  TailsPremium
join:2007-09-25
Sanford, NC
kudos:2
 ·Windstream
1 edit | Eh I've only heard bad things about this company. How do they stay in business? I heard the FAP was a nightmare, and throttling/low caps rule the day. What happened to their capacity problem? If they don't have enough capacity for their customer base now, then why do they continue to offer it to new customers? Am I making the right assumption here??
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Do or do not, there is no try! - Yoda | |
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 | Reviews:
·AT&T Midwest
| Re: Eh said by Tails:I've only heard bad things about this company. How do they stay in business? I heard the FAP
god my head is in the gutter | |
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|  dvd536as Mr. Pink as they comePremium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ
kudos:4 | said by Tails:I've only heard bad things about this company. How do they stay in business? I heard the FAP was a nightmare, and throttling/low caps rule the day. What happened to their capacity problem? If they don't have enough capacity for their customer base now, then why do they continue to offer it to new customers? Am I making the right assumption here?? both of them suck with crappy speeds, low upload, FAP, etc etc.
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When I gez aju zavateh na nalechoo more new yonooz tonigh molinigh - Ken Lee | |
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| Lee325
join:2006-12-12
New Salem, MA | I had WB for a year. It was the worst ISP I ever had. No customer service, parts always failing, weather at your location or at the relay site interrupting service. and a FAP that stops you from using it when it does work. If you want to spend more time trying to fix you internet than using it, WB is for you. EVDO, wifi, two cans and a string are all better choices. | |
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| | | That's like two seagulls fighting over the same dead fish! | |
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BigVe
join:2005-07-15
Gulliver, MI Reviews:
·CenturyLink
| My 2 cents It's all about who lies the best/most in their commercials.Hughesnet commercial i would say is right up there and give those that know the truth a good laugh.I would NEVER use either 1 of them Not even worth the hassle i'll go back on dial-up before dealing with either one of them crooks. | |
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 netwirePremium
join:2001-04-27
Shelby, NC
kudos:1 | Dial-up is better, faster... I had Wild Blue, the Pro Pack. Dial-up seemed to be a lot faster (perhaps slower boost speed, but a whole lot less latency). I'd never use them again; would rather use 1XRTT or Dial-up.
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World of Warcraft - My anti-drug.
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| iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
 ·Comcast
·Verizon Online DSL
| Re: Dial-up is better, faster... @netwire agreed! I'd rather use 32 kbps dialup than 512 kbps WildBlue. Latency of 1-2 seconds just kills the connection!
As to WildBlue's speed disadvantage vs. HughesNet, granted WildBlue tops out at 1.5/256 for $80 a month, but Hughes' 3000/300 package is an excercise in marketing more than anything else. I mean, who's gonna actually pay hundreds of bucks per month for a minimal speed increase? Even at 512k latency kills you in web browsing, and on the 3 Mbit plan you would just break your FAP in 20 minutes and be forced into sub-dialup speeds for the rest of the day. Not worth $2xx per month, says I.
Hmm, what's happening with these one-way sat roviders anyway? I'd actually perfer their tech, as it has gotta have less latency than two-way sat, with no FAP limits and lower startup osts. Wonder why nobody talks about them more. Seeing as how uploads on sat 2ay aren't much better than dialup. Hmm, maybe it's the requirement for a phone line... | |
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| | Reviews:
·TDS
1 edit | Re: Dial-up is better, faster... quote:
Hmm, what's happening with these one-way sat roviders anyway? I'd actually perfer their tech, as it has gotta have less latency than two-way sat, with no FAP limits and lower startup osts. Wonder why nobody talks about them more. Seeing as how uploads on sat 2ay aren't much better than dialup. Hmm, maybe it's the requirement for a phone line...
I like the ability to self-install 1-way, but uploads on sat 2-way *are* much better than dialup. On wildblue I always get 220+ kbps up. On dialup, I was lucky to get 30 kbps up. It's not as great a difference as the download speed improvement, but sending a file 7x faster is nothing to scoff at. As you say with the latency, dialup will come out faster if you're uploading a very small file, but for sending photos to friends or uploading to an online gallery, printer, etc. or sending files to others to work with, etc. the difference is well worth the $. (especially, as you say, if you figure in the cost of an additional phone line with 1-way.)
Also there is the reliability of local dialup -- can you count on it to be 100% reliable and always-on, or does it typically glitch after a while? (Here wildblue exceeded the reliability of the local GLE/transworld analog dialup by a good margin.)
