Grassroots Motorsports

Register Log in to GRM
- Community

Birthdays
Recently on the Classic Motorsports forums

Subscribe get a full year for only $23.95 Sample Free Test Drive—no strings attached

Login to post Forums » Off-topic discussion » Does anybody have any experience with satellite Internet?

Dec. 24, 2011 8:32 p.m. BoxheadTim SuperDork

We've looked at a house yesterday that we really liked (especially the GRM-sized garage) but one of the downsides is that it's out in the sticks and there is no wired Internet connection available out there.

One of the few options (apart from a microwave or Wimax option that I need to investigate next week) is getting satellite Internet - out here the one I'm aware of is Hughesnet, but I believe there is at least one other option. Anyway, all I know about Satellite Internet is hearsay (and not much good) so I was wondering if anybody had any actual experience with it?

I know latency is a massive issue so I guess iRacing is out, anything else that I need to know?
Dec. 24, 2011 8:57 p.m. stuart in mn SuperDork

The other one I've heard of is WildBlue. Either one isn't very fast, something like 1.5 or 2 mbps.
Dec. 24, 2011 9:03 p.m. BoxheadTim SuperDork

None of the options out where the house is are - they're all maxing out at around 3mbps.
Dec. 24, 2011 9:12 p.m. carguy123 SuperDork

You do not have a continuous connection so VOIP is out of the question. The latency upon hook up will drive you batty.

Push button, wait, connect.
Dec. 24, 2011 10:58 p.m. neon4891 SuperDork

In-laws have Hughesnet. As others have said, the speed is only good compared to dial up. There is also a daily data limit, and if you go over it you are dropped down to dial up speed. Video streaming(netflix/hulu) is out of the question.
Dec. 24, 2011 11:51 p.m. aircooled SuperDork

I talked to a friend at work who has it the other day, she is considering a wi-fi hotspot because the satalite service she has is so slow, and cost about $100 a month!
Dec. 25, 2011 6:24 a.m. failboat HalfDork

We are in the same boat.

Google Hughesnet reviews.

There are a lot of really bad ones. I realize its likely some people had expectations that were too high but it sounds like the customer service is horrible too.

Currently we just use smartphones for internet use and if necessary tether them to the laptop.
Dec. 25, 2011 6:32 a.m. Dr. Hess SuperDork

Run away. Seriously, run away now. I had Hughesnet because there was nothing else. Worst of everything, ever. If you use the service, you will be punished. If you keep using it, you will be punished more. Download limit is about 170MB/day. That was crap when I had it and it is less than crap today, unless you only want to look at A FEW GRM threads a day and that's it. And stay out of the hotlinked thread. Keep downloading? They will throttle you down to dialup bandwidth. Keep downloading at the dialup bandwidth? They'll just turn you off for a couple days. Sux to be you.

Got a problem? Call tech support. They are always there. In India. "Hello, my name is 'Steve....'" "Steve" is not capable of or allowed to do anything besides take your complaint and reinstall the software. Anything more requires the next level of support, "tier 2." They will take your phone number and "tier 2" will call you back in a few days. Yeah, DAYS. Tell "Steve" you work during the day so you can have some money to pay Hughesnet, and to call after 5:30 PM when you'll be in front of the computer hooked to the transceiver. They will happily call you around noon in about 3 days and leave a nice message. You can't call "tier 2" because they won't give you the number, you being a slime customer and all. You call back the tech support number and get "Bill" who will try to walk you through another software install before you can convince him to tell "tier 2" to call you back after 5:30 PM. After 20 minutes of "Bill" you will finally convince him of that and he will "put notes in" telling them to call back after 5:30 IN A FEW DAYS. 3 days later they will call you back around 10 AM. About this time, you call tech support, get billing and tell them to shove the transceiver up their butt and refund you for everything back to the last time your network worked 2 weeks ago.

So, I would have to say that I would not recommend satellite internet.
Dec. 25, 2011 6:35 a.m. Curmudgeon SuperDork

aircooled wrote:

I talked to a friend at work who has it the other day, she is considering a wi-fi hotspot because the satalite service she has is so slow, and cost about $100 a month!

Tell her do NOT do this! My stepdad got one of those Verizon 4G hotspots, it's $49.99 a month. Here's the kicker: it includes 5 gb a month. You want 10 gb? That's $79.99 a month. There is no 'unlimited' plan. With 4 users, the Internet bill is around $170 a month. He's bailing, taking a $175 early termination fee to switch to cable internet.
Dec. 25, 2011 8:30 a.m. corytate HalfDork

fun fact: cable internet is inherently better than sat internet because cable can support much more bandwidth than the cat5 or whatever they use now for sat ever will be able to. Probably the only positive thing about cable over satellite though, imo
Dec. 25, 2011 11:44 a.m. BoxheadTim SuperDork

carguy123 wrote:

You do not have a continuous connection so VOIP is out of the question. The latency upon hook up will drive you batty.

