Satalite providers

[deejay33]

Hello,

I am doing research for an employee who will be telecomuting starting in 2003. His new office(home) is located in a rural area. Neither cable or DSL is available. I did however find some plans for satalite DSL that will work. On is by Earthlink through Directway and the other is DirectTV through Directway. Has anyone had serverce with either of these companies? Any information about the service through them or satalite service in general would be very helpful. Just fyi the Earthlink lists 400kbs downstream and 60kbs upstream for $69.99 a month and DirectTV lists 500kbs downstream and 50 upstream.
Thanks for any help.

Deejay33

 

[daronwilson]

I'm also looking, just looked at a Directway install, talked to the IS manager, she said it was pretty straight forward. USB out of the radio to a PC, which needs to run their software (i guess) and then an ethernet NIC in the PC that goes to a switch to supply computers in the building. Apparently the PC softare does the DHCP, though I have no idea if there is any firewall built in to the provided software.

I'm going to look into it more and see, but I need to probably deploy two sites this way.

It is only my opinion, based on my experience and education...I am always willing to learn, educate me!
Daron J. Wilson, RCDD
daron.wilson@lhmorris.com

 

[deejay33]

Daron,

One thing I just found out about is something called FAP(Fair Access Policy). It is a policy that DirectWay has which limits the amount of data you can recieve though the satalite. This has gotten a lot of people very angry because for one the plans are called Family Surfer Unlimited or Office Surfer Unlimited. This would lead you to believe you have unlimited use of the bandwith. This is not the case however. You are given an "Unlimited" number of always on connection time but are limited by what they call the "usage threshold". In essance, this threshold is 169MB in a 4 hour time frame. While this is not a problem if you are only surfing the web (1MB-10MB per hour), this can be a real problem if you plan to download files. One download of IE6 could put you at your threshold at which time your connection is severly cut (I have read its slower than dialup at that point). It is returned in 8-12 hours if you are good and don't try to download to much during that time. The second thing people are mad about is that this FAP thing is fairly well hidden. I didn't know about it until I read a bad review of DirectWay. After diging on DirectWays site I found the actual policy but the info is not given right up front. Here is the link to thier FAP page.

http://two-wayupgrade.direcway.com/fap.html

Just wanted to give you a heads-up before you got into somthing not knowing all the facts. I almost did!

Deejay33

 

[harrelld]

We have been using Starband 2-way Satellite for about 4 months. I found it extremely easy to set up and we have had no problems with downloads speeds or upload speeds. Because it keeps on working,
doesn't make it right.

 

[spaceguy]

FYI - I have heard, but not confirmed that Starband is in serious financial trouble. Also, I have spoken to two people I work with who cannot get Starband to work with our corporate VPN (Nortel Extranet Access Client).

Also, I have DirecWay through Earthlink at home. I use a Win XP machine as a gateway to allow a Mac and another PC (Win 98) to connect through XP's Internet Connection Sharing. It's ungodly slow on the Win 98 and Mac machines, though I hear there is a way to tweak registry settings on the Win XP machine to speed things up.

It is true that the standard DirecWay setup uses a USB interface and that there is a limit to the amount of data flow, as daronwilson and you both mention above. Also, the DirecWay standard consumer version DOES NOT support my company's VPN and I am in the process of learning more about Skycasters solutions.

