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Review by pacmanfan 
Posted: 4.4 years ago
member for 6 years, 812 visits, last login: 5 days ago
 Mansfield,Wright,MO
 $50 per month (36 month contract)
 about 5 days
 "Downstream beats the socks off dialup, as does stability."
 "Latency, upstream speeds, slower speeds during peak usage times."
 "At only $50 per month, it is an excellent replacement for dialup, but doesn't compare to conventional cable and DSL services."
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In Feburary, I bought a used 360 modem and dish from a dealer on eBay for about $400. Being a DIY guy, I put up a pole myself and tried to tune the system in, so it would only take a few minutes for a local installer to comission the system. I didn't have much luck locating my satellite (IA-7), even with an analog signal meter. Thinking the pole was positioned wrong, I moved it a couple times, leaving a few nice deep holes filled with cement in the yard  Finally, I just paid a local installer $80 to come out and point the dish as well as comission. It took about 5 days from the first call until I was up and running.
Originally, daytime HTTP speeds were a steady 500kbps down and about 35kbps up. Other ports like NNTP, IRC, and P2P were significantly slower, below 150kbps. Off-peak, all other ports got 500kbps too. Since then, daytime HTTP speeds have been gradually dropping off; Now I'm at about 250-300kbps during peak times. Reliability has been excellent, with service outages only being an issue for a few hours at a time on two seperate days in the last four months. Service drops out pretty easily when rainclouds are overhead, but I'm convinced that this could be fixed if I had the patience/money to have a competent installer do a tuning.
I've talked to five or six different tech support reps, most of them over problems which ended up being my own fault. All but one of them has sounded like a native English-speaker, with all of them providing decent service. The Starband member's website has more helpful information on it than any of my previous ISPs did.
The bottom line: The monthly bill is comparable to what I was paying for dialup before, the connection is actually reliable, and the internet has become a joy. I wouldn't think of doing without it now. I'd pay far more for 512/256 ADSL in an instant, but considering dialup is my only other option, Starband didn't have a hard time getting a happy customer out of me!
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 Review by David_
UPDATED: 4.4 years ago
member for 8.8 years, 3501 visits, last login: 12 days ago
Union City,Hudson,NJ
$60 per month (12 month contract)
about 15 days
"Fast downloads , always on , no phone line,"
"Lagggg over 800ms all the times ,No file-sharing programs allowed, uploads sucks , poor tech support....... :("
"If you are alone in the middle of nowhere and have time to remove all the glitches without help......Starband is for you..."
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UPDATE -
Don't have the service anymore, because i moved out of the country. But i have cable modem now, so i'm more than happy with the service.
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Review by pbaldwin
UPDATED: 4.5 years ago
member for 6.9 years, 2505 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Dupo,Saint Clair,IL
Contract price not specified.
"My only Choice for high speed downloads"
"Satellite latency and high startup cost / News groups are super throttled"
"If no other options around, Starband is a solid alternative for email and browsing"
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I must say Starband has worked well for me. Very high latency but it's satellite. The only major outage I have noticed was recently when the satellite went down. Hardly something they can be held responsible for. They have excellent newsgroups. I'll be staying until real braod band becomes available.
UPDATE. They have throttled all newsgrpoups and P2P apps to the point that updateing headers from 1 group now takes 1 to 2 days. Newsgroups were the only thing keeping me around. Now my tower is going up so I can grab a WISP signal.
UPDATE. I now have a 500Kb syncronis connection from WISPER ISP. Getting going was a little rocky. I can now play on-line games and VPN. The connection is plenty fast and stable for my needs.
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Review by Davwbs
UPDATED: 4.5 years ago
member for 6.1 years, 19 visits, last login: 182 days ago
Dry Ridge,Grant,KY
Contract price not specified.
about 18 days
"shade bit slower than cable, but a good connection-- 5 stars to tech support who I talked to."
"If you buy used, better be ready for the wait & alot of phone calls"
"If you want high speed, go Starband, if cable or DSL isn't in the area"
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If you buy a used system better be ready to make alot of phone calls if your not used to dealing with a lot of paperwork to have the modem changed over into your name. & the pricing thats listed ALL OVER THE NET is very unclear about the $49 a month @ 3yrs. The way it reads is if you buy the system " outright " you should get the $49 a month signing a 3 year contract, but if it's a used system you have to pay $69 for the 1st 12months & then $59 the 2nd year & $49 the 3rd year.
The used system was already paid in full once before, why stick another customer that's trying to save a few dollars with the higher bill for a used system. I can see paying the higher amount for a new system, but why stick the customers over & over again with the higher prices of a used system.
Thats the only 2 bones I have with Starband since it's been placed into service.
The connection, tech support, & overall speed of the uploads & downloads have been what was stated plus some.