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Very happy TDS DSL user | Wildblue in Lake Michigan | |
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| | | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Comcast
·Verizon Online DSL
| Re: Dial-up is better, faster... Hm, to my knowledge I've had two problems with dialup (circuits busy on the exchange where the modems on the other end were located). Otherwise, aside from wet lines killing the connection, the service was quite reliable. Sat 'net...not so much; wather issues, anyone?
As to upload speed, that's a very YMMV thing. I've speedtested in sat locations and upload ranged from 38 to about 100 kbps on a 512/128 connection. The average for my town's sat connections? in the 80s. Guess it depends on the ground station at the other end, but latency seems to be about 1300 ms on sat and with uploads that slow you have to FAP yourself (okay, not quite, but close!) to see any upload benefit over a decent dialup connection. | |
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| | | | Reviews:
·TDS
2 edits | Re: Dial-up is better, faster... Very low upload speed and frequent weather outage might indicate poor dish pointing. Wonder if your local installer isn't dong a good job for you? Back in the Starband days in 2001 the upload speed was really poor (in the 40-60 range; those were frustratingly slow times), but with Wildblue I've gotten 220+ kbps upload 24/7/365 since the year 2005 when it was installed. I think a good installation with accurate pointing is key to both good performance and reliable operation through weather (here it has to be raining so hard I can't see the W on the dish 100' from the window for it to drop out; we have around 3-4 weather outages a year due to rain or wet snow sitting on the tan cap on the tria.) But that's much better than the analog dialup was which drops off every couple hours. The dialup ISP had said it was phoneline quality, but I find it interesting now that DSL is here that the same phonelines deliver 100% reliable dsl service at 60x the performance; I guess it was poor ISP equipment afterall in the analog dialup days.)
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Very happy TDS DSL user | Wildblue in Lake Michigan | |
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| | | | | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Comcast
·Verizon Online DSL
| Re: Dial-up is better, faster... Could be, but keep in mind that I'm going from the whole city's records on speedtest.net, and AFAIK they measure non-latency-based stats. I've seen upload vary greatly on the connection in fine weather at the dish location..dunno, but it seems like sat is very, very YMMV'y. Better than dialup, yes. Better than anything else (but maybe 2\2.5G cellular)? Probably not. | |
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| | | | | | Reviews:
·TDS
| Re: Dial-up is better, faster... Speedtest.net doesn't measure upload speed accurately* for my wildblue connection (*when I say accurately, I mean it doesn't measure the maximum speed you can sustain when transferring a larger file.)
vs testmy.net:
![]()
:::.. Upload Stats ..:::
Upload Connection is:: 234 Kbps about 0.2 Mbps (tested with 2992 kB)
Upload Speed is:: 29 kB/s
Tested From:: »testmy.net/ (Main)
Test Time:: 2008/07/20 - 4:09pm
Bottom Line:: 4X faster than 56K 1MB Upload in 35.31 sec
Tested from a 2992 kB file and took 104.603 seconds to complete
Upload Diagnosis:: Awesome! 20% + : 47.17 % faster than the average for host (wildblue.net)
U-Validation Link:: »testmy.net/stats/id-EZTP2R7S9
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008070208 Firefox/3.0.1 [!]
The testmy.net mirrors what I get if I upload a larger file via ftp as reported by the ftp software or if I upload files via the web to print at kodakgallery or a commercial printer, etc.
Via ftp, if I transfer little files due to the traffic shaping and latency, they go at about dialup speeds *but* I set FileZilla to do 8 concurrent transfers at once which works great to better utilize my wildblue upload bandwidth.
(the speedtest.net site does measure spot-on for my DSL connection comparing almost exactly to what I get real-world, so I think it's either the latency or test file size in their upload test that measures something different than the maximum sustained speed I get over satellite.)
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Very happy TDS DSL user | Wildblue in Lake Michigan | |
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| | | | | | | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Comcast
·Verizon Online DSL
| Re: Dial-up is better, faster... Hmm, I believe the Speedtest.net test uses a packet stream for the test, whereas testmy.net uses a file. Something like that.
Anyhow, I read awhile back in some PDF that sat modems tend to tamper with TCP protocols (spoofing of something or other) and thus, while real-world results are better, stricter tests get abosolutely botched.
So basically satellite's only advantage over dialup is in dealing with large file transfers. Realtime applications just don't work right, which is fair enough when you look at latency and such.
Guess I'll test that WB connection again using some file-based speed testers. The packet-based ones tell me what I already know: this thing ain't gonna do VoIP. Thanks for pointing that discrepancy out. | |
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| | | | | | | | | I get:
I usually see up to 4.6 up in the evening (after 9 pm).
