DonMR
join:2004-02-12
Noble, OK
| Considering WB
I have completely given up on DSL ever coming down our street. If I lived 1/2 mile in a different direction, I'd have it! Dialup is driving us crazy so, we are considering purchase of a WB system.
I believe their pricing is better than HughesNet and the FAP differences are in line with our usage style -- my wife is a surfer and I do some web development, so uploading sites and downloading software and OS patches is my need. (No streaming services, etc.)
But, I have a couple of questions...
Obviously WB is expanding over the next few months with the launch of a new bird. My guess is the recent tweaking 'should' settle down after a bit and is probably related to this expansion. The question is...
1. Should I be concerned about system performance in the long term? Is WB a stable service?
Any DishNetwork folks out there? They have recently signed an agreement with WB to offer it through them as a reseller. Advantages? WB added to an existing bill, and $100 off equipment. But the commitment time is 18 mos instead of 12.
2. Do you think this is worth it or should I go direct to a WB reseller who is local?
Thanks,
Don. |
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scorpio75
join:2006-06-07
Mena, AR
| I live in West-Central Arkansas and am on beam 35. I have had Wilb-Blue thru AT&T for six months and love it. My install has been perfect and I have a router for a home network. Every now and then weather in Syracuse or a bad local storm will shut me off but that's part of it. |
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DonMR
join:2004-02-12
Noble, OK | Thanks, Scorpio.
AT&T offers it also. I should look into that to see if there's any difference with what Dish offers.
Thanks,
Don. |
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Island Jeff
join:2005-07-18
 ·WildBlue
 ·TDS
1 edit | reply to DonMR
Performance was rock steady for 13 months from September of 2005 until November 17, 2006. Now however for the last week my wildblue spotbeam seems to have collapsed and is full of lag and glitches. See if you can find a few people near you to give you current performance or to even give their system a try for a few minutes. Wildblue was great for the 13 months up until 11/17, but the new firmware seems to result in such a degradation of speed and performance and introduces so much lag and so many errors that I wonder if other solutions aren't currently the way to go until the new satellite is up.
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Wildblue in Lake Michigan | Color Printing Forum
Performance reduced by 50% on beam 17 due to 11/17/2006 firmware update or failure |
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DrStrangeLOV_
| said by Island Jeff  :but the new firmware seems to...so many errors I'm not seeing "errors," can you show me via Netstat?
C:\>netstat -e -s
TCP Statistics for IPv4
Active Opens = 201
Passive Opens = 0
Failed Connection Attempts = 0
Reset Connections = 0
Current Connections = 0
Segments Received = 1489
Segments Sent = 1329
Segments Retransmitted = 0 |
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ahedge
Premium
join:2002-05-14
Shepherd, TX
 ·Millenicom
1 edit | reply to DonMR
said by DonMR :...we are considering purchase of a WB system. I believe their pricing is better than HughesNet and the FAP differences are in line with our usage style -- my wife is a surfer and I do some web development Consider that the latency range is 700-2400 msecs. Could you test you Web applications with that kind of latency? You will probably be happy with the download speed, WB's better than average DSL.
Also consider that with heavy rains you'll lose the connection.
Did you check if 3G is available in your area? Cingular Verizon and Sprint offer that service. |
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Spice300
Premium
join:2006-01-10
1 edit | reply to DrStrangeLOV_
There are a few errors in my netstat results using beam 31 and Riverside gateway:
netstat -e -s
TCP Statistics for IPv4
Active Opens = 552
Passive Opens = 2
Failed Connection Attempts = 0
Reset Connections = 5
Current Connections = 2
Segments Received = 15856
Segments Sent = 13126
Segments Retransmitted = 8
UDP Statistics for IPv4
Datagrams Received = 52
No Ports = 171
Receive Errors = 4
Datagrams Sent = 108
To the poster of the thread, DonMR, I suggest that you wait until Wildblue 1 is operational. If you sign up now, then you will be added to the current satellite, Anik F2. Some of its beams and/or gateways seem to be overloaded. WB leases its bandwidth on Anik F2, but they own WB 1. WB might not renew its lease for Anik F2 someday forcing everyone to pay for a service call to repoint at WB 1. Having fewer users WB 1 will probably work great for the first year. |
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ahedge
Premium
join:2002-05-14
Shepherd, TX
·Millenicom
| reply to DrStrangeLOV_
said by DrStrangeLOV_ :said by Island Jeff :but the new firmware seems to...so many errors I'm not seeing "errors," can you show me via Netstat? Here you go. But can you PLEASE show your face?