Since the install of my system, I have since then became a cert. installer for the 480Pro & 360 modems, & have passed the Dealer direct Cert. so I may trouble shoot my own house & will be pointing other family members that are unable to get high speed by any other means in the area.
The bottom line is they have a service that can & will be an important role in getting everyone off the dailup modem & enjoy the internet for what it was meant for.-------------- gaining Knowledge at one's fingertips without waiting mins for the very 1st page to show up when you sign on ----------
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UPDATE 5/10/05
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After having the service for some time now, they still offer high speed where DSL/ cable still doesn't go. They have dropped there hardware pricing for used, & as far as my system only goes out during very bad weather ( normal for any satellite be it TV or internet ) the speeds were getting pretty slow for awhile, but are back up to par & the ppl working tech support bend over backwards when I talk to them to fix a problem if I have any at all, or even a general question that comes to mind.
The IA-7 outage woke up Starband for the better in many ways, as they now see the need for space to cover the ever increasing size of the customer base, & having to keep the customer happy is the only way they will stay in business
2005-05-10 07:16:36 EST: 994 / 225
Your download speed : 1017915 bps, or 994 kbps.
A 124.2 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 230946 bps, or 225 kbps.
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Review by linuxpen
UPDATED: 4.5 years ago
member for 5.1 years, 8 visits, last login: 3.8 years ago
Mammoth,Pinal,AZ
$170 per month (12 month contract)
about 5 days
"Stable consitsnt Conectivity, good download speeds"
"Windows only, networking is difficult (360 modem only)"
"good connectivity 2 broadband speed where no broadband is available"
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I have been useing Starband for almost 3 years off & on. When I origonally ordered my system from the installer dialup is the only internet access option w/one ISP providing local dialup numbers. I purchased the Starband 360 service, the cost was quite high for equipment & installation totaling over $1000.00.
Once the System was installed there was a few problems w/the mission controll software conflicting w/all McAffee anti-virus, firewall & PGP solutions on my windows 98 system. I no loner use McAffee products any more due to that problem. After removing McAfee off of my system the Mission controll software work fine.
I have multiple PCs & wanted to network them for sharing the internet connection. I became greatly dissatified over this issue. For the most part networking was difficult & not cost effective since you have to purchase a 3rd prty winproxy software w/a price based upone the # of PCs you are networking.
I also have PCs that are doual boot machines w/windows & linux. this was also a negative for me as well for the 360 modem needs the mission controll software which only works on windows machines. I did do reaseach & found ways around it but however again the options were not cost effective for I had to purchase additional 3rd prty Virtual Machine software to run in Linux to get the mission controll to work.
Eventually Starband came out w/thier 484 modem which supported networking & any OS that supported TCP/IP connections. But unfortunatly they only made it available to new small office service customers only. This greatly upset me so I allowed my starband service to be disscontinued & went w/ local dialup solution until recently.
Now I am back w/Starband because I noticed that they had come out w/a new residential modem the 481 that works like the 484 but is only designed w/one ethernet or USB port to connect one PC or you could use a 3rd prty router to network more than one PC (which is not supported by starband for residential use). They have also opened up to making upgarading your sevice much easier as well. I have recently upgraded my 360 residential service to the 484 Small Office as of 3/5/05 but have not recieved the new 484 pro modem yetbut traking info should be avalable to me aft 3 days of my order. With the 484 modem all of my concerns over networking & useing the OS that I want go away.
The cost is still steep though. With the 360 residential service I originally had to sign a contract of 1year but when I reactivated my account w/starband I did not have to sign a contract for the 360 residential service. Once I upgraded my acct from residential to small office w/the 484 modem I had to sign a 1yr contract for servce at a mo cost of 149.99 + 16.99 for 3 additional static IP addresses. Starband also offered a 3yr contract w/the cost of 139.99 + 16.99 for 3 additional static IP addresses but I did not want to stick w/a 3 yr contract. All of starband modem upgraded cost a flat fee of 499.00 a price that did not inclue install, taxes & shipping. After taxes & shipping costs the modem upgrade cost me 572.98. Also you have to send the old modme back in working condition otherwise you will end up w/an additional 172.00 charge. I do not expect to have any install fees because all I should have to do is change one modem out for the other.
I am happy over all with Starband's connectivity. Over all starband has been reliable w/out any interuptions in connectivity even in bad weather (by the way this is in Arizona) . I ordered the residential service w/the 360 modme at 500kbps max download & 50kbps on the upload but i consistantly have between 400 - 500 kbps on the down but upload is abt 23 - 40 kbps which should only improve as I get the new 484 modem to a max of 1MBPS on the download & 200kbps on the upload.
