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Review by pilot_in_fla 
UPDATED: 1.5 years ago
member for 1.5 years, 26 visits, last login: 175 days 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"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Mail,DNS,News:
Value for money:
|
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.
Followup comments:  
bajadudes
@rr.com
| educated consumers are good customers Starband, Like all Satellite ISP's imposes a bandwidth restriction policy. They and all the others have been doing it openly for years. I am surprised you are just finding this out now?
They have a bandwidth monitoring page that a user can access but admittedly it is 24 hours behind and not always accurate. You however as the end user of the service can accept responsibility to stay within the terms of your contract by pro actively monitoring your own usage with any number of free bandwidth monitoring software applications.
Hughesnet users do it all the time.
Starband will always give you one get out of FAP free card the first time you call to complain, warning you that you need to comply with the limits for your service plan. After that it's up to you to live with it or upgrade to higer level service plans that can realistically deal with the bandwidth you want to move over the sat link.
Starband is also the only company that gives you a bandwidth happy hour between Midnight and 6AM EST during which you can download and up load all you want without it counting toward your total.
The number of simultaneous TCP/IP sessions permitted has always been 64 and does not change when you are fapped.
In short, the policy is clear and stated publicly, they give you one warning, You have a free period every night for heavy use and finally YOU are responsible for living within the terms of the contract that you agreed to. Having been with them for 6 years you probably renewed that contract on several occasions....did you not read the fine print?
I agree,FAP sucks big time but it is not by any means a thing unique to Starband.
I also agree that if anyone has any other choice besides dial up then satellite is always the system of last resort. If you have no other options then it's better than sliced bread. If you have other options, then take them
Starband has 12 month contracts and 24 month contracts.
Max in Raligh NC
Admitted Starband / Spacenet Dealer
»orbitalenterprises.net | |
| | pilot_in_fla
join:2008-04-29
 ·StarBand Communica..
| Re: educated consumers are good customers As I indicated in my review, the Starband service has been in slow decline for some time. It was in calls to support that I found out about the bandwidth limits which they indicated were new. It was in the second call to complain that they told me about the connection limits -- those are not documented at all as far as I can tell but they do explain the extremely poor performance I have been experiencing.
I'm not aware of anything that I am doing that would use substantial bandwidth. When I use dialup, it looks like about 10 mb/hr doing typical light browsing. I asked Starband tech support if they had tools to identify high-bandwidth situations and they indicated they had none. I don't think the after-the-fact bandwidth data are accurate since sometimes a light usage day will show 0.0 mb and other times in excess of 250 mb.
I did evaluate the usage policies for HughesNet and Wild Blue -- the HughesNet policy seemed to be a bit better but I wouldn't buy without having some questions answered.
Fortunately, I didn't have to explore the options of another sat provider or even another analog phone line with a couple of bonded modem connections although the latter would equal the performance of Starband at a much lower cost. Instead, for something less than 1/3 the cost, I am a happy new Embarq DSL customer! | |
| | | |
| Forums » comments on review of StarBand Communications Inc. |
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Review by liljimr
Posted: 1.7 years ago
member for 2.7 years, 7 visits, last login: 1.7 years ago
Gilbert,Franklin,LA
Contract price not specified.
"Its available where most isnt"
"everything else"
"if you have another option, take it!"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Mail,DNS,News:
Value for money:
|
I've been stuck with them for a year and havent liked it from day one. Much like everyone else, i wasnt aware of the bandwidth cap and they sure made it a point not to tell me. I bought the Nova pro system and skyedge modem which was delivered by the installer who knew absolutly nothing about computers. He had no idea how to refresh an IP without rebooting the machine, clueless about firewalls and antivirus. It was a good sign that i made a bad decision.