IPv4 Statistics
Packets Received = 78537
Received Header Errors = 0
Received Address Errors = 16781
Datagrams Forwarded = 0
ICMPv4 Statistics
Received Sent
Messages 102 22
Errors 0 0
Destination Unreachable 102 10
Time Exceeded 0 0
TCP Statistics for IPv4
Active Opens = 2578
Passive Opens = 3
Failed Connection Attempts = 7
Reset Connections = 54
Current Connections = 4
Segments Received = 56849
Segments Sent = 54595
Segments Retransmitted = 28 |
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Island Jeff
join:2005-07-18
·WildBlue
·TDS
| reply to DrStrangeLOV_
TCP Statistics for IPv4
Active Opens = 865
Passive Opens = 10
Failed Connection Attempts = 1
Reset Connections = 52
Current Connections = 6
Segments Received = 74503
Segments Sent = 53747
Segments Retransmitted = 2621
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Wildblue in Lake Michigan | Color Printing Forum
Performance reduced by 50% on beam 17 due to 11/17/2006 firmware update or failure |
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DrStrangeLov_
| said by Island Jeff :TCP Statistics for IPv4 Reset Connections = 52 Segments Retransmitted = 2621 Keep an eye on these stats, there may be something wrong on your system. Maybe that installer here can read your signal stats. |
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Island Jeff
join:2005-07-18
·WildBlue
·TDS
1 edit | quote:
Keep an eye on these stats, there may be something wrong on your system. Maybe that installer here can read your signal stats.
I did ask tech support while on the phone to check my signal stats; they brought up my system and said everything was green. I asked "are you sure something isn't marginal - is there anything I should have an installer check" and they said "no - everything is in the green" But that's as specific as they would get, so I'm sure another check wouldn't hurt.
Now a few minutes later:
TCP Statistics for IPv4
Active Opens = 1137
Passive Opens = 12
Failed Connection Attempts = 7
Reset Connections = 76
Current Connections = 5
Segments Received = 84166
Segments Sent = 62699
Segments Retransmitted = 2630
UDP Statistics for IPv4
Datagrams Received = 9271
No Ports = 664
Receive Errors = 28
Datagrams Sent = 9402
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Wildblue in Lake Michigan | Color Printing Forum
Performance reduced by 50% on beam 17 due to 11/17/2006 firmware update or failure |
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DonMR
join:2004-02-12
Noble, OK
| reply to ahedge
Re: Considering WB
The change in latency is really a concern. As pointed out by some forum members, that kind of latency will kill your connection. In my imperical experience, if it's near 1000ms there can be problems.
I'm not concerned about the rains too much. I am assuming the downtime from that would be similar to our DishNetwork setup. In central OK, the rain comes mostly from thunderstorms that are fairly short lived. (The song is a little off, the wind not only comes right behind the rain, but it never quits either!)
I did some brief checking on the 3G services. I have a fairly marginal signal from Cingular here at the house. We have their cell phone service, but I can't really carry on a conversation most of the time with the signal we have here.
What's the best way to find out if 3G service is available here?
Based upon what I've read on this forum, I think a WB purchase is on hold. I may have to do more reading on the HughesNet forum in the mean time.
