I don't agree that Wildblue is "better than dial up, but not by a whole 
lot."

While others might feel that way, depending on what they expect and need 
from their internet connection, it is not a fair statement in all 
cases.  Before I got my DirectWay satellite, I was limited to a modem 
that was limited to 25K baud on a good day.  Often it would revert to 
20K.  Back then (six or seven years ago?), it was getting to be a 
problem, because large files and updates pretty much had to be 
downloaded late at night.  Otherwise the connection might fail before 
the file got downloaded.  With today's huge downloads, some over 100MB, 
it is hard to imagine living with dial-up any more.  When Wildblue 
eventually got going, my REC transferred me over to that, which is more 
or less comparable to the old DirecWay (now Hughesnet).

Now, my wife and I can download huge files that are updates to Windows, 
games, or whatever.  We can shop without waiting forever for a new page 
to come up.  We can do just about everything that we want to do, 
including downloading music from iTunes and watching Youtube movies.  We 
regularly send and receive movie clips Megabytes in length.  Most of 
that we couldn't have done easily with our dial-up.  The basic $50/month 
Wildblue package has a maximum transfer rate for 500Kb per second, which 
is about 20 times faster than our old dial-up.  10 times better than a 
well-oiled 56K system.  The $80/month package has a rate of 1.5Mb per 
second, which is what we have.

So, I think that it is totally unfair and inaccurate to say that it is 
not a whole lot better than dial-up.  It is immensely better than 
dial-up and has allowed us to do many things that we couldn't have done 
before.

That said, my friend who lives in the city and has Cox cable, has an 
internet connection that is half as expensive as mine and is ten times 
faster except when his neighbors are all on it, too.  (Evenings.)  I 
would love to have DSL, which would also be cheaper and faster, but I 
live too far from the phone company. So, Wildblue is a pale imitation of 
what the city folks can get, granted, but it still gives me most of what 
I want.

The two limitations that Wildblue gives me are, first, a limit on the 
amount of material that I can receive in one month.  The limit is very 
high, and I have never come close to approaching it, but that is because 
of the second limitation.  1.5Mb per second is not quite fast enough to 
download video in real time.  I have never downloaded a movie or watched 
a streamed sporting event live.  I have never tried, really.  I suppose 
that I could download a movie, but I don't have my computer connected to 
my home media center in any case, and I don't care to watch television 
at my desk.

So, if downloading movies and watching streaming video events is the 
main reason that you want Wildblue, then you might well feel that it is 
not much better than dial-up.  Even that is  a stretch, however, because 
you could, conceivably, do either one, where it would be virtually 
impossible to do that with a dial-up.

Dean Kukral


On 12/26/2009 10:55 PM, [log in to unmask] wrote:
> > From the Vonage site:
> "Satellite broadband consists of relayed signals from another satellite
> that is in orbit and this technology is not recommended for use with
> Vonage." You'd probably have issues with latency and bandwidth, and
> satellite is not as reliable as your phone carrier.
> I have two friends with Wild Blue, and it's better than dial up, but not
> by a whole lot.
>
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [PCBUILD] Satellite and VOIP
> From: Joyce A<[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Sat, December 26, 2009 6:40 pm
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> At this point in time, I am seriously considering installing a satellite
>
> uplink. My maximum dial-up speed is just too darned slow for today's
> sites, and there won't be another way to connect to high-speed "out
> here" in the rusty hills of Ohio for many more years, if ever in my
> lifetime. Moving is not an option.
>
> My question is, will a VOIP service (such as Vonage or Magic Jack) work
> with a satellite connection? I'm getting ____ sick and tired of
> Verizon, and I think I'd save money over their, uh, "service" if it's
> possible to do this... Thanks in advance for any and all input
>
> Joyce in SE Ohio
>
>    

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