Posted on 06/22/2007 7:43:02 PM PDT by CedarDave
Vista Rocks....
I think I had to call technical support once about a year and a half ago for a minor issue and I have no recollection that it was a bad experience. Hughes (originally Direcway) has been rock solid for me for two years now.
The speed will not be like cable. I just did a speed test and got 743 down and 352 up. I’d say that’s fairly typical. I use the service at a home office and am a heavy user and the speeds have been fine. I’m using the 6000 modem. I believe with the 7000 you can slightly higher speeds.
You are right that proper installation is key. I was lucky that we’ve got a great installer in the area who set it up and got it calibrated without issue.
Up front cost is high. I spent $600 for the dish, modem and installation. You can find the dish and modem pretty cheap on ebay. You could then probably pay an installer $100 and get going pretty inexpensively.
Email (or lack thereof) has never been a problem for me.
They do have a fair access policy on downloads. If you download a lot (about 160 meg over four hours) they will throttle you back to dialup speeds for a couple of hours. This is so those downloading movies and music won’t tie up the bandwidth. It hasn’t been an issue for me, but I’m sure it could be for others.
Hughes has been a very satisfactory experience for me.
BTW Wildblue and Hughesnet are one in the same. I've seen very little positive feedback about Wildblue anywhere. Just something to consider in this. It seems to be Hughesnets red headed step child. Most users seem ready to toss their service out the window and would like to ring Wildblues tech supports neck if they would ever answer the phone.
I'm going to look into Verizon also. I've got to check the FCC data base and see how close their cell tower is to me. If one is close by the cell grid would likely be my best option. Higher speeds and unlimited usage but I need to research it more. The down side is $10 more per month though over Hughesnet with Verizon. The plus is low initial upfront cost and on a Laptop lots of Mobility.
Sprint it seems has a very good deal and lower cost. If their coverage map is accurate which it seems to be I'm literally a few hundred feet out of the coverage area for broadband due to terrain. My cell company US Cell works here most of the time but no Broadband services offered. My best option might be to wait on cell coverage. Heck I'd be willing to cut a deal on space for a tower as I own the top of the ridge :>}
The only other option is still in research pahse that if it happens will change broadband coverage radically and make it available everywhere. That plan is sending it across the power grid. It's still under review and research.
Okay, just thought I’d give you the benefit of my experience. I hope you find a solution.
May bad. Sorry for being snippy.
Nah I shouldn’t have posted that. But IE 7 had issues with dial up that others wouldn’t likely have. I think the anti-phishing feature was one of the big reasons. Besides that the page tended to roll when scrolling. Kinda like when FR underwent the format change a few years back. Some it effected and some it didn’t. Next thing small but irritating feature was adding extra moves to get to favorites links for some reason combining features IIRC. I gave it a week before I went back to IE6 and it cleared up.
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