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Review by (hidden by request)
(review was emailed from domain sasktel.net)
lodged 25 days ago
 S0L1E
 Contract price not specified.  "DO NOT SIGN A CONTRACT WITH STARBAND" "THEY DON'T KEEP THEIR END OF THE BARGAIN"
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Starband never came close to meeting its advertised download speeds.
When I complained I was told the were "working on it." After 6 months
with no improvement I gave up and cancelled my account. They still
charged me a $200 cancelation fee. I asked for it to be waived as they
didn't keep their end of the deal, and was denied. DO NOT DEAL WITH THIS
COMPANY!
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Review by (hidden by request)
(review was emailed from domain starband.net)
lodged 206 days ago
- Semmes,Mobile,AL
- Contract price not specified.
 "THAT WAS ALL I HAD FOR INTERNET"- "THEY DISCONNECT YOUR EMAIL SERVICE AFTER 15 DAYS LATE ON BILL. I HAD BEEN WITH THEM FOR OVER 8 YEARS"
- "NO DEDICATION TO CUSTOMERS"
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I HAVE BEEN WITH STARBAND FOR OVER 8 YEARS. THEY WILL CUT OFF YOUR EMAIL
SERVICE IF YOU ARE 15 DAYS LATE ON YOUR BILL.I AM VERY UNHAPPY WITH THEIR SERVICE. I HUNG IN THERE WITH THEM WHEN SERVICE
WAS DOWN ON THEIR END FOR OVER 2 WEEKS. AND THAT IS THE WAY THEY TREAT YOU.
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Review by oakieslopes 
member for 10 years, 6 visits, last login: 10 years ago
updated 257 days ago
- Kelseyville,Lake,CA
- Contract price not specified.
- "The only game around"
- "Long ping...slow speeds"
- "No other options. Cant wait for cell phone data service"
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Still the best thing going I can find...and a pain in the butt.
AS soon a cell phone comes around I'll go that way probably. In one
location I tether Metro PCS 24/7 and get 105K
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Review by slucre
member for 262 days, 0 visits, last login: 262 days ago
lodged 262 days ago
- Maunaloa,Maui,HI
- Contract price not specified.
- "May be the only game in town"
- "They cheat on bandwidth monitoring"
- "Bad deal overall"
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The actual service is expensive for what they offer but in a rural area, they can get away with it. The real hooker is that they cheat on bandwidth monitoring to cap your usage below the advertised limit. Their tech support just blows you off if you complain and never follows through on a complaint. It may not be a deliberate effort to steal, rather a faulty monitoring system or misuse of that system by their personnel. I did get a tech support person to disclose that they sometimes play "catch-up", ie. fail to monitor sometimes and catch up on subsequent days. That tells me that they are messing around with the system in ways that it wasn't designed to work. I suspect that this is a dirty little secret that they just don't have any incentive to deal with.
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Review by (hidden by request)
(review was emailed from domain juno.com)
lodged 1.9 years ago
- Eldorado,Saline,IL
- Contract price not specified.
- "A little faster than dial-up"
- "Everything else"
- "Avoid at all costs"
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The Good:
- A little faster than dial-up
The Bad:
- Tech Support is awful and unhelpful. They suggested I cancel my service because I was unhappy that they suddenly started blocking my Tivos from connecting for updates.
- They also block the Wii, Playstation, and Xbox as well as Tivo so if you want to get online to play or even get service updates, you won't be able to.
- MUCH SLOWER than promised. Expect to get 30-40% of the speed they say you can get. The fine print says you will get "up to" the promised speed so they never have to give you what you pay for. I pay $70 a month for speeds similar to a $20 DSL connection.
- You are strictly limited to how much you can download and upload each week. Each level of service has a different download limit and if you go ove they will drop your connection to dial-up speed for several days.
- Their email stinks and is blacklisted by many other email systems - hotmail for one blocks anything from Starband email so you will never be able to communicate with anyone with a hotmail account.
- Lots of service outages. Heavy cloud cover will kill your signal. They also do checks or updates on your modem and will reboot it on you at any time without warning.
- Lack of installers and dealers. Chances are slim you live anywhere near a dealer or service installer so any time something goes wrong you have to pay an installer to come from a long distance away. This is not only expensive, but time consuming so expect to be down for many days until someone can show up. Phone support refuses to help you until you have a dealer look at your system and can prove the problem is not on your side.
- Expensive and a poor value. The service costs a LOT for what you get.
I could go on, but the bottom line is: search around for ANY other option before you settle for Starband.
--hallmike
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 | | Fine Print. LMAO Everything is "UPTO" Including the DSL service you talk about.
Get over it.
--
www.two-pugs.com www.twopugsbrand.com | |
| | | | Re: Fine Print. LMAO You're missing the point. Sure, all services are "up to", but for the same price other services have a MUCH higher "up to" top end. With Starband you pay 3 times the price for one third the speed. | |
| | | | | Re: Fine Print. LMAO No i'm not missing the point. You agreed to that when you signed up. "up to" means just that. EVERYTHING is UP TO on the Internet.
