My parents are sellin the house and planing on living in their motorhome and are wondering about the ups and downs, anyone with some experience want to give me the basics?
A friend of mine has it and I’ve used his machine. It’s a heckuva lot better than the only other option out here (dial-up which the local phone company limits to 28k). I’d say the two big drawbacks are the price (I nearly fell off my chair when he told me the costs but I’ve forgotten the numbers now) and the reception - it’s really sensitive to weather, especially heavy rain.
Action on-line games won’t work well. Takes to long for the signal to make the ~55,000 mile trip. Ping times are around 600ms and don’t work well in Flying, Racing, or Shoot-em-up type games. Card games, on-line video (with 2 way system), board games Telephone, etc work well. Phone will have a noticable delay, kinda like long distance in the good old days.
Dan
Thanks for the tips, and yeah I knew the price was high but they told me they saw one for 30 bucks a month…now to look into the different isp’s
30 bucks a month will probably buy half the service you need. In addition to the monthly charge, plus whatever you have to pay for equipment, installation, setup, etc., you’ll probably also have to subscribe to a dial-up service. Most satellite internet systems are one-way – downlink only. You receive from the satellite, but you send via land line.
If you’re willing to spend the money, there is two-way satellite internet service available; Earthlink offers one.
Yeah, two way has been out for more than a year… ebay.com has satellite modems & dishes sometimes cheaper. Hughes Satellite had $20 a month plans for 20 hours. Here ya are: http://www.hughes.com/service/direcpc_service.xml
Be careful when buying a used box. You might want to get the serial number and call the sattelite provider and check if there is a balance owed on the box. When I used to work for Dish Network, people sometimes got screwed over buying used boxes. If the previous owner had his service shut off for non-payment, or still owes a balance, you will have to pay it before you can activate the box.
Secondly, if your parents are travelling, they will have to re-tune the dish every time they stop for the evening. This can be annoying and time consuming.
Third, weather interferrence. If the dish becomes coated with snow, or if the sattellite can’t get a signal through heavy cloud cover, it won’t work. I used to suggest to my customers that they spray the dish with a non-stick cooking spray to keep ice and snow from forming on the dish. There’s nothing that can be done in heavy cloud cover, but such interferrence is relatively rare.
When I worked for Dish Network, the satellite internet had just come out on the market. At the time, it was $69.95 per month, IIRC. I don’t know what the price is now.
I’m connected with it now via Direcway. I’ve topped out at 1.8MB which is pretty good.
But it can get knocked out by heavy cloud cover or lightning storms. Then it’s a matter of rebooting the modem and machine.
I also have mine tied into a router so both my wife and my machine have access. It’s a great thing and I only pay about $55/month for two way access. They also throw in 5 POP accounts and some web space (but I don’t use the space).
Personally, I like it. And it saved us money per month considering we have two extra phone lines and two dial up accounts through a local ISP. I saved about $15/month.
Warning: the gear and set up cost about $700 or so.
And IIRC, the two way service requires professional installation due to some FCC requirements. . (about $200, last time I checked).
Other than Starband, Earthlink, and AOL/DirectWay, are there other Satellite ISPs?
I’m one of those lucky country folk living too far away for DSL or Cable and stuck with dial-up connection speeds of 28.8 max.
http://www.nationwidesatellite.com/
Seems directv now has directway, which is two way plus tv, but $99 per month & for some odd reason, after a year, the price drops.
No Etisalat proxy AFAIK if you’re willing to pay sqwoobles of dollars per MB for Inmarsat’s satellite service. Hence PORN!! GAMBLING!!! SEDITIOUS MATERIAL!!!