Tech support is a complete joke but i can give a little credit to the tech supervisor, Ron Beck. Ron and I have had numerous conversations on their crappy bandwidth monitor and after 3 months of discussion i've finally convinced him that it doesnt work. My bandwidth was getting throttled without me even using it. I had unpluged the cat5 from the modem for 2 days and it showed i had downloaded over 200 megs with the cable unpluged. That was a little tough for him to explain away. Ron was the only person i could get on the phone to even listen to the problems i was having, he eventually claimed to get with the engineering department and said the meter was at fault and it was fixed. This was 2-3 months ago and its much more accurate than it was. The everyday tech guys were trying to convince me that i had virus's that was using my bandwidth. Just to clear that up, i build, repair, cleanup pc's all day. This is what feeds my family, i think i'd know if i had a virus! The moral of that paragraph is to call tech support and ask to speak with Ron Beck when your having problems.
Reliability isnt bad if the installer does it right. He had to come back twice to get the signal strength where it should and now it takes a heavy rain to knock it out. Prior to that, a foggy morning would kill it.
Speed is ok, not the best. I get around 480 down and 100 up from the advertised 512/128. They recently started offering upgrades to a 1 meg down 256 up for $80 a month if you agree to extend your contract for 12 months and $70 for a 24 month contract, are you crazy? Theres no way in hell im agreeing to another year.
Bandwidth is useless unless you have money to burn
nova pro 512k $50 1 gig per 7 days
nova 1000 1meg $80 2 gig per 7 days
nova 1500 1.5meg $120 4 gigs per 7 days
Thats not reasonable by any means.
Latency is just stupid, i know why its so high but because of it you have problems with certain sites timing out. Gaming and VOIP will never run through a satellite.
Tracing route to www.l.google.com [74.125.47.99]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms mns-ism.starband.net [192.168.1.1]
2 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms misc-*******-.pool.starband.net [********]
3 592 ms 598 ms 600 ms 172.30.178.221
4 589 ms 600 ms 1259 ms 172.30.178.254
5 1410 ms 780 ms 809 ms misc-148-78-243-2.pool.starband.net [148.78.243.
2]
6 619 ms 1289 ms 630 ms atl-bb1-link.telia.net [213.248.90.73]
7 619 ms 629 ms 629 ms google-118687-atl-bb1.c.telia.net [213.248.90.66
]
8 * 597 ms 629 ms 72.14.236.12
9 619 ms 630 ms 629 ms 209.85.251.231
10 589 ms 1290 ms 629 ms 209.85.253.169
11 621 ms 1288 ms 630 ms yw-in-f99.google.com [74.125.47.99]
Trace complete.
My contract is up so im looking into cellular modems. They have better latency, bandwidth and speeds for less expense. I dont know how reliable they are but im still researching it.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of StarBand Communications Inc. |
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Review by geoffinak3
UPDATED: 1.7 years ago
member for 5.1 years, 13 visits, last login: 1.6 years ago
Poway,San Diego,CA
Contract price not specified.
"If you do not have anything, this is your only choice"
"Limits of use unrealistic. Expensive set up, per month cost and ROI negative."
"Do not do this unless you have nothing else possible or coming within 2 years."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Mail,DNS,News:
Value for money:
|
This review covers an installation in San Diego county where I have another home and was here much longer then I expected so thus my experience with Star Band in AK is limited.
This review covers StarBand, which is now part of spacenet who runs StarBand but also markets their own equipment which is a upgrade from the system I explain below. However, it still operates the same, the same latency problems exist and the amount of Gigabytes allowed is just unrealistic unless you willing to pay for a corporate rate and your company relies on it.
I have been with Star Band 3 years. Speeds on a 481 telecommuter plan at $89.00 a month for that I average down loads 500 Kbs to 750 Kbs. Up load, to 125 kbs up load speeds
FAP or Fair Access use Policy. Read your contract carefully !
This is how many Gigabytes a month you will get, or so they say.
I get 1 Gigabyte per "rolling week" or a total of 4 Gigs in 28 days for a month.
If in that week, I exceed my 1 Gigabyte, I get an email, with a picture in it, that takes up more space... that says I have been throttled, that is my speeds have been reduced to 90 kbs to 125 kbs download to 25 kbs upload until my 7 day rolling average of use drops below an arbitrary number of 500 or 600 Mbs in a 7 day period.
However, to keep you busting the 1 Gig limit, they put in a stop at about 650 to 800 Mbs in a 7 day period. So if you did one day of heavy downloading, your going to have to wait for that big day or two to pass before you get your speed back. That can be as long as a week stuck at 90 kbs down.
