Broadband Internet Woes

Written by nickel - 15 Comments

This weekend I started the process of setting up the utilities at our new house. Thus far, almost everything but the highspeed internet has gone smoothly. When I scheduled the switchover for our phone service, however, I learned that DSL isn’t available at our new house. This admittedly caught me a bit off guard. While our new house is in a country-ish area, it’s not far from town, and there’s a BellSouth switching station barely two miles down the road. Anyway, I wasn’t too worried about the lack of DSL when I first learned of it… After all, while we had planned on doing our TV service through Dish Network, we could always subscribe to cable TV instead, and get our internet that way. Surprise! Charter Communications (the cable company in the area) doesn’t currently service our neighborhood, so we can’t get cable either.

To be perfectly honest, this is something that we could have looked into in more detail prior to purchasing, as opposed to relying on word of mouth. The reason we didn’t is that it wasn’t a big enough deal to sway our ultimate decision. That being said, I’d still like to work out some way of getting a reasonably fast, always on internet connection.

The way I see it, we have two options. The first is to use dialup for the time being, and to simply wait for traditional broadband (cable or DSL) to become available in our neighborhood. The downside here is that we use the internet fairly heavily, and we don’t want the phone tied up all the time. Thus, we might have to add a second phone line until broadband becomes available. The other option is to sign up for satellite broadband through HughesNet (formerly DirecWay) or the like. The main differences here are price and convenience. While satellite would give us what we want right now, using dialup until traditional broadband becomes available is by far the cheaper option.

Here’s the deal on HughesNet… There are two ways of setting up service: upfront purchase or their ‘promotional’ purchase. In the former case, you pay $599.98 for the equipment and installation, and then commit to 15 months at $59.99/month. Under the promotional scenario, you pay $99.99 for equipment and installation, and then commit to 15 months at $99.99/month (at which time the price drops to the regular monthly rate — currently $59.99/month). That’s right… Their promotion actually costs more than the regular price (but it gives you a break up front). The service that you get in return from HughesNet is 700 Kbps downstream and 128 Kbps upstream.

Obviously, this is pricey — for the sake of comparison, BellSouth’s DSL Ultra (they also have faster and slower options) provides speeds of up to 1.5 Mbps downstream and 256 Kbps upstream for just $32.95/month, and without the crazy equipment/installation prices.

Does anyone out there have experience (positive or negative) with satellite internet? Are there other satellite internet vendors that I should consider (or at least check out)? Or do you have any other suggestions as to how we might work around this hiccup?

For more information on moving, check out my Roadmap for a Successful Relocation.

Published on May 7th, 2006 - 15 Comments
Filed under: Moving, Online
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Comments (scroll down to add your own):

We had satellite before DSL. Bottomline: Faster than dial-up, but slower than DSL. Oh yeah, and it went out whenever there were clouds in South Carolina (or wherever the “main station” was located).
Comment by FMF — May 7th 2006 @ 7:45 pm
FMF: Did you have two-way satellite, or did you have to have a regular modem connection for the upstream stuff? Also, was it twitchier than satellite TV when it comes to reception? We’ve always had cable, but have heard good things about Dish, and not too many complaints about dropped service during inclement weather. Was satellite internet more sensitive to clouds than satellite TV?

Comment by nickel — May 7th 2006 @ 8:10 pm
have you looked into wireless?

This directory (i have no affiliation with them) will help you find a local wireless provider…though this seems like a reach, depending on your local, you may be able to find a reasonable solution without a huge upfront/long-term contract. Let me know if you find anything and need help deciphering their “spiel”.
Comment by jeremy — May 7th 2006 @ 8:46 pm
You could be waiting a long time before broadband cable or DSL is offered. Try out dial-up with a second phone line for a month to see if you can get used to it. I suggest staying away from satellite, especially if they lock you into a contract. Everything I’ve ever heard about satellite internet is that it is very unreliable.
Comment by Flexo — May 7th 2006 @ 11:40 pm
At those prices for satellite, you maybe better off with wireless based internet access like

T-Mobile Total Internet None Unlimited Unlimited $49.99

or

$59.99 monthly access w/ 2-yr customer agreement and qualifying voice plan

(assuming that you have cell phone coverage in your area).
Comment by reader — May 8th 2006 @ 7:24 am
My mother just recently got satellite, but I have not yet been to visit her to test it out and see how the service is.
Comment by Blaine Moore — May 8th 2006 @ 7:53 am
Hmmm… That T-Mobile broadband plan looks interesting. And looking at their map, we’re in an area rated ‘good’ in terms of service quality (although it gets better as you get closer in to town). Any idea how I can feed it into a wireless router? I’m guessing that I’d have to get the PC card version of their ‘phone’ and run it through a laptop?

