wildblue satellite internet

[Ryan_V]

Anyone have experience with this?? I'm checking into it. I can't get any other service out here, and dial up is getting VERY old!!! Just looking for other experiences, good or bad.

thanks

[Dave S]

I have Wild Blue (Dish Network) Internet service. I'm 50/50 on the service. Had it for a couple years now. It's easily affected by the weather. We just had a tech out to see why there was no longer a signal. Turns out the Tria (SP?) went bad and the dish and equipment also caused the roof to settle a little so our signal was only 50% anyway.

Now we're back to normal. The plus is it's far better than dial up.

[bak2MN]

The only thing I can say is it is better than dial up. Other than that not much else to say.

[Iambjm]

All I can say is you should sign up for the service program for $5 a month extra. I had it installed 3 years ago and the first year and a half the signal was terrible, no signal in the rain, or snow, in the summer I could only get on in the evening from about 7 till 7 the next morning. Kept complaining about it and they kept telling me I had to cut down more trees. Well we did and still lousy signal. I was ready to cancel it and they told me that something on the dish was bad and that it would cost me around $400 to fix it. The equipment only cost me $200 when it was installed. I told them that it had acted like this from the beginning and that it was probably bad then. We argued back and forth and they contended that because it was out of warranty it was my problem, but that I could sign up for the extended warranty for $5 a month and call back the next month and schedule a service call and it would only cost me $29.95. That's what I did. Be aware that a service call is $99 for the first half hour and around $60 per half hour after that. My service has been fairly good since then, but nothing beats cable.

[LakeDocktor]

Having installed these systems in the past, I would recommend using something else. Yes it will be faster than your dial up connection, but like others have said, they are very touchy when it comes to signal. If you do decide to have this system installed, make sure that the technician runs new, solid copper coax from the dish to the modem. This can be a pain in some circumstances, but it is need to guarantee the proper transfer of data. Most coax that is existing in homes is copper clad. Depending on the installer and whether or not they are a subcontractor, they may choose the cheaper way out and install copper clad. Insist on SOLID COPPER, not only is it a required spec for this install, it will make the world of difference!

[elkrivermn]

Ryan,

I have Citescape out of St Cloud, check out their HSOforum. I have an antenna on the roof of my house and that is used to pull in the signal off of a cell phone tower in Big Lake. It is a good system for $39.99 a month. you would have to call them to see if you are in the coverage area. Another thing you can check into is the Sprint phone cards, we use them on our company laptops and the minutes on them are unlimited. Not sure how much they are a month but check with Sprint.

[MN Mike]

I'm not sure what Verizon's service is in your area but if it isn't too bad I would look at Verizon's MiFi device, push a button, it will sync with the tower and you can run up to 5 internet capable devices from it. You are limited to 5 GB per month of data transfer, if you go over you get charged something like $.25 per MB. It's portable so you can take it on the road if you want. You should see something in the 1 mb speed, not super fast by todays standard but MUCH better than dialup for sure.

I've worked with the satellite systems before too, they are a last resort if it comes to that.

Mike

[Ryan_V]

thanks for the info so far....sounds like I'll look elsewhere!!

[wishing for walleyes]

We had the wild blue at work a couple years ago and hated it.Never worked when we needed it.

[Dave S]

One of my neighbors has the Verizon card. He lives in a wooded area without line-of-sight to the tower that's 3 miles away. He gets full reception as long as he's upstairs in the house.

Sure the 1MB service isn't the fastest out there, but it's better than dial up.

When the time comes, I may be going that route as well.

[Skeeter21i]

I am one of those that has no line of site for local wireless service, no DSL and in an area that has little to no cell coverage by any of the carriers so no other option besides satellite. I have Hughesnet which is basically the same as Wildblue. My parents have Wildblue so am familiar with it. You are lucky to reach advertised download speeds. Evenings when the system is clogged it is slightly better than dial up at times, throw some snow or rain in the mix and its not even worth being online. One thing that to research is their Fair Access Policy. You are restricted to your usage. Wildblue I believe it a monthly allowance and Hughesnet is daily. If I go over my daily allowance I'm cut back to less than dial up speeds for a full 24 hour period. I work from home so depend on this daily. I upgraded to one of their pro plans with an allowance of 425mb/24 hours. It doesn't take much to reach that allowance and for the monthly fee they charge its very frustrating. I'm not exactly sure how Wildblue does it but have heard that with their monthly allowance is if you exceed your allowance on day 20 of 30 you are shut down for 10 days. Haven't verified that but thats what I've heard. If DSL ever makes its way to me out here I will sign up immediately, it would be well worth early termination fees to get away from satellite service. If you want to research more there is a HSOforum to check out: dslreports dot com.

[Dave S]

The plan I have through WB doesn't have a limit. Our service bogged down one week a couple years ago. I called and questioned them on the "throttling down" of our service which they flat out denied. It wasn't soon after our service was back to normal.

Other than a tria going bad, the service has been ok, but we lose it quickly when bad weather moves in.

[Skeeter21i]

LEP7MM-Quick question for you. Which plan do you have through WB? Is it an old plan by chance? I just checked their HSOforum and all three of their packages have thresholds for usage. I would switch over to them tomorrow for an unlimited plan! Phone company says no plans for DSL to me being not enough houses out here so always looking at any other alternative over what I have.

[Dave S]

As I mentioned earlier, we signed on a few years ago. There was a choice of Silver/Gold/Platinum plans or something to that effect. We opted to go with the 1MB service if that helps. I don't recall the "precious metal" that's used as the name.

IMO, current trends are Telecom mfgr's are scaling back on their investments. IN order to cater to more customers with the same amount of product, they either set a threshhold as you mentioned or they throttle back on the speed.

I build Telecom equipment and it's been a big hit to the industry ever since Y2K hit. The Telecom industry hasn't been the same.