Considering using Satellite Internet ?

A candid letter from a former user of Satellite Internet service

Subject: Re: Satellite Internet

Rick;

Boy do I have some opinions on the satellite "service." I use quotation marks around that word because it isn't service. It's slow and frequently goes down for days at a time. It also requires a pro to set up and configure. We had it for about a year and used dial-up about half of the time. Service calls required staying at home for two or three days waiting to come up in their call cue. Then when you do get a call from them, you'll spend hours on the phone doing de-bug routines in the bowels of your PC. It is also not compatible with MAC.

Finally, they strongly discourage networks and will not answer any questions about servers/clients/routers/hubs/802.11/Ethernet, etc., and the only connector to the router from the PC is USB. No Ethernet, so you must use a PC for your link. Consequently, if you do want a home network, it has to be a proxy server configuration. Uplink regularly runs about 33k or less. Downlink runs about 88-110k.

That said, yes I would be happy to sell my equipment for a song...that's a dish with one LRB and two required cable routers (one uplink and one downlink). Software included. I was using Earthlink as the ISP at 79.95/mo which includes dial-up service, which you have to have to configure the routers and troubleshoot. The equipment is Hughes. The service is called DIRECWAY, by DirecTV.

Thanks for the inquiry, and good luck.