As far as Verizon goes, it looks like we’re on the fringe of their broadband-capable area, so I’m not sure I’d want to risk it.

Comment by nickel — May 8th 2006 @ 9:31 am
Are you kidding me? I’m lucky to know that the computer’s on and I’m on the web!!!!

If you want details on the satellite, email me and I can put you in touch with a friend who can answer your questions.
Comment by FMF — May 8th 2006 @ 10:58 am
FMF asked that I respond to you on a few of your concerns about
satellite connections.
We had gone from dial up, (no dsl or cable in our area) to a two way
satellite (upsteam and downsteam). If you have no other options for fast
connection in your area and can afford it I suggest that you go with it.
We had to buy a dish and have it installed and pointed in a the southern
sky with a clear view. About $1000 several years ago with a monthy fee
of $69. (I think it is cheaper now a days.) The speed was good on the
download but not very fast on the upload. You also had a short pause
(legacy) while the information was being sent up to the satellite and
back down to the receiving station (someplace in the Carolina’s) and
back to the computer. You are also limited to a certian amount of
megabits of download each 24 hour period. I you exceed this limit then
the system slows down till the 24 hour period elapse. This sucked it you
were trying to update several computers with SP2 or something like that.
Because of the legacy a satillite connection is not good for gaming. The
weather played an important factor. If you had a storm in your area or
the Carolina’s it would knock out the signal till the storm passed.
Sometimes you would be down for three or four hours at the most. Normal
to cloudy weather and even light rain would usually keep it going. It
was the storms that took it down.

If you have cable or dsl in your area I would go with it but if there is
nothing but 28.8 or 56 dial up in your area and can afford it then give
the satellite a shot. If you have cable in your area I would go with
that over the satellite in a heart beat.

Any other questions, write me back.
Cheers
jt
Comment by jt — May 8th 2006 @ 12:31 pm
http://www.wildblue.com has broadband satellite service available nationwide. Check it out it looks like a better deal than Directway. AT&T just agreed to sell it so it must be proven.
Comment by Jim D — May 8th 2006 @ 1:47 pm
Wow, WildBlue does look pretty good. Their entry level package ($49.95/month) is a bit slower than HughesNet/DirecWay (512 kbps vs. 700 kbps) but it’s a good bit cheaper. Thanks. I’ll definitely look into it.

Comment by nickel — May 8th 2006 @ 2:09 pm
If you do consider going with a cellular provider, you might want to check on Verizon Wireless’s 1xEV-DO offering. I think it’s $80/month for unlimited access of $50/month for some restricted amount, and it would be considerably faster than anything T-Mobile or Cingular could provide on their current networks (if I recall correctly, 1.5Mbps max downlink, 128kbps max upload, though your perfomance will depend heavily on local topology & cell usage). I have seen wireless router/gateways for this technology, but I’m not sure if any of them are commercially available yet.
Comment by Michael — May 9th 2006 @ 1:55 pm
When I buy my house, maybe I’ll make the purchase contingent on verified broadband Internet availability.
Comment by Jerry Kindall — May 9th 2006 @ 3:53 pm
Here is what you need. But I think it is a few years out. But when it comes it will be great.
I pulled this from some internet site after hearing about it on the radio today.
Cheers
jt

Another such technology is Broadband over Power Line, or BPL.Already in wide use in many other countries and currently beingtested in the U.S., BPL is the delivery of broadband internetservice over traditional power lines. A computer is connected toa special modem which is simply plugged into an electricaloutlet. This kind of service could prove useful for those whocannot get traditional broadband services like cable modem orDigital Subscriber Line (DSL), as almost everyone has access toelectricity now. Once refined, BPL could eventually prove to becheaper and faster than these more established services andattract away some of their customers.
Comment by jt — May 11th 2006 @ 11:50 am
I’m fortunate enough to get cable broadband where I live. With my upload speed requirements, it would be nice if I could get DSL, but it’s not available in my area. I have considered Satellite, but found it to be too expensive.
I’m still looking into some local companies that provide WiFi access here.
Comment by Jon — May 31st 2007 @ 5:24 pm