--
www.two-pugs.com www.twopugsbrand.com | |
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Review by DECJ
member for 3.6 years, 57 visits, last login: 118 days ago
updated 1.9 years ago
- La Sal,San Juan,UT
 Business customer- Contract price not specified.
- "A bit better than dial up"
- "Slow, huge latency, equipment problems, poor customer service, too high priced"
- "Not worth the frustration"
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I had this service for approximately 4 years, first starting out with the residential service and later the business package. Latency was a big problem (especially for business applications) and numerous service interruptions were the rule rather than the exception. Modems and connectivity to a small home office LAN were problematic. The local installer was a good guy, but customer service from StarBand itself was typically pitiful.
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Review by Ole
member for 2.7 years, 2 visits, last login: 2.6 years ago
lodged 2.7 years ago
- Calumet,Houghton,MI
- Contract price not specified.
- "DL Speed always above 50% of maximum. UL speed ok. Few interruptions of service."
- "Pricey. Actual latency approaching 4-5 seconds."
- "Probably the best satellite service available."
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I have used the Starband service for about one month. With the exception of extremely severe weather locally and at the upload location, the service has been consistent and well within the speed estimates quoted by Starband.
Connection resets during sessions are extremely rare. I appreciate the static IP address as well.
Company service is courteous and competent. We have a local representative in our very rural area. His service has been nothing short of excellent, both in terms of initial installation and willingness to respond to questions.
I researched all the satellite services available. Starband stood out positively. I am very satisfied with the actual service.
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Review by bogometer
member for 3.4 years, 0 visits, last login: 3.4 years ago
updated 3.4 years ago
- Graford,Palo Pinto,TX
- Contract price not specified.
- "Accessibility in remote locations, download speed, supports VPN, remote desktop"
- "Latency, upload speed, cost. Not for gaming."
- "If you want to telecommute from the boonies and no DSL or CABLE, this is the way to go."
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I use dialup here for years, but remote desktop and vpn are not very usable at 41kbps (what i get from modem). There is no DSL or CABLE here and ISDN would cost more than satellite when you add the cost of the ISP.
The installer was prompt, courteous and knowledgeable and helped workout a tricky installation (the house is in a valley).
I bought the Nova 1500 package (which comes with a huge dish and a SkyEdge modem).
I usually get 1.4 mbps down and 40 - 60 mpbs up (higher at nights on clear days). Rain does slow it down and heavy rain loses connectivity. Its slower during peak hours.
A neighbor of mine uses direcway (Hughes) and based on our tests my service blows his away.
Overall, WAY WAY WAY better than dialup. I recommend it.
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 Review by Pakapab
member for 9.9 years, 1151 visits, last login: 1 days ago
lodged 3.4 years ago
- Cap Haitien
- Contract price not specified.
- "Overall very stable satellite internet system with very few problems."
- "It's satellite, not reall broadband..."
- "This is very good if dialup is your only other opption"
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I use HughesNet at my home on the proplus plan, and Starband Nova1500 at the office. The Nova is much more reliable than the hughesnet system. Speeds, latency are about the same for both systems. The Nova 1500 has a Higher Fap, than the Hughes ProPlus plan with a price difference of just around $15 between them. I prefer the Starband Nova 1500 over the HughesNet HN7000s ProPlus any day.
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Review by pilot_in_fla
member for 3.7 years, 26 visits, last login: 2.6 years ago
updated 3.7 years ago
- Hernando,Citrus,FL
- Contract price not specified.
- "you can now reach support quickly"
- "service keeps getting slower and slower and slower...."
- "don't buy it -- if you have it and it is working, consider yourself lucky"
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As measured by overall ability to get things done, Starband's service has been in a slow decline for a long period of time. Want to watch a youtube video? -- you are better off going somewhere else as it will come in stops and starts. Want to listen to an audio stream? -- it might or might not work.
In the last month or so, Starband has been in a steeper decline. They have implemented something they call Improving Customer Experience (ICE). As documented, this doesn't seem that unreasonable but as implemented, it has the effect of reducing service speed to substantially slower than dialin. The "ICE" limits are based on total bytes downloaded but you can only observe those figures as daily summaries reported the following day, not in real time. Who knows if they are even correct. In my own personal experience, basic web surfing and a little bit of emailing was enough to exceed the Starband limits. But the worst part is that, once subject to ICE limits, you are limited to some unspecified number of TCP connections. Downloading a simple web page can take more than five minutes. Also, once subject to ICE limits, you will probably stay that way even though you are not really getting any sort of adquate service. Why is that the case? Who knows but don't expect to get an answer from technical support.
This is not a service that should be considered for anyone looking for new service. They want a two year commitment but I wonder if they will still be in business in two years. For existing customers, if their usage is minimal enough that they don't get "iced", it is probably not worth switching right now but those users would probably do just as well with dialin.
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