The company is in a mass change and hard to tell their direction. I once thought it was the best system and company for all those who needed DSL speeds, 750 to 1 MB down. Higher are possible. But it seems all the companies have gone the same route, at least to the consumer level. We gotcha and there is not much you can do about it and your going to pay maybe get a little faster, but all that does is eat up you meager MB limit up that much faster.
Not just StarBand but all the others have the same problems and performance lags and not much respect for the customer. Hughes is making a big push, when you see this happening, you may join and find things good for a few months. Then all the others come online and the transponders on the satellites fill up and they don't want to open more transponders, so you suffer, slower speeds, longer latency periods. I have had the argument that Internet is much harder then cable TV, that not a packet can be lost and it's true. But look at Satellite TV. They even feed cable TV so all TV brought into the home is brought by satellite, I can choose from probably 60 movies, 180 stations, High Definition, all the music stations and programming of sports all for about $110.00 a month. Satellite internet wants $89.00 for 1 Megabyte a week.
However while they were laughing, as we failed time after time to get my connection, and they were eating a sloppy hamburger and burping and slurping in my ear on the phone during my hook up, honestly.... They forgot to watch the competition, the cell phone companies.
I now think cell will take over for the use of satellite, as the deals for cell coverage is cheaper, offers more bandwidth, is faster and your not tied to a dish. Just a thought to keep in mind if your stuck in the ozone with no cable or DSL and deciding if StarBand is for you.
I would choose cell now over satellite if both were available with out a thought . Cell has FAP limits too but gives you higher speeds and larger Gigabyte limits are available at a reasonable cost. I could almost double my Gigabyte use, Verizon now has 5 Gigs a month for $59.00, if you have a line with them.
The initial out put of cash for star band is staggering. I paid for the dish and all the required hardware and cable that was $1800.00. The modem was about $350.00 after a rebate. Plus $500.00 to have a certified installer come out and do his job. Which I actually did most of, as this was his first install and he could not dig a hole. It took a month from digging the hole to where I had signal. He could not find the bird. Be sure your installer has a electronic way to select the satellite and adjust your tuning, very important. The difference between the size of the signal for Dish TV and Star band is like looking for a baseball bat compared to a pencil.
You can do this yourself and it's basically pretty easy, especially if you invest in a "bird dog" or other satellite finder for about $200.00 to 300.00 and take the installers course which is online.
The upfront costs can be spaced out over 2 years so that can ease that price bite a bit. However ROI is terrible. The equipment that cost me over $2000.00 just 3 years ago, is now worthless.
I can get a new modem that they have not "fully" released it and it will work with my present dish, but only at slower speeds and lower Gigabytes, to get the maximum, I need a new dish and the associated receivers to carry 2 watts. As of yet the reliability and actual use of that new equipment is not available to existing customers. Nor are dealers allowed to show it in their show rooms and can only be bought directly from Star Band. So while the future looks a little better and more expensive. $89.00 will be the cheapest and $139.00 the next step. Until I see a hundred reports of this equipment working. I would be very careful.
Only new customers through spacenet get this and reports are few. I know of just a couple of people who have this new modem and as of yet they have not got their signal, so to report on this new upgrade is speculation at this point.
The dish must have a southern exposure. Now I must say that the dish and I did oversee the install has withstood winds of over 75 mph and never needed to be re-pointed. I do build to Alaska standards even in Cal. The dish points south and our winds come from the east, although it survived a southern wind of 65 to 75 sustained that snapped a 2 foot 50 foot high Eucalyptus tree right at the ground. So stability was great.
What you can do ,read things on the net, email, but all pictures must be in JPEG, a person who sends a photo in Raw format and it gets a few RE RE RE can blow 5 megabytes in one letter. People forget not everyone has high speed internet.
No U tube, no my Space, P2P, chatting just eats mbs like crazy, no little video bites, certainly no movies, videos or movie trailers, no games, no unnecessary trial downloads. No Pod casts, or book down loads. No internet radio. It's very limiting. But it's there.
Maybe a little music. Simple research and email for 1 person. 5 GIgs is nothing. When it comes time to upgrade the computer oh my gosh, there sits maybe 50 to 100 MBs and you know it's just going to blow you out of the water for the week.
