OT: Anybody using Wild Blue or Hughes Satellite ISP?

Anyone successful using Yahoo with voice on a satellite internet service?

Or Skype, Vonage, other Voice/IP?

If so, I understand the latency issue, but aside from that is it useable?

I am stuck with satellite internet at home @ $70/month with a 12gig monthly rolling download limit, AND a $50/month phone that is only local to towns of no importance to me. One of them needs to go away. The satellite deal is under contract, but can I do ithout my phone? No cell service works here. Wireless internet will be installed in about a year when the wild blue contract is up. It is a little faster, and about the same price, but no comms limits.

Way out here in the sticks, my cell won't even work as an alarm clock since it goes dead searching for service after a couple of hours. I found that out during the last four days of an ice storm that knocked out my power Monday.

On the bright side, I found out I can keep my home above 50 degrees F with no power for four days on one dude and 3 dogs' body heat and candles.

Yeah! The power is finally back on!
PiEaCe
Paul, near Cogar, Oklahoma.

My father in law has Hughes satellite, and to be honest, it sucks. On his 1.5mb package, the upload is usually around 0.1 mb if hes lucky, and although the downliad speed is relatively stable, its very latent (around 2 seconds roundtrip). There technical support is also horrible. They can not seem to fix anything when something goes south. That being said, I would stay away from hughes.

Why must you use satellite, are you in a hilly or heavily wooded area. Id look into a good set of 2.4Ghz atennas if you can get line of site to an Access Point

[and 3 dogs' body heat]
Anyone remember Three Dog Night?
AWOOO OOO OOO 000 000 Yeah, Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah!

ghettofreeryder said:

My father in law has Hughes satellite, and to be honest, it sucks. On his 1.5mb package, the upload is usually around 0.1 mb if hes lucky, and although the downliad speed is relatively stable, its very latent (around 2 seconds roundtrip). There technical support is also horrible. They can not seem to fix anything when something goes south. That being said, I would stay away from hughes.

Why must you use satellite, are you in a hilly or heavily wooded area. Id look into a good set of 2.4Ghz atennas if you can get line of site to an Access Point

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I have the same problem, satellite is the only answer. There is an access point 3.5 miles away but they cannot get any kind of a signal with all the woods in between. Cell access is expensive and spotty for what you get here, if you get a signal. Now that I see Hughes has problems I will wait and stay with my 48k dialup for $12/month until a better option comes along.
It looked like Hughes system used ethernet to connect to your PC instead of USB. I have a home network and would rather have the ISP available to all the machines than just one.

It takes light about an eighth of a second to reach a geosynch satellite. That puts a request to your ISP and back at about a half a second, best case. Take routing equipment and additional delays and any satellite service will feel very latent.

To address OPs other question - I use Vonage on a daily basis. It is not that bandwidth intensive and sounds great. I make calls to the states from Korea. Lag time is virtually imperceptible.

VoIP over a satellite link would probably drive you crazy. You can try Skype for free on your computer.

We can hope that the 700mHz range will be used for data. Wouldn't it be sweet if Google took charge there.

ghettofreeryder said:

My father in law has Hughes satellite, and to be honest, it sucks. On his 1.5mb package, the upload is usually around 0.1 mb if hes lucky, and although the downliad speed is relatively stable, its very latent (around 2 seconds roundtrip). There technical support is also horrible. They can not seem to fix anything when something goes south. That being said, I would stay away from hughes.

Why must you use satellite, are you in a hilly or heavily wooded area. Id look into a good set of 2.4Ghz atennas if you can get line of site to an Access Point

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Yeah it would be nice. Google does so much more for the community than M$. When google releases an os, id like to see what M$ does.

Does that means 3 dogs are cheaper than 1 woman.

I agree with the spirit of your comment and would be interested in seeing what Google could do with an OS - it's pretty far from their bread and butter, though.

The 700mHz comment was about the upcoming FCC auction for the approx 100mHz of bandwidth (term for frequency space in radio/satellite talk). This was previously used for TV broadcasts. It's thought to be used to provide high speed wireless Internet access across the country. Google pledged at least the minimum bid at $4.6B - they seem to be more interested in lobbying for open standards.

I comment on it a little bit in my Blog. I didn't get into that much detail since there is already so much coverage - do a quick search and you'll get lots of info.

http://notanotherindustrialblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/700mhz-to-freedom.html

ghettofreeryder said:

Yeah it would be nice. Google does so much more for the community than M$. When google releases an os, id like to see what M$ does.

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I think you know the answer to that!

AEI Service said:

Does that means 3 dogs are cheaper than 1 woman.

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AEI Service said:

Does that means 3 dogs are cheaper than 1 woman.

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Unequivocally YES!

And thanks Nathan, I did not know a free trial was available. I will check into that.

Not a free trial. It's free computer to computer. You pay if you need to call land lines. If you like it you can buy "real" phone equipment instead of using a computer headset.

But like I said earlier...you probably won't be happy with it over your satellite connection - in addition to the latency issue, upload speed is important.

OkiePC said:

Unequivocally YES!

And thanks Nathan, I did not know a free trial was available. I will check into that.

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