If you need VPN connectivity, I would recommend looking at the DirecWay Business Edition or Skycasters:

http://be.direcway.com

http://www.skycasters.com

 

[pzfx0z]

I tried Directway two-way last fall after receiving assurance from their sales and technical people that it would work with VPN. I needed to work remote and VPN into my company using the Cisco 5000 client. Once installed I gound the down-link to be very good but the up-link tended to be as slow and sometimes slower than my dial-up connection. I configured the VPN client and almost got a connection. Over the next several days and a total of over 14 hours on the phone with their technical support I was told that the VPN would not work. One Tech said I needed to upgrade to the business package, Sales said it would not help, another Tech agreed with sales, and at least one Tech was honest and said it was over his head. Their explination was that there was a latency problem when trying to use VPN over a satellite connection and that it was not going to work. The only possible solution was to modify the sever to account for the latency (in a large corporation that is not a easy task). I decided to end the experiment and told them to terminate the service. Under the agreement, once they received the equipment they would credit my credit dard for the cost of the equipment. The problem was that I had to wait on them to send me the return shipping cartons. It took over two months for them to get the shipping cartons to me and I still have not received a credit.

I live in a rural area and am still looking for a solution.

 

[JINX007]

Please post back if you do find a solution. I am in the exact same position. I live in a rural area and need to work via VPN & Extranet Access Client to my company's network. I ordered the Satellite after they told me it should work. My bad for not nailing that down. Needless to say, the Extranet Client is not working and now that I am locked in to the Direcway service for 1 year, I'm not sure what I'm going to do.

 

[sammiam]

Hi... I'm somewhat new to the satellite arena, however, I find it VERY FRUSTRATING to deal with Direcway. I started out with the consumer edition, got FAP'd, and decided to switch to the business edition, after talking to their sales department, and being told that my download quota would increast to 350MB over a rolling 4 hour period.... GUESS WHAT... that's all a BUNCH OF CRAP !! .. I had downloaded over the course of an 8 hour day, and noticed that at 4pm I was FAP'd... I checked and never did exceed even 250MB in a rolling 4 hour period... calls to Direcway support... transfers, more transfers, then dead silence.. I call back, finally get a technician.. he says... well... it a way more complex formula than what I was told, and that the 350MB over a rolling 4 hour period is not true... my next call is going to the BBB. I spent $100 to upgrade, plus am being charged the extra $30 per month just to still be FAP'd... what a racket... believe me... if ever an alternative comes to my area, I'll JUMP on it just to get rid of Direcway

 

[havoc420]

http://www.skycasters.com/broadband-satellite-internet-access/index.html

http://groundcontrol.com/

both of these companies use Hughes satellite technology with enhanced services catering to business class client

http://www.vsat-systems.com/index.html

the above companies has VPN solution that resolvs VPN performance, & speed loss normally experienced with
VPN satellite connections. Skycasters and Vsat-systems has vpn client built on and compatible with Cisco Systems PIX Firewall and router solutions,

 

[Joviana]

I'm in Georgia, in a rural area, and have been looking into something other than dial-up for months.

A BellSouth ISDN representative told me last week that I wasn't too deep into the country not to qualify for ISDN, but I am too far out for DSL or cable service.

Yes, ISDN is old technology, very old, and it is almost the cost of DSL (without the speed) depending on your account package.

Nevertheless, it is digital receiving and sending, allows for 200 hours a month, i.e., is not limited by file size, and you can double the speed by using two channels to get 128 Kbps (but using both channels means double the time on the clock, so you're down to 100 hours a month if you use both channels 100% of your time online).

I've looked also at the news about WiMAX. Technology is changing and I hope someday that ruralists will be able to use wireless connectivity to avoid buying into satellite service.

Check out:
April 2004:

http://news.com.com/2100-1034-5192390.html

FCC September 2003 proposal to expand spectrum:

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-238840A1.pdf

Old news: Jan 2003: FCC: Open up TV waves to wireless -

http://news.com.com/2100-1033_3-981047.html

And,

http://www.bcr.com/bcrmag/2003/11/p18s1.asp

Consider joining with others and forming a business to deliver service to other rural dwellers.

Check out these funding possibilities:

http://wireless.fcc.gov/outreach/ruralinitiative/

(FCC home page for wireless)

http://www.usda.gov/rus/telecom/broadband.htm#info

This USDA application information, I think, is 2003 news but surely carries over for fiscal year 2004 as well.

Joviana