For 1 person, who does not want to share photos and does a little surfing or shopping on the net. If you have a family, forget it, kids, no way games. Part of the problem is the limit of use policy
was established in 2001, the internet has changed a lot since then.
Do not sign any contract until you have internet service running.
In my view Star band is the best of the lot, Wild Blue is the new kid and has growing pains, Hughes bad news, stay away from Direct-way, no way. I did a lot of research before selecting Star Band 3 years ago. The service was fairly reliable, I did not have many outages. They did have a problem with one of their major birds and I was the first caller on Sunday to get through and I must say they took care of me. Switched me off the injured Bird and I had no service problems.
However, that was Star Band 2.5 years ago and really StarBand is gone and Spacenet is here now. Thats clear.
They have been enforcing the FAP limits pretty hard. My Mac measures to the packet, how much kbs and Mbs come in and kbs and Mbs go out, my numbers do not match what StarBand shows all the time. They say that there are numbers behind the scenes that we can not measure, that only they see, that the posted numbers on their site are not correct, only a reference and "we have had problems." Ae the answers I get. Plus another one, get a better counter, well the counter is part of the Mac Operating System. Pretty hard to get better then built in. If you call in they review your record and have lifted the the restrictions on my 3 FAPS but all mine hit on a Saturday and that meant I had until Monday or Tuesday to call as that CSR is not there on Sunday. Each time my speed was set to 500 Kbs down when it should be 750 Kbs down and that takes another call, but beware of the sleeping giant.
So they have gotten over $6,100.00 dollars out of me for 3 years of service, you would think I would have the ability to listen to a ball game now and then, watch some news videos. Download the upgrades to the computer with out having to stay off for days to let my rolling average come down. As I can not go above 650 to 800 Mbs a week, lets give them 800 Mbs 3.2 Gigs a month
that means I got 115.2 Gigabytes out of StarBand over the last 36 months averages out to 3.1 Gigs a month. My math is not perfect but works. Funny thing. I got charged for Mbs when there was no power, people were not here. It seems they come up with an average and try to keep you there. They pick the highest day and that puppy rides unless you read the newspaper for a week.
Billing went fine for almost 3 years and then they changed addresses and did not tell me and my online payments did not show up. Cost 3 days on the phone out of 7 and about 4 hours between my Bank and StarBand. Oh yes $300.00 to keep my account straight even though I paid. They did finally get it straightened out and did credit me the amount
Other then that Billing has been straight forward. Don't take the equipment protection plan for $10.00 a month, not worth it and getting the payments would be impossible.
So, if URStuck, then you have no choice. Just be careful and do not put your money out till you see your stuff work. Also most dealers do not like installing equipment you bought off the phone from Star Band or spacenet. Because they miss out on their commission and charging you a little higher. Some installers will do your own stuff. Beware of used equipment, except reputable dealers and do not go by the listed installers on the net. Probably 50% have nothing to do with them.
Well that's the good , bad and the ugly. A way to provide service around the country and the world but greed I think drives this industry more then a willingness to succeed in the long run. But then who am I. They served a purpose. I had to be able to order things to care for a sick relative. I know have some options and I think it might be time to take them.
Any questions or comments negative or positive, just ask.
Geoff
Followup comments: frank236
join:2008-01-02
Barnegat, NJ | wow whew... You ARE OBVIOUSLY retired and have an agenda, keep it simple... I ain't got the time to read a novel. It obviously important to you, "but" you have to show "why" it should be important to us or "guess what" it ain't. | |
| | geoffinak3
Premium
join:2004-09-15
Big Lake, AK
·StarBand Communica..
| Re: wow Hey if you do not want to read a full report of 3 years of StarBand service then just skip it. It's just that easy.
This is an industry that promises a lot and delivers, according to the individual company, varying degrees of service. 3 years and $6100.00 investment in StarBand. Some people may be interested. Some may not
Then others go out and buy it and complain why, usually because they did not do their research. I do my homework when investing in a highly changing business.
If I am going to rate a company, I am going to be fair about what was good, what was bad and what I see the future of after 3 years of life, so someone considering this can benefit from my experience.
