Satellite Internet

[Anonymous-0]

We currently have dial-up internet, but would like to upgrade. DSL is not available. I don't care for the 5 gig/month cap on the US Cellular option, ($60/month).

We're built on heavily wooded acreage, but I think we can get satelite.

We're a family of five. Unlimited time/month is pretty important.

Who or what service do you recommend?


Thanks,
Glenn F. (NE, WI)

 

[Anonymous-0]

Check with Bertram Wireless, they work NE Wis. I have them and lick the service. Get my signal off the Marytown church and it bounces thru da trees!

 

[Anonymous-0]

When I entered into a Verizon contract two years ago I had to watch to make sure not to exceed to 5 gig monthly limit. Now the download speeds have deteriorated to the point where it is almost impossible to reach 4 gigs.

 

[Bill Longstreet]

Check with T-Mobil

i have one of their systems that works off the cell phone. $40 / month unlimited and you can move it to any computer any where

 

[Mark - IN.]

Cellular, right? I just signed a two contract with them for 5 Gb at $60 per month for my mother that I've tacked onto my monthly cell service. I'm not at all happy that I did that, but I did it for Mom. Very remote, she had enough of dialup, so choices were either increase satellite to or by $100 per month, or look into cellular modem where signal is marginal. Cable and DSL not available. So far, she says its been all right, but still have dialup backup and keep going to the Verizon meter to see where stand so don't hit or go over 5 Gb.

The wrench in the whole thing is that for Mom's birthday, I replaced her old Pentium II Windows XP machine with a newer lightning fast P320 Dual Core machine, but the biggest issue is that the OS is Windows 7, and it stinks a thousand times worse than Windows ME. I'll say that its good for spuring the economy because it doesn't support the drivers for most of her peripherals such as printers, camera, scanner, photo printer, so all of that stuff has to be replaced, and all of that is to relearn Windows because this animal isn't like the rest of them, and doesn't hold a candle to XP on its worst day, even a corrupted hard drive version. Unfortunately, all of the licenses of XP we have for the various computers are 32 bit, but the new computers are 64 bit, and there is no such thing as a copy of 64 bit XP for sale anywhere, and even if there were, it probably wouldn't support the drivers necessary for the hardware of the new computers. Its to the point where Mom just tries to avoid using the new computer, and goes downstairs to fire up her old one that now resides in the guestroom, that is actually faster than the new one, using dialup, because using reliable XP doesn't frazzle her nerves like 7 does. Being in her upper '70's, I don't need or want Mom's nerves to get frazzled. She deserves better than that, and since she now needs to relearn Windows because of 7, I should've just gone out a few more $$$ and bought her a MAC. I've tried to deal with 7 myself, and its the pits to the point that I'd rather find myself having to deal with Windows 95 again. 95 would be an improvement. Anyway, Mom now has high speed internet via cellular modem, but tryin to manuver around in her new computer negates that.

Mark

 

[atlarge54]

We've had Wild Blue from Dish for about a month. I'd be hard pressed to give them a passing grade. Doesn't work too well in the evening.

 

[old bc]

You can run a virtual copy of XP in windows 7. Check out the link below.
Running Win XP in Win 7

 

[onefarmer]

You can install a 32bit XP on a 64bit machine and it will run just fine. And it will use the 32bit XP drivers too. I've done it.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Search Engine. "Ask Bob Rankin" may help.

 

[jiminct]

check this out i think it was mentioned b4
http://www.bertramwireless.com/services.htm

imo the best are the cellular technology isp's, as i believe that the satellite providers have a high latency rate and w/ a family all trying to use it it will bog down quick. besides i don't think they put a cap on service. as w/ any of the internet services you only get so much bandwidth to the side of the house.

 

[JDemaris]

Many people in my area of New York as using Hughes Net and have done fine with it. I've had it for over two years now. They keep improving it, and the service has gotten better and better with no price increase so far. There is no cable or DSL or wireless available here. Only choices are dial-up or satellite. My dish Internet has been more reliable then our dish-TV ever was. So, we dumped Direct TV and now use over-the-air antennas for HD television.

Long story short with satellite Internet. The downsteam to the user is fine. Often 20X-50X faster then dial-up. Upstream, i.e. when you are sending files instead of receiving, is slow. No big deal, since we rarely ever send anyhing out that's big. Still sends much faster then dial-up, but maybe 10X slower then the download/browsing mode. Of course, I've got the lowest grade, cheapest system.

Last night I downloaded a 300 megabyte Deere tech manual. It took about 15 minutes. If I'd tried to do that with dial-up, I could of left the computer on all night and it still probably would not have worked. Probably would of tried for a few hours and then, timed-out in some way.

I am very pleased with Hughes.net It keeps getting better and better and they've got pretty good tech-support. Only tech problem we've had, was caused by the idiot Direct TV repairman. Back when we still had Direct TV, it crapped out. Repair man came - and cut the wires to our Hughes.net Internet dish. He actually did not notice it was the wrong dish! That caused quite a go around. I finally threw the guy off our property, fixed the Hughes.net dish wiring myself, and we quit Direct TV forever.

 

[Brad Buchanan]

You can actually run a 32 bit xp 'shell' under windows 7. It will run anything that a virgin xp machine will. Don't ask me exactly how to do it. My son is and engineer and he set mine up.
Brad

 

[Allen57]

So your the ones doing the commercials........... :lol: Folks in the commercials are the only ones I've ever heard claim how fantastic it is. :roll:

 

[jcwag]

we have hughes in the shop and also a verizion wireless for the house. verizion is way more consistant as far as speeds. hughes is ussually good in the morning and gets slower as the day goes on. i would reccomened verizion.

 

[jose bagge]

I have wild blue and i can NOT recommend it.