With the residential service IP addresses are daynamically assigned via DHCP & it seems that you will always have the same IP address even though it is dynamic. As I have upgraded from residential to Small Office w/4 sataic IP addresses I have noticed that I have already recieved the static IP addresses event though I have not recieved my new 484 modem. Over all I can only hope for greater things to come.
UPDATE 3/10/05
Well I have finnaly recieved the new 484 modem the other day with in 3 business days of my order date delivered via Fedex. I was told that I would recieve an e-mail w/the traking number so that it could be tracked but I never recieved the e-mail. The service I ordered was the 484 Small Office with 4 static IP addresses. The 484 according to Starband has a built in router but is acctually a built in hub or switch & has no advanced router capabilities such as NAT or firewalling. The 484 comed w/ propritary software that has to be run through one while connected directly to the modem to configure the modem with the paramiters that were provided in a e-mail that was sent to me by Starband. Once the modem is configured the software called the communication center is no longer necessary & works properly only if connected directly to the modem from the PC. The Starband Small Office boasts of speeds up to 1Mbps on the download & 256Kbps on the up load (in turbo mode). I have only expeinced 700 - 800 Kpbs on the download & 40 - 70 Kbps on the upload & can not figure out the "turbo mode" of the modem. With the Small Office you are also supposed to get 200MB of web hosting space available. I have not seen the 200MB it went up for 10mb to 15mb. My system dual boots with Linux & the connections was a snap to setup in linux connecting directly to the 484 modem all I had to do is set the network card for sataic IPs & configure the browsers with the proxy address.
UPDATE: 5/1/05
I recently got an offer from starband to be switched to a new cluster to allow me to achieve better speed results. I decided to take the opportunity ...I figured that my speeds can only get better so I replyed to the offer. In less that 24hrs a tech rep called my home to make an appointment to do the minor adjustments to my satalite configuration. At first we has a bit of trouble touching base for the first appointment but promptly reschedualed for Sunday when I was available. Before hand I was sent an e-mail w/a link to a small config file that I had to download & install & a walk through of the adustments that needed to be made to the satalite itself. The tech rep finnally got a hold of me & we did the simple adjust ment to the satalite changing it from a Vertical config to a Horizontal config. Everything went great. I now have a new block of static IPs & default gateway. I am now getting 1064kbpss/56kbps on the new cluster when I was mearly getting 710kbps/46kbps on the old cluster. I asked for an explaination of the "turbo Mode" featuer of the SB484 modem & the rep explained that it is an automatic feature in the modem itself when the modem detects the workload to be heavy for the upload it automatically switches to turbo mode.
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Review by cdstech
Posted: 4.7 years ago
member for 4.7 years, 0 visits, last login: 4.7 years ago
Quincy,Adams,IL
$129 per month
about 5 days
"Excellent sales, service and installation"
"Having to wait 5 days! HA Phone Company told me 30"
"If you want broadband, then call these people, they will exceed your expectations"
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I have had cable, dsl, broadband via just about everything but satellite, until now.
These people are wonderful. From order to install 5 DAYS! I could not believe it. I did ask for priority service and got just that.
There is software that has to be installed for the residential version but not for business users. There system works with all windows platforms except 95. They also have a setup or MAC.
I ordered the business package, which was 1.5 down/760 UP. I have been getting about 1100 up and 1200-1500 down.
The equipment consists of a modem, which is about the size of a router and we were able to get 5 static ip addresses.
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Review by ejjp
Posted: 4.9 years ago
member for 4.9 years, 0 visits, last login: 4.9 years ago
Monroe,Monroe,MI
$59 per month (36 month contract)
about 7 days
"Faster than dialup for rural areas with no other options"
"The company is on very shaky financial ground"
"Not pleased"
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I have been a Starband customer since 2002, with a three year contract that started at $69/month for first year, $59/m second year and $49/m third year. When the service works it beats dial up which is our only other option in a semi rural (population 52,000) area where SBC barely provides dial tone on their existing phone lines.
Last week Starband's "satellite" service stopped operating and I have been without their service since 11/28/04 (today is 12/2/04).
Starband keeps telling me since last Sunday they are working on the problem and will be providing dial-up service for the forseeable future. We subscribers are still waiting almost a week later for that dial up number.
Every call to tech/customer support is answered by a person that barely speaks English (call center in India?). I asked why Starband did not have a backup plan in the event something like this happens and got no answer.
When I asked when they felt we would have satellite service available I was told no one knows. I did some research and found out that Starband's contract with the satellite owner was a NONPRIORITY (cheaper rate) service which means the satellite owner is not contracturaly obligated to find an alternate source for Starband. The sat. owners's priority customers have already been relocated to a different satellite.
