception. Does this mean I have AT&T 3G reception also ? What you say is what I had in mind about using the cell phone to pick up the Internet and somehow plug it into my laptop to view the bigger screen.
Haven'T herd one thing positive about satellite Internet.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I have hughesnet (many yrs) and a verizon MIFI(10 months). Hughesnet, while not perfect, is much better than dialup and is even faster than the MIFI. I used to have the Earthlink branded version of Hughesnet, and used to never get FAPed. Earthlink has turned it over to hughesnet, who lowered my monthly cost $10, but now I get FAPed a lot. Matter of fact, two days ago, while my Hughesnet was down for about 20+ hours due to the rain storm, when it came back, I was FAP'ed. I tried to call customer support, but after a failed call transfer, I gave up trying to find out why. Fortunately my MIFI was still working during the rainstorm, because yesterday my mifi went belly up and won't work at all. Hughesnet does offer higher bandwidth options. If you can get DSL, it will be better.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I only have excellent AT&T cell phone reception. Does this mean I have AT&T 3G reception also ? What you say is what I had in mind about using the cell phone to pick up the Internet and somehow plug it into my laptop to view the bigger screen.
Haven'T herd one thing positive about satellite Internet.

No, having good cell phone reception does not guarantee the high speed data 3G link. Have somebody with a Blackberry or iPhone come over and see if you get 3G. On my Blackberry Bold 9000, it will say 3G right at the top of the screen if the high speed data connection is available.

You tether the computer to the cell phone with a USB cable, and the cell phone acts as a wireless modem. AT&T does have the service available for the Blackberry, which is going to cost you about as much as the satellite dish. ($200)

Satellite internet is the last resort for broadband. I don't get cell service at my house, and nobody is ever going to string cable down my road. The phone company finally offered DSL, and I switched in a heartbeat. After it was set up and working, they found out I don't qualify because I am too far from the switch, but I already had it. At the best I get 1.2 mbps and 190ms ping times. If I had cell service, I could do better with wireless data.

Besides the cell phone, you should look into an aircard. I doubt it would cost any more. You just slip it into the PCMCIA slot in your laptop.

 

[rekees4300]

Looked at the Verizon and ATT coverage maps. Rocksprings is not covered by Verizon. The ATT coverage is the following (not 3G):

"EDGE/GPRS: The areas shown in the medium blue represent AT&T owned GSM network providing Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution with typical speeds of 75 to 135 kbps, advanced mobile services like video and music clips, full picture & video messaging, high-speed color Internet access, and email on the move are possible."