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Saving the world keeps me busy. However, I find Earth very primitive from my home planet of Krypton.
-Supergirl | |
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patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | 100% coverage DSLreports needs to close up shp. 100% of americans not living in an apartment or with restrictive covenants already have broadband internet access. | |
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| keefe007Premium
join:2004-02-24
Germantown, WI | Re: 100% coverage I'm not sure what America you live in.... | |
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| | | | Re: 100% coverage umm, he was being sarcastic. His comment was something a right wing nut case corp ate shill would make. Of course, satellite ISN'T broadband, not by a long shot, bur as long as the megacorps get to keep their money, they will argue that satellite covers the definition of broadband, so they can continue to fleece the public.
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The happiest countries are the most secular. The struggle AGAINST corporations is the struggle FOR humanity! | |
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| | | EPS
join:2008-02-13
Hingham, MA | Re: 100% coverage The megacorps fleecing the public? Hughes Communications and Wildblue Communications are hardly megacorps... | |
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| tobicatPremium
join:2005-04-18
Tombstone, AZ | said by patcat88:DSLreports needs to close up shp. 100% of americans not living in an apartment or with restrictive covenants already have broadband internet access. You sir have never been to Arizona, New Mexico or Nevada for sure. I live 15 miles of dirt road from the closest town. There ain't no broadband there or here except satelite.
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9000 spaceway III, 7000S SatMex 5 1270, Dlink wirless | |
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| | patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | Re: 100% coverage said by tobicat:said by patcat88:DSLreports needs to close up shp. 100% of americans not living in an apartment or with restrictive covenants already have broadband internet access. You sir have never been to Arizona, New Mexico or Nevada for sure. I live 15 miles of dirt road from the closest town. There ain't no broadband there or here except satelite.  | |
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decifal
join:2007-03-10
Bon Aqua, TN
kudos:1 Reviews:
 ·Verizon Broadban..
| not so much heh, broadband penetration isn't nowhere like it should be here in this country.. I mean hell only a small amount of people desiring faster speeds realise theres websites to visit to bitch about the lack of service. So to think 100 percent of america is wired for broadband is basically claiming status of being a comcast/att lobbyist, cause they are the only ones that preach this Bull.. Just where I work alone, only sixty percent of people have broadband access where the rest of us do not.. Are we in rural areas? Hell no, its just slow deployment/change of technology...
I bet if uverse didn't suddenly become the next thriller of ATT i'd have regular dsl by now.. But I feel as if the uverse phase has put a damper on my enchancement... So i'm down to just sprint wireless and satellite internet options if you can call it that..
Lets recycle all this copper and replace it with Fiber!!!! | |
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 N4STJimPremium
join:2005-11-25
Jersey, VA | WildBlue vs. Hughes The competition is between Hughes and WildBlue. Not between satellite internet and other broadband delivery systems. Anyone with more than two neurons firing would pick something besides satellite if there was a choice. I would pay $200/month for decent internet, but $80/month for WildBlue is my only choice, and it is far far better than dial-up for use by myself and my family. We are not doing twitch games, VOIP or VPN because performance is unsatisfactory over satellite. You don't have to be in the middle of New Mexico to not have broadband access. I'm only 40 miles from the White House and don't have DSL, Cable, WISP or EVDO. There is a WISP system being build that I may have access to in a couple of years, but their current rates/FAP/cost is about equal to WildBlue. All I would gain would be an improvement in latency.
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Anik F2 | WildBlue Pro Pak | Beam 37 | Laredo NOC | Since Nov 2005 | |
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 UglyFishy Cool Bird
join:2001-12-12
The Meadow | WildBlue+DISH=Success? OK, I'm just finding myself in a broadband free zone for the first time. 
While researching the choices, my first thought is to prefer simplicity.
If the DirectTV antenna and account can combine with HughesNet in one dish on the roof and one monthly billing account, then that would be better.
Now, if DISH and WildBlue could get together too, THAT would be real competition!
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Oh, I love the smell of fish. Guts, rotten, it's all good. | |
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| Reviews:
·TDS
| Re: WildBlue+DISH=Success? quote:
Now, if DISH and WildBlue could get together too, THAT would be real competition!
For architectural aesthetics, I can appreciate the desire to combine onto one dish to minimize the architectural distraction and better hide the dish.
But for practical purposes, I'd *much* rather have separate services.
Otherwise, one service saddles you to the other.
If work needs to be done (e.g. an upgrade to add more HD channels to the TV) you run the risk of messing up the other service or need a more complicated, expensive mounting.