I do not write for a grade, accolades or to please anyone but myself that I have passed my knowledge along and if I help one person. Then great.
That's what's good about articles, if their too long or complex to understand , you just skip them. Good luck on doing your research and hope it turns out well.
Enjoy !
Geoff | |
| | |
inquisite1
@starband.net
|  Re: wow
| |
| | | | geoffinak3
Premium
join:2004-09-15
Big Lake, AK
·StarBand Communica..
| Re: wow It's unusual for StarBand in the last 3 years to certify a eBay sold 360, unless the seller is a certified dealer with Star Band. Which there are some. The 360 is also not supported by any tech support. It is mid 90s tech, the satellite dish will support only the 360 modem.
The 480 series and above will require a new dish. The Nova 1000 series will
work off the 480 dish with a swap out out of the receiver, if you want the Nova 1500, you will need to purchase a whole new dish and receiver, along with the modems..
So while 360 deals are out there, it's old technology, will also not support Macs unless you port it through a windows machine.
So what kind of speeds do you see , what are your monthly charges and what
satellite do they have you on. That all makes a difference.
If you want to patch something together, it can be done. I would be very careful of eBay sellers for this equipment. My recommendation, call an installer or StarBand to make sure they will certify and turn your modem on and the dish is the right one. You just can't point and get service, they have to have your location and info from the modem to activate service. Plus you still have to sign a service agreement of at least 2 years or 3 years lowers the price a little per month.
Glad it works for you, but we are comparing 2 completely different systems and technology almost 10 years apart, the 360 still works and some people stick with it because they had to invest so much money, you just can't do it again. I suspect that once they get the bugs out of Nova 1000 and 1500, you will see service for the 360 fall off, because Space Net, Star Bands Parent company wants to move these Nova modems real bad. Just too many hardware and software problems with them . When we have a year of good service reports. Then I might look at it, only as a last resort. Buy it now and your going to be a beta tester. But I think cellular is going to really eat up a lot of satellites business. I have been pretty happy with Verizon.
Glad it works for you, just remember were 10 years apart in tech, so that is why you got it so cheap, but if it works, more power to you.
Geoff | |
| | | |
| Forums » comments on review of StarBand Communications Inc. |
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Review by chosenken
Posted: 2.3 years ago
member for 7 years, 26 visits, last login: 1.2 years ago
Marquette,Marquette,MI
Contract price not specified.
"It can be better then dial up if not on probation"
"Bandwidth restrictions your not told about, horrible tech support"
"Go with some one else, PLEASE!"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Mail,DNS,News:
Value for money:
|
We live on Drummond Island MI, right in the middle of a technology dead zone. Original 100 year old phone line, old outdated cable, no cell phone coverage. We had dial up, and on a good day could get 28.8.
So we got Starband. Ordered the basic plan, and got the 360 modem and dish for $300 and monthly payment of $59.99. Speeds should be 512 kbps down, 128 kpbs up. For the first few months all was good, just had little issues with the proxy and the web page and data accelerator crashing.
Then came their bandwidth monitor program, with out TELLING US till we got an e-mail saying we were on probation. Turns out they enacted a new system that allows only 1 gig of bandwidth over a 7 day period. Now if you surf the internet you know that you will use over 1 gig in a week. So this basically shut down youtub, Google Earth, all podcasts, internet radio, ect. If you used too much bandwidth, they would limit it to 100 kbps till your 7 day period went below 1 gig.
What really pissed me off is the fact we were not told about this when we purchased it and were not told about it till we were on probation. Not to mention there system is broken half the time. We will be on probation with them stating we have used 1.1 gigs, yet THERE real time bandwidth graph will only show 500 mb used. Yea, great system. Then you call to see what is up, and you have to wait upwards of half an hour to talk to some one.
We should have DSL this September 2007, and the moment we can get it, I will so take the $99 cancellation fee and switch over. I have had enough of this so called "service".
