I’ve been doing a little browsing of satellite internet service after seeing a HughesNet commercial. The more info I find, the more questions I have. Hopefully you guys can set me straight.
On the FAQ, Hughes Net says that no phone line is required. I remember when DirectTv first came out with their satellite broadband, a salesman told me a phone line is required for upstream data, and the dish is still receive only.
Is the Send/Receive ability of HughesNet sat service unique?
Does DirectTV internet do the same thing, or does it require a phone line?
Did it ever require a phone line? Or was that salesman full of shit all those years ago?
It seems like to have satellite internet in your home, all it takes is a small little dish and a nominal monthly fee. The dish is usually free with serice contract too.
BUT, if you try to put it on something that moves (like an RV or a boat) the dish is much bigger, much more elaborate, costs like 8 grand and the monthly service fees are fucking ridiculous?
-Is there a legit reason for this? It can’t be just that “mobile units will track the satellite automatically”. Because they even have some units that are just supposed to be set up onsite. So they are mobile in that you can break it down and set it up somewhere, but they aren’t meant for use while moving. Even these systems are very expensive.
FCC regulations aside, is there something that actually limits the small home dish to a home.
-If I uninstalled it and took it to a camp ground, would it not work?
-What if I took it to another country and faced it toward the southern sky. Would it not work?
-If it will work, then why are the “mobile” units so damn expensive? Is it control. HughesNet says that FCC requires a professional to install a send/receive dish. So if you want one, you have to pay what the business wants to charge. And for some reason, they are charging much greater fees for their non-home based systems.
Originally, Internet via satellite was one-way, i.e. the phone line was the upstream. These system are now discontinued. The only systems offered now are two-way, satellite only (both downlink and uplink).
The dishes for two way internet are larger than the regular TV systems. They also must be much more precisely aimed to work. This would make a portable, folding-type dish impractical.
The satellites these systems use are in geosynchronous orbit above the USA. There are gray markets in Canada & Mexico but they won’t work above or below certain latitudes and they definitely won’t work out of the western hemisphere (or very far east or west of the mainland).
I have seen people with TV dish antennas set outside their campers and motor homes.
You could set up your internet link the same way but you would need a better opening than those that are good enough for TV to get a good signal and you can’t eyeball it, you would need the meter to dial it in and it would need a solid stand. :: The meters are not cheap. :: Getting the company to sell you an extra dish might be a problem. Also, you would need to get a new code for each place, You need the lat. / long and have to call it in before it would work. The providers do not like you to be calling every few days with a new location. Anyway, that is what they told me. I asked the installers then the company it self. I doubt ‘Direct’ will let you do that either. YMMV
I would think that going through a cell phone would be more economical these days if you just had to connect while camping.
I keep one account that I can dial-up for access from any phone and if I am at a place where there is no wi-fi or broadband, I just do dial-up for one night. I have Cingular and am going to look into the cell phone connection but I have not needed it yet and I’m not sure if the speed out here will beat what WildBlue gives me for the comparable dollars. Also, cell coverage is weak here.
I don’t camp out and surf the web. Just stick the laptop in the saddle bags and go down the road. It has a wi-fi card, a LAN connection and a modem. Good enough for me.
We live out where there will never be cable or DSL so satellite was the only way to go faster than dial-up.
Great info, thanks everyone. Currently I have cable internet for the home computer and cellular internet for my laptop. I have recently been wondering what my options are if I ever end up in Africa or the Middle East or any other random place where my cell wont work. I knew it couldn’t be as simple as packing a DirectTv dish with my kit, but I wanted to know why.
Thanks again.
There are most certainly satellite internet systems available in Canada. :dubious: Check out the next Calgary oil tradeshow and you’ll see a dozen different companies showing off their high-tech gear.
Up north of 60 or so, you’ll need the 1.x m dish to get a decent connection (about $10,000 last time I checked, requires professional install), but smaller dishes will work for many places. If you go with the auto-tracking system (way cooler), it’ll set you back something like $30,000.
I checked out a system for possible use in the field about a year ago, and was impressed with the performance; RDP seemed as responsive from there to my home PC as it did from across the city on regular broadband. One reason they gave for requiring a professional install was that if you get it slightly off, it’ll work, but will degrade other users performance (in which case they’ll remotely disable your transmitter).
At the last tradeshow there was some nifty new portable tech that unfolded from a unit about the size of a large hardcover book, meant to connect to a satellite launching sometime around now, and providing near-broadband capacity. I’m afraid I don’t recall anything else about that though.
Two more bits, based on my experience until about a year or so ago with DirecWay, which was run by Hughs and AFAIK is what is now called Hughes.
Because the system uses the satellite for the uplink, too, your dish antenna is a microwave transmitter. It is actually dangerous, although not very. You need a license to aim them for legal reasons. And there seems to be a rotational adjustment, that is, 3 degrees of freedom, not 2 like in satellite TV. Admittedly, it’s just bolts holding it in place, and they couldn’t stop you from trying.
And, at least when I researched my system, I found that the satellite I am accessing from Maryland was parked 22000 miles almost exactly above the Galapagos Islands. Amusingly, the NOC (Network Operations Center) that is the main ground link for this satellite is also in Maryland.
I have a cellular modem in hear right now. I use Verizon Cellular Broadband on a EV-DO card. What are the chances of me being able to use this in Korea next time I vist? Or in any countries for that matter? Will it work on any foreign cell networks?