And they're practically giving away the TV dishes so you gain little in my book.
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Very happy TDS DSL user | Wildblue in Lake Michigan | |
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| | UglyFishy Cool Bird
join:2001-12-12
The Meadow | Re: WildBlue+DISH=Success? said by Island Jeff: quote:
Now, if DISH and WildBlue could get together too, THAT would be real competition!
For architectural aesthetics, I can appreciate the desire to combine onto one dish to minimize the architectural distraction and better hide the dish. But for practical purposes, I'd *much* rather have separate services. Otherwise, one service saddles you to the other. If work needs to be done (e.g. an upgrade to add more HD channels to the TV) you run the risk of messing up the other service or need a more complicated, expensive mounting. And they're practically giving away the TV dishes so you gain little in my book. Well, the benefit that I am expecting (wishing for) is both simplicity and a combined, cheaper monthly price.
So that's just not happenning you say?
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Oh, I love the smell of fish. Guts, rotten, it's all good. | |
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| | | Reviews:
·TDS
1 edit | Re: WildBlue+DISH=Success? You might see a discount.
I think combining on one dish brings complexity and compromise rather than simplicity though and after seeing the starband/dish combined dish back in 2001 won't be going that route ever again myself.
I do have a bit of a bias against dish network after they partnered with starband and sent their dish network installers without meters or proper tools. It seemed like having one more barrier between you and the company actually providing the service rather than something helpful to have.
I much preferred the NRTC wildblue install as those guys knew what they were doing, came with not only the equipment but spares just in case anything didn't work (I'm in a remote location) and did a fantastic pointing and install job in my book. They were installing Internet and knew exactly what they were doing.
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Very happy TDS DSL user | Wildblue in Lake Michigan | |
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 BF69Premium
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
2 edits | Is the author stupid? "However, it's notable that HughesNet offers a nominal maximum download speed of 1 Mbps which is significantly faster than the speeds offered by WildBlue so people seeking faster service may still lean in favor of HughesNet."
Um Wild Blue has 512 Kbps, 1 Mbps and 1.5 Mbps packages. Also Wild Blue's caps while ridiculously low are better than Hughesnet.
In either case they aren't going to get more customers until the start giving out the dish for free and free installation like directTv does. And lower thier prices. My area just got EVDO service by Verison. So my friend that lvies out of town and whose only choice for broadband up until now was sateltie now has a choice. Sure the caps are low and it costs as much as satelite, but the speed is about the same, connection charge is only $35 instead of $400-$600 and no one has to come out and install a dish.
Satelite blew this and should have tried to get customers years ago. One of the main axioms of business "It's easier to keep a customer than to get a new one to replace him"
Here's map of Verizon in my state. The blue is where broadband available. A month ago at least 85% of that blue didn't exist. Considering most of the state is rual the satelite lost a monopoloy on potentially hundreds of thousands of customers. Too bad they didn't try seriously to get them.
»vzwmap.verizonwireless.com/outpu···PG?pelee | |
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| PDXPLT
join:2003-12-04
Banks, OR | Re: Is the author stupid? Well maybe not stupid, just seriously mistaken. And maybe a shill for Hughes
I routinely get download speeds of 1.5 Meg. It's just the latency that kills you and renders their service "not broadband". But Highes has the same issue. | |
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 DogfatherPremium
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA | FAP means that have severe capacity problems I don't give a crap what their PR departments says | |
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| | | Re: FAP means that have severe capacity problems FAP means that it is a shared connection and satellites are very expensive.
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Value Pack, beam 31, Riverside gateway | |
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| | DogfatherPremium
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA
2 edits | Re: FAP means that have severe capacity problems No it doesn't. I had AOL/DPC DRS via Galaxy IV and saw 3Mb with no FAP. | |
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| | BF69Premium
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
1 edit | said by Spice300:FAP means that it is a shared connection and satellites are very expensive. 10 satelites don't cost near as much as what Verizon has spent on FioS, so please. And with 10 satelties they wouldn't have a capacity issue or need a FAP. | |
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| | | Reviews:
·TDS
1 edit | Re: FAP means that have severe capacity problems Verizon has spent a big zero around here, plus they have a 5 GB fap on their EVDO service which is on par with wildblue's lowest $49 offering and 1/3 what wildblue offers on their pro package. (I'd still take it in a second over satellite, but I'd need to order 2 or 3 of their EVDO plans and use them each for only part of the month.) | |
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| Reviews:
·TDS
| I think it reflects the fact that there's more rural demand for bandwidth than supply or competition.