Here is a ping test while on probation:
Pinging www.l.google.com [209.85.165.99] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=605ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=621ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=614ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=608ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=602ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=596ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=1264ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=1282ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=608ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=619ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=613ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=607ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=601ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=2679ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=1281ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=1282ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=1282ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=609ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=1271ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=608ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=594ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=620ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=2698ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=1986ms TTL=244
Reply from 209.85.165.99: bytes=32 time=1248ms TTL=244
Ping statistics for 209.85.165.99:
Packets: Sent = 25, Received = 25, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 594ms, Maximum = 2698ms, Average = 1015ms
And here is a speed test while on probation:
»www.speedtest.net/result/150723644.png
Followup comments: 
a333
A hot cup of integrals please
join:2007-06-12
Rego Park, NY | LOL Wow, kinda makes my slowish 500/160 DSL look lightning fast, LOL. | |
| | adolobe
join:2002-07-23
Jacksonville, NC | Re: LOL At least his Starbadn limits him to 100k vs Direcway when they fap you you get below dialup most speed tests when on fap on direcway hover between 14k-22k on my system at my moms house. | |
|
ComputSoft
@starband.net | Bandwidth Restrictions I would like to know of a sat provider that does not have bandwidth restrictions. I personally prefer Starband over the others and I have used them all. | |
| DonPedro
join:2005-11-18
dominican re
| Good news. I use Starband for 2 years now and neve experienced a such problem.
The good news is : the problem is on your side, may be the FAP, may be your router (but no router with the old 360). There is something wrong in your own equipment for sure.
P. | |
| | liljimr
join:2007-02-10
Gilbert, LA | Re: Good news. Don Pedro, you obviously dont use your system very much. I've been with starband over a year with a skyedge modem on the nova pro plan and it sucks. 1 gig per 7 days is unrealistic. There is nothing wrong with his equipment. | |
| | | |
| Forums » comments on review of StarBand Communications Inc. |
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Review by jarodisroot
Posted: 4.4 years ago
member for 4.4 years, 15 visits, last login: 4.1 years ago
Rocky Mount,Edgecombe,NC
$69 per month
"Nothing"
"Upload Speed, Download Speed, Latency, Tech support"
"Only, and I mean ONLY, use this as a last resort."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Mail,DNS,News:
Value for money:
|
I have had Starband well over 4 years now. When we first got it, its downloads were fast and its uploads were ok. That was back when there were very few customers. Now lets fast forward to this year. Recently I have been having periodical times where the modem will just lose total connection with starband and stay like that for anywhere from 30min to 2hrs. We got the 360 modem in August of 2003. When I called tech support ( Which by the way isn't 24x7! ) they told me my modem is going bad. Not even a 2 year old modem and it is going bad?!?! Plus on top of that because of that stupid modem you can't have a nice, clean and secure network cause you have to have a pc connected to it! (oh yeah you can get that stupid 480 modem but that is over $100 and I am not going to give starband anymore money than I have to) Add in the latency issues and upload speeds you start asking yourself why you pay so much for so little.
Rule of thumb here, think long and hard about this before you order. If you plan to do general web browsing and LITE emailing, then it may be fine for you, but if you are power hungry, then might I suggest ISDN. Althought only 128kbps, it has low latency and 128kbps upload.
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 Review by David_
UPDATED: 4.4 years ago
member for 8.8 years, 3501 visits, last login: 8 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 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 dj928
Posted: 5.4 years ago
member for 6 years, 3 visits, last login: 4.5 years ago
Valley Center,San Diego,CA
$60 per month
"None"
"Constant freezing, poor tech support, horrible upload speeds, no networking, no live gaming."
"Avoid"
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I have had Starband for several years due to the high up front costs that have kept me from being able to switch to another company. I have had nothing but problems with the service and have tried everything from reinstalling my entire hard drive back to default (3 times) to intensive tech support, but they can never solve the problems of constant freezing when I surf the internet. It is very slow most of the time and often unusable. There are brief periods of fast service, but this is few and far between. Mail often does not work properly. Email tech support usually just refers me to the 800 number - which usually ends up with long hold times and no solutions.
I am in San Diego County - the best weather in the world - with a clear blue sky in front of my satellite dish. There is no excuse for the problems I've experienced. Starband also refuses to support networking - which is a major problem.
I have found that dial-up (28K is the best I get) has been often superior to the speeds I experience with Starband.
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