Starband is a winner!

[RHughes]

After years of dial-up, we finally bit the bullet and had the local satellite provider hook us up with a Starband internet connection. We were originally going with WildBlue, but they've apparently maxed out their one bird and have put new customers on hold (at least in our area) until sometime in March.
Since the house was already wired with coax and cat5 the install was relatively quick and the treansfer rate (128 up, 512 down) is pretty good, even when the wife and I are both online. The up front H/W cost was a bit higher than WildBlue, but the monthly rate for the base package is the same.

We've only had the connection up for a week of so, but I'd recommend their service to anyone!

 

[Tig]

Congrats on making the jump to get away from dial up.
I'm curious about the dish install. Did it seem very complicated to align?
I'm wondering if it would be difficult to move the antenna to another location if you were traveling. My parents spend summers up here in a remote location and then spend the winter in the Arizona desert. I know there are mobile satelite systems but the costs are prohibitive.

 

[hudr]

I am more than satisfied w/ my setup. We have been on it for over 2 years now. It does slow down quite a bit w/ more than a couple PCs on it. Also the upload speed is severely limited.
But if DSL ever gets out this far I'll drop it in an instant for the $$$ savings.

Tig, HughesNetworks required (on my setup, this may have changed by now) that an FCC licensed tech install the dish and align the transciever since it was not a passive recieve only device.

 

[Tig]

Thanks Hudr. I have seen similar requirements on installation. I did not realize that there were legal implications such as FCC involvement. Makes sense now that I think about it.

 

[riptides]

It is painfull to read that in our great nation we all cannot get higher bandwidth services.

I myself am on a next generational wireless protocol, but if offers no where near the speed of fiber.

And fiber ain't about to happen in my lifetime.

-Mike Z.

 

[RHughes]

Tig,
About moving the dish. A licenced installer has to set up the dish; It's not something you can do yourself. Since you basically have a fully funcational satellite ground station you also have the ability to mess up other satellites if the dish is misaligned.

 

[GaryM]

I had Starband for about two years. It worked OK, but was kind of slow compared to DSL that I had where I used to live. When DSL became available in my area we switched back to DSL with no regrets.

Starbands customer service was helpfull, but sometimes I needed to reboot the PC and play with the MODEM to get it all working.

Hopeful that your experiences will be better. It was much better than dialup, that part wasn't the issue.

 

[DCRC]

I was a dealer and Customer of Starband from day 1. I'm no longer in that business and now use roadrunner since it's available to me. There beta program was pretty good even got a dell PC out of the deal. They are owned by Gilat an Israel based company.

The thing you have to remember with Sat based internet service is they are not in the the market to try and compete with DSL or cable based internet. There sole purpose is to offer a faster connection were none is available.

Your best bet on being able to move your system is to buy a 2nd used dish and have it installed at your other location. If it's not to far from your current one it should work with no problem. Just have to carry your modem back and forth.

 

[Jagmandave]

I had pretty much the same experience as GaryM with our Starband setup, when it worked it worked pretty good, but frequent rebooting seemed to be common, and weather does affect it. Still it was far better than 5 of us one-at-a-time sharing one slow phone modem.........we're also out in the boonies - sort of. There is a housing developement across the street with Roadrunner, but they told us it would cost us $60K for them to bring the service to us, so we passed. We now have a split T1, 1/2 is used for our phone system, and half for data. It says it only runs at 768k each way, but it seems just as fast as the Roadrunner service I have at home, and was cheaper (as a business solution - not individual) than what we were paying for phone service only before.
Like DCRC says, Starband is not a competitor for wired service, but a decent solution compared to dial up. It cost us about $750 for the "works" and about $75 a month, how's that compare to today? Also, when we discontinued the service, we sold the hardware back to Starband, so they should have used equipment to sell for your second location.........

 

[RHughes]

The price has dropped some. The install and hardware ran about $500. Basic Nova Pro service(512 down, 128 up) is $50/month. The Nova Ultimate upgrade to 1Mb down and 256K up is $129/month, but you also get a fixed IP address with that.