I have a small Ethernet network at home - peer to peer for now, though I might add a server. I wish I had always-on Internet access shared over this network.
At this point my only options appear to be DIRECWAY and something homebrew with HAM equipment to connect my network to an outside location with more broadband options than I get here - there’s no cable, no DSL, no land-lease phone line, no cell phone support for modems (so Verizon says anyway).
But I have DirecTV already, and I can just barely see the southwest sky with the dish on the barn roof about 150’ from the house.
What the very helpful fellow there told me I needed would be:
Special DIRECWAY dish (which can optionally supply TV).
New cabling, 3 cables (so another day with the Ditch Witch).
Their “modem” (which I think must actually be a transciever).
A USB cord from the “modem” (they don’t offer Ethernet connecting “modems” to nonbusinesses).
A dedicated PC running some special software to support their equipment, said PC having a USB port and an Ethernet port.
Ethernet cable from the PC to a router.
Router, which isolates the Internet from my own net (he says the dedicated PC must be OUTSIDE my firewall).
Ethernet cable from router to the rest of my sustem (currently a 16 port switch).
Is it really all necessary to share their connection? For example, can I just use a USB/Ethernet adapter in place of the dedicated PC?
It’s amazing what some of these companies tell me - the cable TV company in the nearest town (who doesn’t come this far) insisted cable TV actually uses a fiber optic to enter the house, not wire - I’ve never had it, but I can’t quite believe them…
I’ve installed around 120 Satellite Internet Systems (all Starband with the exception of one aborted attempt with direcway). First IMHO, Starband beats direcway in any comparison. You do have to have a PC that the “modem” connects to via usb or ethernet. It’s actually a network adapter. The txmitter is on the dish. You can have DishNetwork on the same dish for about $70 in hardware plus you programming. There is no business connection between Starband and DishNet so you would have two separate bills. You will ahve to have the dish within about 100 feet of your PC and there will be two rg6 cables to the network adapter “modem”. You do not have to “dedicate” the PC to running the satellite internet. I’m running it on this system and I use it for everything. But it will not run via router, the acceleration software must execute on a PC. You then can share the connection exactly as you would share any other internet connection. I’ve found that Win2000 and XP built in sharing works just fine. I’ve got seven systems on my satellite, three up and using almost constantly. Be advised that there are shortcomings to any personal satellite system…no voice over IP, no real time gaming, FTP can problematic. Anything that satellite latentcy may affect could cause you problems. Latency being the yime it takes for your signal to get to the provider hub. About a quarter second, one way. I do download at 4mb/min though. Uploads are only 55-65K. Luckily I don’t have to upload very often. Do your homework on which system you choose. I’ve heard that direcway will neck down your bandwidth if you download “too much”. Can’t swear to that as I’ve refused to install direcway after my disaster with them. I’ll never install for direcway. (well, never say never but they’ll have to do a hell of a lot of apologizing before I do).
Surely you don’t mean there’s no support at all - anywhere you can get a digital signal, you should be able to use the phone as a modem if you have a data cable. The trouble is, you can only connect at 14.4 kbps unless you’re in an Express Network area (and have an Express Network phone and calling plan).
I doubt you need that dedicated PC. I don’t see why you can’t just hook the satellite “modem” to one of your existing computers and use Windows’s internet connection sharing.
You do need a new dish, though. The internet satellite and TV satellite are in different places in the sky. I was told that although it’s possible to get both signals with one dish, they do it by pointing the dish between the two satellites, so you get a poor signal from both.
Napier, a bird on a wire has it right (suggestion for a bird on a wire: paragraphs. Please?).
If you are using exactly one PC, you can indeed plug the modem into one PC and use that for the internet connection. You don’t need the second PC.
However, because the sat modem doesn’t have an ethernet port, if you want to share the connection with other PC’s on a local network, you may need a machine dedicated to the modem to share the connection. I know that for Starband this is true, but I don’t have direct experience with DirecWay.
Whatever you do, make sure you run some sort of firewall software such as Zone Alarm on any PC connected to your internet connection.
Wow, I called to look into Direcway and they told me it is not available in my area.
Sounds like that is easier for me, anyway.
Of course, my dial up sucks. I just got internet service at home, and aparently I have noise on my phone lines. It is rotten, and I get booted off about ever 6 minutes. Taking an internet class is going to be a real treat.
:rolleyes: :mad: :smack: :wally
I’ve never used (or even seen) sat. equipment for network use, but I’ve heard that, due to the latency involved, companies providing this also supply a special network stack. (That would do stuff like fake ACKs, adjust MTB perhaps, I dunno). This means the connected PC has to be running a certain OS. (Just in case this affects something you planned on).
a bird on a wire:
Starband sounds like the better bet, then. But what more can you tell me about:
>> You will ahve to have the dish within about 100 feet of your PC and there will be two rg6 cables to the network adapter “modem”.
I don’t think I can get closer than about 130’. Since I’ll have to install new cables, I can make them whatever I want, so I can pick something lower-loss than the rg6. Why the “about 100 feet” limit? Is it attenuation (which I can improve), or is it timing (which God Himself apparently has precluded in His fabric of the universe)? Is 130’ = “about 100 feet”? How can I find out more precisely without installing a system that may not work?
Thanks for the great info - you’re now my hottest lead.
Mr2001,
>>Surely you don’t mean there’s no support at all - anywhere you can get a digital signal, you should be able to use the phone as a modem if you have a data cable.
This is just what I mean - or more precisely this is just what the Verizon representative told me. I asked what kind of service I could get using the cellphone system, and she said that she was sorry but “we don’t support the use of modems over cellular service”.
I think that they actually do, in practice. I think people connect their laptop to a cellphone, maybe with the data cable you mentioned, and for all I know the phone company can’t even tell the difference. I don’t know why she said they didn’t support it.
Although actually the ordinary (non-cell) phone company also told me they didn’t allow the use of modems on regular lines when I first asked, about 15 years ago. They said I had to get a special line if I wanted to use a modem, and the price IIRC was about double what a voice line was. Now, at this time they still did not support touch-tone dialing, and they still had some party lines (and my family’s house only had a party line when I was little, and during every call Mom would yell at our neighbor Edna to stop snooping). In fact, no more than 20 years ago, the biggest hardware store in the county still did not have a direct dial phone number - we still had to ask the Operator to connect us. So I don’t know how modern, how mainstream, they are today.
Your 130’ will work. I’ve installed up to 150’ with no problem. Attenuation is the concern, not timing. I’ll be glad to help/advise/direct you if you decide to go Satrband.
BTW you can become an installer by taking the online training and save yourself a couple hundred bucks by doing it yourself.
Sounds like just the kind of customer service you can expect from the front-line Verizon Wireless grunts.
Perhaps by “we don’t support it” she means “we won’t help you if you have a problem with it”, or maybe she thought you wanted to attach an actual modem to your cell phone with one of those cell-socket things.
It’s quite possible to use a decent CDMA phone as a modem, though. (It’s not really a modem, since the connection between the phone and the tower is digital, but your computer thinks it’s a modem.) All you need is the data cable, which costs about $20 to $50, and can probably also be used to edit your ringers and contact book.
In fact, you don’t even need an ISP - you can set your computer to dial #777 (which happens to spell PPP), using “qnc” as the username and password, and you’ll be online with Verizon QuickNetConnect. You might need to subscribe to Mobile Web for this to work.
Of course, satellite is a better option. The latency on a cell data connection is nearly as bad as satellite, IME, and the 14.4 kbps transfer rate is pitiful.
