Satellite > WildBlue Satellite > New "Data Allowance" packages

reply to dbirdman

Re: New "Data Allowance" packages

reply to compuguybna

reply to Sircolby45
The area of the spot beams of Viasat-1 look about 1/4 the size of the ones on Anik-F2 and Wildblue-1.
--
Value Pack, beam 31, Riverside gateway

reply to compuguybna
25GB.. Kind of tight but I could maybe make it work. Will it be 12MB here in Michigan?

Yes, Michigan is covered by Viasat-1 providing 12 Mb/s download and 3 Mb/s upload.
--
Value Pack, beam 31, Riverside gateway

reply to Sircolby45
I was really interested in what wildblue was going to do. It's as big a joke as Verizon's 4g. But I have said it before if nobody upgrades they would raise the caps. The bottom line holds true, they have to sell it, we don't have to buy it.

Some of us are kind of over a barrel though with lack of options. My wireless ISP is 700k max. I have a T1 but I'm probably dumping that in April because it just costs too much. I'm leery of satellite though. Hoping my WISP can't bump my speed up.

Personally I would take a WISP at 700k over satellite ANY day of the week. I don't care if satellite was $10 a month and WISP was $40, I would still go with the WISP. Even if a WISP has caps they are usually far more reasonable than satellite. Plus the latency will be FAR lower making the WISP feel faster on everything except downloads. But what good is a fast download when you don't have a big enough download allowance to download anything significant?
--
[IMG]»img218.imageshack.us/img218/2636···3dg6.gif
Windows 7 Pro 64-Bit / Core i5 - 760 / GTX 460 1GB SLI / 8GB DDR3 RAM / Vertex 2 120GB SSD

Yes - wouldn't 5 mbps consume 7.5 gb in 3-4 hours ? - I'd be really scared if I had kids online
--
HN7000S 99 West 1250 MHZ Professional Pro Windows 7

Video streaming sites usually automatically detect your connection speed and send the video stream at the maximum possible rate. YouTube allows the user to manually choose a different speed, but some sites do not. It will use up the data limit quickly and create a lucrative flow of overage fees to Wildblue. When someone has a guest over or unknowingly gets some P2P software on their computer, instead of being slowed down for 2 to 4 weeks, the customer will get a surprise charge on his credit card. Wildblue should create an option that allows the user to set a limit on the usage to prevent surprise billing.

30 days of constant downloading at 12 Mb/s would download 3.5 TB and result in an overage fee of $30,548 for the $129.99 / month package with a 25,000 million bytes /month cap. Value pack users with 5 Mb/s download and a cap of 7,500 million bytes / month would enjoy an overage fee of $12,884. This is a rather high risk placed on a credit or debit card especially during a global recession (depression). I suspect WB will rake in massive amounts of cash from unlucky and unsuspecting customers (victims).
--
Value Pack, beam 31, Riverside gateway

There won't be any "overage fees" if you go over. You will be throttled to dial up speeds (like they do now), but you will have a choice to purchase additional bandwidth.

That's good and would prevent surprise overage fees of $7.99 / GB.

I wonder if the customer will have to call WB customer service presenting a security risk or be able to purchase extra GB online, as by using the NRTC admintool page.

Your guess is as good as mine since Wildblue/ViaSat has not released anything about the new plans. They updated their website with the new Data Allowance policy, not even releasing an announcement. Wildblue has stated that they will officially announce the plans during CES in January.

A member of Wildblue World called WB and was told about the "Priority Upgrade Program" for current customers. The rep told the person that they could prepay $150 for the installation and activation fee (new modem included) and that it would be included on the next month's bill. However, they said the upgrade wouldn't happen until April or May!

I see from that thread that there was a question about whether 866-945-3258 was actually WildBlue. A simple Google search on that number easily clears it up, not to mention that using w-i-l-d-b-l-u on a keypad is 9453258

reply to dbirdman

The 5mbps service is for most of the west half of America (blue part on the beam map). 12mbps everywhere else (green part). The 5mbps service uses the legacy sats (WB-1/Anik F2), and apparently the same modem just with the AcceleNet firmware installed. 12mbps uses ViaSat-1 and new Surfbeam 2 modems. All plans will have those speeds, you now pick a plan based on bandwidth.

reply to DrStrangLov
DrStrangeLov, recall that the download speed is up to 5 Mb/s. WB could install the firmware on the old Surfbeam 2000 modems before transferring customers over to Viasat-1 allowing us to have that speed late at night but not during prime time. Also the spot beams that will get 5 Mb/s are in areas where there is light demand. The prime time slowdown that I experience is not caused by my spot beam being filled up with customers, but rather something WB did in the gateway to underserve my spot beam. Thus WB should be able to increase the speeds with upgrades at the gateways.

It is not clear what the people covered by Viasat-1 and using Anik-F2 or WB-1 will get during the transition and for how long they will be allowed to continue using the old satellites. The information that has been released makes me think they will continue with download speeds up to 512 kbp/s, 1000 kb/s and 1500 kb/s until they switch to Viasat-1. During the transition, the speeds in areas not covered by Viasat-1 would gradually increase as the customers are transferred.

The AcceleNet software is supposed to compress the bit stream which would allow for an instant increase in the speed.

This seems to me to be a plausible scenario for the transition that would allow for 5 Mb/s and service using Viasat-1 to be offered simultaneously.
--
Value Pack, beam 31, Riverside gateway

reply to Sircolby45
This is rather interesting. ViaSat-1 will use the WiMAX (wiki) protocol (and not DOCSIS).

Also, apparently as far as the legacy beams go, only WB-1 will use both DOCSIS/WiMAX protocols (via the SurfBeam 2 modem).