Thanks,
Don. |
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DrStrangeLov_
| reply to Island Jeff
said by Island Jeff :I did ask tech support while on the phone to check my signal stats....I asked "are you sure something isn't marginal Segments Received = 84166 Segments Retransmitted = 2630 UDP Statistics for IPv4 Datagrams Received = 9271 Receive Errors = 28 Have that installer here check your stats. Your Segments Retransmitted appears to me to be way too high, and each segment retransmitted consumes time. Even for UDP errors, here is what mine looks like:
UDP Statistics for IPv4
Datagrams Received = 61267
No Ports = 220
Receive Errors = 0
Datagrams Sent = 35152
I don't know your setup, but your NIC/Router/Modem may be the problem; I had a cheap NIC many months ago, and it was causing my problems. I bought one of those Microsoft Approved NICs, linksys 10/100 (Linksys LNE100TX(v5) Fast Ethernet Adapter)
Might try setting your NIC to 1/2 duplex at 10mbps. |
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ahedge
Premium
join:2002-05-14
Shepherd, TX
·Millenicom
| reply to DonMR
said by DonMR :I did some brief checking on the 3G services. I have a fairly marginal signal from Cingular here at the house. We have their cell phone service, but I can't really carry on a conversation most of the time with the signal we have here. What's the best way to find out if 3G service is available here? The signal for cell and 3G can be slightly improved with external antennas. I have antennas for both my phone and my Cingular data service. Not the ideal setting but it works.
If you have marginal cell phone signal 3G is probably not available in your area, but you may be able to use Edge as I do.
I get speed just below 200Kbps and latency in the 300-350 msecs range. When traveling to a city I get full 3G on my laptop (900 down 350 up but it varies with the distance from the cell and the number of users.
Cingular publishes maps with the coverage for 3G. Are on their Web site.
Good luck |
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YellowHammer
join:2004-12-09
Jackson, AL
·WildBlue
| I would have recommended WB from up until June 2006, when things starting going down hill. And now with the modem firmware changes, I highly recommend you DO NOT buy a WB system. They have problems, and until they fix them, Wb should be strongly avoided.
TCP Statistics for IPv4
Active Opens = 1114
Passive Opens = 3
Failed Connection Attempts = 1
Reset Connections = 150
Current Connections = 0
Segments Received = 13094
Segments Sent = 9892
Segments Retransmitted = 402 |
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Siryak
join:2005-11-26
·WildBlue
| reply to DonMR
Do yourself a favour and avoid Wildblue like the plague until they fix these pings.
Reply from 66.94.234.13: bytes=32 time=1543ms TTL=47
Reply from 66.94.234.13: bytes=32 time=1178ms TTL=46
Reply from 66.94.234.13: bytes=32 time=1137ms TTL=47
Reply from 66.94.234.13: bytes=32 time=1180ms TTL=47
Reply from 66.94.234.13: bytes=32 time=1445ms TTL=47
Reply from 66.94.234.13: bytes=32 time=1671ms TTL=48
Reply from 66.94.234.13: bytes=32 time=1157ms TTL=46
Reply from 66.94.234.13: bytes=32 time=1294ms TTL=48
Reply from 66.94.234.13: bytes=32 time=1163ms TTL=47
Reply from 66.94.234.13: bytes=32 time=1126ms TTL=47
Ping statistics for 66.94.234.13:
Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 10, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1126ms, Maximum = 1671ms, Average = 1289ms
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Wildblue Pro Pack / Beam 40 / Laredo NOC / Windows MCE SP2 |
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YellowHammer
join:2004-12-09
Jackson, AL
·WildBlue
| Reply from 216.109.112.135: bytes=32 time=2382ms TTL=47
Reply from 216.109.112.135: bytes=32 time=2403ms TTL=47
Reply from 216.109.112.135: bytes=32 time=1167ms TTL=47
Reply from 216.109.112.135: bytes=32 time=1148ms TTL=47
Reply from 216.109.112.135: bytes=32 time=1136ms TTL=47
Request timed out.
Reply from 216.109.112.135: bytes=32 time=1176ms TTL=47
Reply from 216.109.112.135: bytes=32 time=1148ms TTL=47
Reply from 216.109.112.135: bytes=32 time=1140ms TTL=47 |
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DonMR
join:2004-02-12
Noble, OK | reply to DonMR
I talked to the Cingular folks today. I think I'm going to try their "aircard" solution -- Edge. I have 30 days to cancel.
Thanks for all of the input.
Don |
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YellowHammer
join:2004-12-09
Jackson, AL | Let us know how you like it. We need other options available. |
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