Push button, wait, connect.

Those two would almost make it useless.

I forgot to mention that the cellphone signal out there appears to be non-existant as well so even if we wanted to, we couldn't make use of AT&T/Verizon or Sprint.

Given that I've found the web page for the HOA, it might be a good idea to send of a polite email to one of the board members who's got their email addy up there and see if they know anything re Internet access out there.
Dec. 25, 2011 3:44 p.m. Dr. Hess SuperDork

Having no cable out here, I'll tell you how I think it goes:

Subdivision developer puts in sub division. Pays cable company a LOT of money to run cable out there because a subdivision without cable sucks. Cable company then sells cable to the people in the subdivision at virtually no expense to the cable company... PROFIT.

I called the cable people here. I'm 4 miles from the nearest drop. They wanted 20 large to run cable to my house. They'd own the cable, they'd get so sell service to everyone else around off the cable I would have to pay them to put in. Yet another racket from Big Business. Don't even get me started on AT&T.

You might be able to hit the cell towers with an external antenna on a 3G dongle. Some of them (most?) have an external antenna jack. Then you just need a really good antenna like a nice yagi to hook into it to get you some gain. I bet you could get into the cell network with that. I use Virgin Mobile we are happy with the service, but our plan is no longer available to newbies. Best you could get would be 5GB/$40.
Dec. 25, 2011 8:01 p.m. Canute Reader

Oh, man, AT&T. In 2009 I rode a bicycle across the country. I found out that AT&T only puts towers near freeways and population centers. A quarter way across I bought prepaid Verizon phone and switched to Verizon when I got home.
Dec. 25, 2011 8:29 p.m. moparman76_69 Reader

Wildblue is putting up new birds to help out with the speed but it will still be crappy DSL speeds at best and it has a MONTHLY data limit so if you run out you're screwed for the month. Also if you are used to a DSL or cable connection you'll be very limited in what you can do. Hughesnet is slower than Wildblue but they have higher data limit plans these days to accommodate todays file sizes. I agree with others that say get a 4G hot spot if you can.
Dec. 26, 2011 12:23 p.m. BoxheadTim SuperDork

Interesting, I've also asked on another forum and have yet to find someone who has anything good to say about satellite Internet. I think that should tell me something.
Dec. 26, 2011 2:02 p.m. Curmudgeon SuperDork

That 4G hotspot will eat you out of house and home and QUICK. In normal surfing, online banking etc you'll blow through 5GB in a week, then they clobber you with additional fees. It's a lot like the way cell phones were way back when, $34.95 for the first 60 minutes then they'd get you square in the goober for additional minutes and roaming charges. I'd do DSL first even if it means a second phone # just for Internet.
Dec. 26, 2011 2:08 p.m. FlightService Dork

Don't do Hughes net. SIL has it now and they constantly complain about outages and slow download speeds. They claim dial up would b ebetter.
Dec. 26, 2011 2:37 p.m. 93gsxturbo HalfDork

Do you get decent Sprint service?

If so, get the cheapest Android phone they offer, root it, enable wifi tether, and use that as your hotspot. Just let the little bugger sit on the charger all day, use your regular phone for regular phoning. Sprint is completely unlimited data on smart phones and with it rooted and running wifi tether, you can run your whole house with a few access points making a more powerful wifi signal. With the right operating system you can also enable USB tether to hardwire your phone to an access point.

Of course, this is a violation of your Sprint terms of use, so you wouldn't do it, but you certainly could do it.
Dec. 26, 2011 4:07 p.m. BoxheadTim SuperDork

IIRC there is no cell service to speak of out there whatsoever .
Dec. 26, 2011 4:57 p.m. fifty Reader

BoxheadTim wrote:

IIRC there is no cell service to speak of out there whatsoever .

Have you tried a cell phone booster? We are about 1/2 mile from the closest tower, but are deep down in a densely forested valley. I was consistently getting 1 bar. Bought a $100 cell phone booster (looks like a wifi hub, but with an antenna that mounts to the roof) - getting a consistent 4 - 5 bars anywhere in the house now.

If you buy a booster, just make sure it operates in the frequency range you are looking for (eg. 800MHz for AT+T, something else for 3G)
Dec. 26, 2011 5:36 p.m. Sultan Reader

I as well live outside a cable service area. We looked at Sat data service with out Dish TV. It looked like a bad plan so we now have Sprit 3g not great but workable.

You'll need to log in to post.