Anybody else have satellite internet through "Wild Blue"- How do you like it?

Question

Living out in the sticks, satellite is my only option. So I signed an 18 month contract with Wild Blue because their dish was already installed. A week later I'm wondering if I made a mistake.

It only works half the time and when it does connect it's not much faster than dial up. Tech support tells me it's caused by the weather and they can't do a thing about it. Is this normal? Can anyone relate? Insight? Offer a better carrier?

Answer 1

I officially live in the sticks, but not by much - cable comes within 18,000 feet of my house - Time Warner has offered to install cable to my house for an installation fee of $1/foot. You do the math.



Ok, so I telecommute and thought Wild Blue would be just what I needed. Moved in, got it installed, and saw decent download speeds. However, web browsing "feels" slow because of the latency. I typically see ping times of 1.7 seconds to anywhere.



For my work, I have to be on the company VPN all the time to do anything. When I am just on Wild Blue I see decent download speeds in the neighborhood of 1.5Mbps. When I get on the VPN, my download speed drops to about 70Kbps. I called customer support to see if I needed to configure anything differently. The guy pulled of a FAQ that said Wild Blue doesn't support VPN. I had checked their site and didn't see that. He said someone must have pulled it off of the public site - he found it internally.



In terms of weather - yes, it sucks. We have Dish for TV and that is also susceptible to weather problems. However, Wild Blue gets flakey as soon as it starts to rain; it takes a serious thunderstorm to mess up Dish.



If under the best of conditions, you are not seeing 1.5Mbps download speeds, you probably got a bad installation. If they don't use the proper quality of coax cable, it can totally mess you up.



For my work, I have had to fall back on a Verizon broadband card. I am on the edge between NationalAccess and BroadbandAccess networks. With NationalAccess, I get 130Kbps - with BroadbandAccess I get about 600Kbps. The latency with NationalAccess is usually about 500ms and with BroadbandAccess usually around 225ms. For the first few months after I moved I only got NationalAccess - they must have upgraded something nearby because I suddenly started getting BroadbandAccess much of the time.



Verizon broadband card (uses cell phone technology) is also susceptible to weather issues, but not so much as Wonderful Wild Blue.



Good luck!

Answer 2

Since no Obamamaniac will ever agree with me, try to think of it in these terms: You've been driving for 20 years. No tickets, no accidents, no nothing bad. Then, unbeknownst to you, the Government determines, RETROACTIVELY, that driving a PONTIAC is a crime. You've driven a Pontiac or two so now you go to jail for the rest of your life - after they confiscate your Pontiac of course. You wouldn't pay much attention to anything else at that point would you. The guy is a schmuck. He has no ability to think and live in a thriving United States. He believes whatever ******* like Tim Geithner and the other tax cheats tell him. He's never held a real job. Never owned a real house. Never had to worry about dressing his kids or getting their teeth cleaned. He's a poser of the worst sort. And WE will pay for it. I give it 6 months, at the outside, before one of his buddies hits us hard. (Chavez, Putin, Kim, that Iranian I don't care to learn how to spell his name...) Watch and see. If you're still alive...

Answer 3

From memory, you only recieve at high speed, and transmit through dialup. If you can use a cell phone in your area, then you might be able to sign up for a braud band plan with that. I'm using my cell phone right now (attached to computer obviously) It's faster than dialup, but slower than ADSL.

Answer 4

Sounds slow and crappy all around:

http://www.epinions.com/msg/sec_~forums/show_~threads/cat_id_~9/id_~4917/forum_id_~172/pp_~3