Satellite Internet

[Iambjm]

Does anyone have any knowledge about this. I have Wild Blue and can get decent connections in the fall and winter, but come springtime I start losing my connection around 9:30 am and don't get it back until evening. I called Wild Blue but they want $99 just to come out. I have cut down at least 30 trees trying to rectify this, but no go. Plus if it was a tree issue, why would it work in the evening?

[Da Beak]

I have the same service Barb and I haven't noticed any loss in signal. Has it been like this since the installation? If so, I'd try to pin it back on Wild Blue's installers. Wrong coordinates?

[Iambjm]

I did have a lot of trees in the line of sight, but as I said I cut at least 30 down. I hesitate to cut anymore and may have to bite the bullet and pay them to come out and check things out. I started service in OCT 2006 and come spring 2007 this started. I had the problem all summer and it went away in the fall. It is starting again now even though the trees have yet to leaf out. Truthfully satellite is almost as infuriating as dialup. If it is heavily overcast, raining, snowing, no signal. Frost on the satellite ----no signal. If I could get anything else where I am I would!

[harvey lee]

I have Direct TV and every spring and fall as the frost goes in or comes out, I need to reset my signal by adjusting the dish pointing. However, I cannot understand why it would work part of the day and then not. Have you checked your signal strength?

[Iambjm]

Not quite sure how to check the signal strength

[JimBuck]

One thing you can do is monitor your signal strength and stay aware of any patterns that might relate to the conditions....weather, earths rotation and extreme climate change all contribute to strange interference with a Wi-fi signal....I work in a similar field and it's amazing at how much mother nature can effect a once strong signal. Hopefully things will work out. Best of luck!

[Dave S]

I have my service with Wild Blue/Dishnetwork. It worked great for the first 6 months. Now, it seems as though it's bogged down. My wife telecommutes 2 days a week and says that some of her applications/programs she has to run will now shut down multiple times per day. This was never an issue before.

I contacted the service tech at DN and inquired about them "throttling down" the bandwidth in certain situations. The guy told me they will do this if someone exceeds their service contract. They refer to it as Squatting.

Our contract allows us unlimited service and we should be exempt from any limitations. Not sure what the deal is, but we experience the same thing.

The skies can be overcast and we still have good service some days then on a blue-bird day, nothing. According to our modem, there's a good signal coming in.

I personally suspect there may be a reduction in overall bandwidth to reduce costs. Not with just one service provider, but many.

[JimBuck]

I had no idea Blue was apart of Dish....F.Y.I. there is a huge reduction in bandwidth plan coming from Dish and Comcast to allow more users/channels....We subscribe to comcast and they recently began compressing the television channels. You can REALLY tell....I pay for HD television compressed? This is a joke.

[Valv]

Have you checked if there's any other option in your area ? I was in your situation until 6 months ago, but I never wanted satellite due to the known issues with bad weather (I use mine for work).

I found ClearWave through the old cell phone company, it is wireless access through an antenna on your roof. Depending on your location there might be others providing this, it's not as fast as true DSL or Cable but much, much better than dialup and satellite.

I had it for 5 years with not many complaints.

[wishing for walleyes]

Had wild blue at work and got rid of it.Worst internet i have ever seen.Never got signal when we needed it.

[Iambjm]

Does anyone have any experience with Hughesnet or are they about the same as Wild Blue?

[Da Beak]

Same type of deal. Only Hughesnet is more expensive. We checked into both. See if you have a "Line of Sight" system or tower close to you. (Same thing Valv was referring to.) You'll need a direct line of sight to the tower, and you have to be within 15mi or so. We live in an area with a few hills between us and the tower, so it wasn't an option for us.

