Wildblue Satellite Internet question

[Chris Sokol]

Does anybody know anything about this service? The price is much more affordable than the other 2 services (DirecWay and Starband).


http://www.wildblue.com/

I am considering this service, but would like to know a bit more first.

 

[Bill Hamilton]

All I know is that they are expanding the service area here in OK. A few of our clients have switched to it because of the price but I haven't heard anything as far as their service reliability.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

I'm using Wildblue out at our rural property as we're too far from anything to get DSL. I've got the Pro Pack and am getting 1300 kbps down and 150 kbps up. No problems at all... latency is barely noticeable. Let me know if you have questions.

Also you'll definitely want to skim through this forum:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/wildblue

Some bad stuff, some good.

Tim

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Originally posted by Bill Hamilton
A few of our clients have switched to it because of the price but I haven't heard anything as far as their service reliability.

It's purely stationary, correct? If so, I'm not sure price would be a good motivation to switch from, say, Cox cable internet... The most basic package is $50/mo + $300 in equipment + $80 installation (using a promo). Cox cable internet is $40/mo + $50 in equipment (modem) + free installation (assuming you can find a promo). In addition, the $50/mo satellite internet plan is relatively slow, with speeds "up to" 512kbps, compared with Cox's 5mbps service (or about 10 times faster). You can get 1.5mbps service, but that's another $20/mo. In addition, I'd imagine that you'd have the same problems with service (i.e. no service) in heavy precipitation that you see with satellite TV service.

Hehe I'm not meaning to stomp on the company or technology, but I'm not sure what the benefit of it is over cable or DSL internet. DSL is often slower than cable, but it's usually cheaper as well ($20-$35/mo).

There is one group of people for which I could see it being a big benefit, and that's for those in the boonies who don't have other broadband choices (DSL / cable). I grew up in the boonies (kind-of), and it took quite some time to get cable on our street.

 

[Bill Hamilton]

Yes, it is stationary and the reason they have it is like the reason Tim has it. They are not within the service area for cable and DSL doesn't cover their area. It is a choice of Starband, Direcway or Wildblue (or dial-up....LOL).
I will stick with my cable.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

Yeah, stick with cable or DSL if you have it. The drawbacks of satellite are:

1 - bandwidth limits (up to 22 GB per month), so you won't want to be messing around with torrents.

2 - attenuation from signal propagating through heavy rain or hail.

3 - cost... all the plans are more expensive than DSL/cable.

The only tangible perk is the satellite link goes directly into a major backbone, so if there's a localized Internet outage, say from a bad server or someone digging into a line, you'll be ok.

Tim