FAP to a customer means less than ideal capacity.
FAP to the company means maximizing profits.
It seems somewhat ironic that neither HugesNet nor Wildblue really wants to provide service that is vastly superior to the other because they don't really want all the "power users" coming their way from the other. Ideally they want customers who barely use the service so as to get as much profit per KB transferred and as many customers per equipment as possible. Likewise, they don't want the FAP to be easy to live with because the fear of triggering the FAP probably does more to reduce bandwidth usage than the FAP itself, and less use equals more profit.
It would be nice to have a situation where the two feel they have to compete more actively to attract customers from eachother by providing a higher level of service than the other. We saw this when wildblue first launched, but then when they filled their equipment more quickly than anticipated, it dropped off. Maybe spaceway will change things and we'll see active competition again which could be great for rural customers for whom faster terrestrial broadband still hasn't come along yet.
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Very happy TDS DSL user | Wildblue in Lake Michigan | |
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| | satelite blows.. I had Wildblue Proplan from Sept. 2005 to Sept. 2007. When first getting it, it worked as expected. But then they started traffic shaping and overloading the birds. I then went with a fixed wireless provider and had way lower latency and it worked quite well until the provider overpacked the tower with too many users..
Now I'm with Sprint Mobile Broadband which works for now. I had to get a ZBoost signal booster to get more bars for the aircard to get the speeds I wanted, but it works. | |
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William5Premium
join:2007-09-22
Washougal, WA | Rural areas satellite is the way to go Dialup is a worthless 26.4 K here, here is a typical test result from the select pak, as for high latancy, who the hell cares.
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Got SKY: select pak, beam 101, Seattle gateway, linksys WRT54G router, 2 PC's running XP Pro. | |
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| Reviews:
·TDS
| Re: Rural areas satellite is the way to go quote:
who the hell cares.
Anyone who wants to use encrypted secure protocols, who wants to or has to work remotely or with interactive web applications, gamers, etc. But it's definitely better than dialup.
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Very happy TDS DSL user | Wildblue in Lake Michigan | |
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| | William5Premium
join:2007-09-22
Washougal, WA | Re: Rural areas satellite is the way to go My point was people who never used satellite try it after you used dialup for a while, I used DirecPC then Direcway long before the newest name change, they all suck, but what can a person do when all you have is either dialup or satellite choose from, I live 10 miles east of the nearest town that has real broadband (DSL/Cable/WISP), and its not easy just to move, same WISP is available out here but never happen at my immediate location. | |
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| | | Reviews:
·TDS
| Re: Rural areas satellite is the way to go Definitely agree with you there. When I first got 2-way satellite in 2001 after having only dialup here for a year after coming from an urban area with cable, satellite was like having a lifeline to the world again. There's so much that you simply can't do with dialup or that is just excruciatingly slow to accomplish (yes, you could say the same thing about low latency broadband vs. satellite, but satellite definitely expands upon what you can do on dialup by a good margin.)
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Very happy TDS DSL user | Wildblue in Lake Michigan | |
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| | and you people bitch at comcast Try living with limted net. They both suck.
but great for somebody important to call you without screwing up your 30mb for 3 hours on dial up. | |
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 Tanis
@memorialhermann.org | Sattelite vs Aircard Does anyone know if there is a difference in running VPN over an aircard vs. a sattelite connection, in terms of speed degradation? since that is pretty much my only two options. | |
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| | | Re: Sattelite vs Aircard Aircards work just fine with VPN's Satellites are slower than dial up with VPN's but most still work...kinda | |
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| | Ahh -the old days "Way back when" I had DirecPC (probably in 2003). It was the ONLY game in town besides dial-up on a old AT$T switch that ran a blistering 24K if lucky. At that time cable in town was analog and I'm well outside their x-persons-per-mile profitability zone.
The receiver I had required a stand-alone PC (which was great because you could play at "tuning" the connection). It worked "OK" and was worlds better then dial-up, even with FAP. One day, WiFi came to town and I never looked back !
I still have the DirecPC dish, LNB and RX/TX in the garage - anybody want it ???
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3500/512 5.7 GHz Motorola Canopy Wireless; FoxValley.net
"Peace through superior firepower" | |
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| | WB I recommended WB because of some of the good things I read. No I have the management telling my clients who to call to get the installation done. Their techs come in mess up a network and cause a business not to be able to work for a week, caused me 20 hours of trouble shooting to finally fix their screw up and all I get from the company or sorry about that. Beware they'll take your money and give you no support. | |
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