[Skeeter21i]

I have Hughesnet and it is no better or worse than Wildblue. I work from home full time and depend on internet access all day. Had to upgrade to their "pro plan" being the "home plan" fair access policy only allows 200 mb download in a 24 hour period. Being restricted to dial up speeds for 24 hours on the fair access policy is a drag, especially how much they charge. They claim the pro plan is faster. It is not, in my opinion at times it is slower than their basic plan. Late afternoons are slower than mornings and mid-day. My guess is people are getting home from work and maxxing out available bandwidth on the satellites. A few years ago I set my parents up on Wildblue thinking it may be better, its not. Hughesnet and WB are both the same in my opinion. For what its worth, an installer said Hughesnet is supposed to be better due to the slightly larger dish. I find that hard to believe...I live too far out of town so satellite is the only option other than dial up. It is better than dial up but if thats the price I have to pay to live out where I do and work from home so be it!

[Valv]

If you guys have good cell phone reception in the house you can go with the wireless cards all the cell provider offer, they have same cost, and if you have a laptop you can take it with you and have access anywhere in the country.

[Skeeter21i]

I know a few that use the cell cards for access and they do work. I'd go that route myself if I had decent cell signal from any of the carriers here.

[harvey lee]

My Direct TV works pretty darn good. The only issues I may have are with a very heavy snow 1 time a winter or a heavy downpour of rain and then its only for a few minutes. At this time, I would not leave Direct TV.

I have been with them for approx 16 years and left once for town cable and within two months was back with the Direct TV.

[Iambjm]

 Originally Posted By: harvey lee

My Direct TV works pretty darn good. The only issues I may have are with a very heavy snow 1 time a winter or a heavy downpour of rain and then its only for a few minutes. At this time, I would not leave Direct TV.

I have been with them for approx 16 years and left once for town cable and within two months was back with the Direct TV.

Harvey are you talking about television or satellite internet?

[Dave S]

For the most part, I can usually get on with the Wild Blue.

To elaborate a little more, Dish Network uses Wild Blue as their provider. Our payments go to DN, but WB is the actual provider.

We looked into the Clearwave, but the closest tower is 3 miles away and we couldn't get a strong enough signal since their antenna was on the opposite side of the tower from our house. So, after a couple hours of the tech monkeying around and drilling a hole through our living room floor/carpet, we found out it wasn't going to work.

If only we could get a faster more reliable connection. But they refuse to run the necessary equipment and lines 2 miles out of town.

[harvey lee]

Da, TV, not internet. My bad.

[Dave S]

lambjm,

I almost got the shotgun out to kill that d a m bug that keeps running around on my computer screen.

[Iambjm]

Lep I know what you mean,just a block and a half from me they have DSL. The township line just happens to run through the middle of the lake and I am on the other side. I am on another switching station so no DSL for me.

[Dave S]

my only option for high speed internet is satellite. This bites because it's twice as expensive.

[harvey lee]

How about a wireless connection through Verizon? Do they have service in your area?

[uglystick007]

You can stop the bug by hitting the ESC key. It won't go away but it will stop the action.

[Dave S]

 Originally Posted By: harvey lee

How about a wireless connection through Verizon? Do they have service in your area?

We have our cell phone service through Verizon, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, we tried the wireless cell service for the internet, and found it wasn't an option. We have a tower within 3 miles, line-of-site and the signal is nowhere strong enough to make it a viable option.

I live a little south and east of Le Sueur. On the Golf course to be exact. We're kind of in a dead spot.

[Roofer]

I have Hughes which used to be direcpc. I have had it for about 6 years or so. It costs about $70 a month for the pro plan with more bandwidth. The satellites get loaded up with too many customers. Since I went to the new HN7000S modem, and my installer went to a good satellite, I have never had any down time. Downloads, uploads, anytime, haven't run out of bandwidth yet since upgrading to pro. It is so expensive though. Right after I got Vista, I needed the new modem. They installed for free and I got the modem free, but I had to sign a year or two contract. (I have to check into that) A week later, qwest sends a flyer about DSL now in my area for $26 a month!!

Anyways, the satellites are about 1-1.5 MBPS. My installer tells me there is a new satellite system coming out that will be at 16 MBPS max. Very fast, but I haven't seen it yet. I'm happy with 1-1.5, but I wish the price would come down. If my contract is up, I may go to Qwest.