Starband's lack of communitation and service during this crisis to the long-time as well as new customers, coupled with no alternative except promises of a dial-up connection, and tech support people that can barely communicate in english, added to the well-known fact that Starbandl is financially unstable, makes me a very upset with this company. (In fairness to them, they did tell me I would not be charged for service during the outage) as though that was a big deal they were doing for me: I would not expect to have to pay for ANYTHING I did not receive. Even the phone company credits you when the lines are down.
So, after almost three years as a prepaid customer (YES I plopped down all the money in advance), there are only two months left in my contract with Starband at which point I will bail.
I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND STARBAND TO ANYONE!
At this time, my only other option is DIrectWay and I will be contacting them immediately.
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Review by bsti
UPDATED: 4.9 years ago
member for 7.7 years, 20 visits, last login: 4.5 years ago
Ignacio,La Plata,CO
$69 per month (12 month contract)
about 45 days
"When it work speeds at 450"
"High Ping NO CONN for Half of customers as of 11/28 2am"
"Stay away to risky"
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Ok So I was farrly happy with starband speeds at 450 or soo ping at 1000ms avj .
But as of 11/28 at 2am they lost IA7 sat and cannt be repaired. here is what they are telling us:
Outage On Clusters 002, 050 and 189:
"On Sunday morning, we lost communication with the IA7 satellite and it cannot be repaired. All customers with Tech IDs begining with 002, 050 and 189 are affected. To restore service we are working with our satellite providers to move customers to a different satellite and we are working to provide our customers with temporary dial-up service. We will update you as information becomes available. "
My Guess is that this took out about 1/2 of there customers . tech line wait times of over an hour if the line didnt just tell you its broke call back later.
Now this is a company that was not doing so well as far as cash flow. And this could be there end sat. take years to put up and if they do move us bandwith is likely to be straned big time. and as for the dialup thing well would you pay 69$ a month for dailup??
Do your self a favor and stay away from this at least till we all see how this effects them as an isp and company. after all you dont want 600$ worth of usless door stop sattalite juke right ??
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Review by haroldb
Posted: 5 years ago
member for 6 years, 18 visits, last login: 3.6 years ago
Larkspur,Douglas,CO
Contract price not specified.
"None"
"Speed variability; Frequently worse than dial-up; Horrible ping times"
"There are better satellite options"
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Note: I accidently posted an update as a Reply. Check that Reply for my latest status.
We moved into a rural area recently that had no DSL, no cable, no wireless ISPs, and (as two months of trying proved) no opportunity for a T-1 line either. Given that I run an IT consulting business from home, I finally decided to try satellite. I went with Starband for two reasons. First, I could get a plan with no contract term so I could easily dump them if their service proved poor or a better option appeared. Second, they seemed to offer higher performance than DirecTV. Ordering was easy, though the lack of technical information on the SB 484 (particularly the router) was frustrating. Installation was more frustrating. You get a list of local installers and have to track one down and negogiate your own installation. I had further installation delays due to weather (snow), but when the installer finally arrived it took them a couple of hours and we were up and running.
Reliability has been excellent, though we do notice periods where there is a noticeable slowdown. And I've never measured the full speed promised, though I usually see at least 700K down and 100K up. Email is great, even with large attachements. Web browsing is fine too. If you are coming from dialup you don't even notice the latency problem. And even if you notice it coming from some other high-speed connection, it kind of dissapears into the background after a few days. I've even used Microsoft's RDC to talk to a Terminal Server with good results. I wouldn't want to sit in front of a TS session as my primary access, but for occasional access it was surprisingly good.
We've had a couple of minor snow storms since installation. There was some slowdown during the storm, but I never lost connectivity. This was better than I'd expected.
One surprise is that the 484 is a router that doesn't offer NAT. So when Starband says you have 4 addresses (dynamically assigned or not), that's what you get. Since I have more than 4 devices I need to connect (e.g. I have a print server that needs to be on the LAN even if it never goes out over the Starband connection), I'm going to have to put in a router of my own. Technically Starband says they don't support such a configuration. I'll report back on my experience after trying it.
Because we went with no contract and the top of the line small business service our costs are rather high. $899.99 for the equipment. $159.99/month for the small business service (484 router/modem, 1Mbps down/256kbps up), $250 installation (plus $85 for a pole).
Overall we are very pleased with Starband. Of course, this is after only one month of use. I'll report back at a later time when we have more experience.
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 Review by Pakapab
Posted: 5 years ago
member for 7.7 years, 919 visits, last login: 2 days ago
Green Cove Springs,Clay,FL
$69 per month
"Solid system, no probs that were not solved fast."
"Delay time"
"Very good for aeras with out dsl"
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I have not had very many probs with this ststem. Comming from DirecWay I love this system much more.
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StarBand Communications Inc.
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