I think I quote my "quiltingboard friends" a little too often! My husband has now requested that I put out this question to you for your expert opinions---

Do you have satellite internet? What's your opinion of it? We live in a rural area and dial-up is currently all that is available to us. HughesNet is advertising to us that with Federal stimulus money, we are eligible for satellite internet at no cost for equipment and a lower monthly rate with no contract.

If we get a faster connection, I'll miss all the mini-naps I get while waiting for pages to post!!! :D :D But I might get a lot more sewing done if I don't spend as much time here! LOL

We would appreciate your opinions on your company / service / cost, etc.

I really trust the opinions expressed here :thumbup:

Sue
a/k/a Pinkiris

I don't use satellite I use a modem from my cell phone company; very fast wireless. Might check that out as well.

I use DSL wireless thru the phone company...not sure if that's considered satellite

My DSL internet is linked with my telephone service which is AT&T. I have had good service and no outages (knock on wood). The set-up was so easy I did it myself. I am both wired and wireless and can have up to 10 computers online at a time and it doesn't compromise the signal.

That they are offering no equipment charges and no contract (especially this) it sounds like it would be worth the try. Are there any installation charges? Are there any penalties if you unsubscribe?

I use Time Warner cable (the whole package, digital cable, internet, and home phone) it's cheaper than ATT and Direct Tv.
Dish Network does not have the whole package yet, but Direct TV is pretty good with all the channels, except for stormy nights.

we had satellite internet when it was still direcway. It was good at first, then it went down hill. That was years ago. I remember it was pretty pricey, and you had to buy the equipment We still have the dish on top ofour house. LOL just never took it down.

On DSL like "burnsk" above. DH's desktop is connected to it but my laptop connects wireless and my daughter comes over with her laptop and connects as well. The three computers can use it at the same time with no interference. I did have the cellphone hookup when I was traveling frequently. Loved it but found it expensive as their cheap rate only gives you limited time before socking it to you and their unlimited program, on top of the cellphone cost, was very expensive. When I retired I dropped it for the DSL above.

I have Hughes Net and am waiting for the day to get out of my contract. When I signed they told me it was one year. I wrote it on my calendar. When I tried to cancel after a year, they said they only have 2 year contracts, and I would have a $600 cancellation fee.

Every time it rains the satellite goes out for hours. Hughes Net monitors your internet usage and charges you extra each month you are "over" their acceptable limit. I started at $49 a month, now I pay on average $110 a month.

Downloads are faster than dial up but slower than DSL. They require you only download between 1 and 6 am, or you are charged more on your User time. A download is watching any video, including UTube or any tv show, etc. Not just music.

I suggest "no thanks".

Now that's interesting. We had Hughsnet up until 2 yrs ago...and it was wonderful! Never had an "overage" charge and never had it go out except the one time we had about 12" of snow pile up in just an hour or so. And I found the downloads were faster there than on our DSL!!!!
My guess is you need to check around in your area...could be the service is just different in different areas. I know that can happen. We have QWEST and our service is 100% -- but my friend lives in the next town over - 30 miles away and she's getting lousy QWEST service!!!

Oh, we don't have it anymore because I wanted a deck on the back and they had put the dish right in the middle of where the deck is now. They told us at the time they couldn't find a signal anywhere else. HUH??? We have 1 1/2 acres!!!! So if you decide to go that route, have them come out and tell you where they'll put the dish. You also want the dish to be where it's handy to get to if you have snow.......snow WILL interrupt the service.

Sue, I have HughesNet and love it. I too live in ruaral country and had dial-up, the pits, I must add. This is much faster and reliable. You would like it. Mary
P.S. Can't get DSL out here, not close enough to a tower.....boohoo........

We had dial-up for years and now have hughes.net. LOVE IT.

YOU WILL LOVE the satellite internet...so much faster! However, check out the different ones available. We were going to go with Hughesnet but was told it was having problems at the time (this was 2 years ago) and so we went with Wildblue.net. Very happy with them. Do some checking with maybe any neighbors you have because the competition is strong. It might be Hughesnet is offering the greatest deal or check on others. Try not to get into any contract longer than one year.

I too live in a rural area. Until the phone company ran DSL about a year ago we had satallite internet through Wild Blue. It was $50 a month. We had to pay for the modem and dish and setup but compared to dial up it was worth it. The only problem we had was my husband brought his computer from work home and tried to hook up to it and it didn't work. However, the problem was because of we both work at the local hospital so the program on his computer to enable him to hook up to the hospital system via internet had such high security settings and it operated on a different speed. With the satallite there were 3 packages and we had the cheap one. They told us at work it "probably" would have worked if we bought the most expensive package with a higher speed. Luckily DSL came along for that reason.

Something I wasn't aware of when we got the satallite was there was a download limit. Once the limit was reached there was an extra cost. At the time my DD was applying to colleges and doing all the stuff teenagers do and there were a couple of times we came close to the download max.

Hope this helps.

We are paying the $50 a month for wildblue and it is only me on the internet. My husband doesn't have anything to do with it. I guess I never max out the download limit. Did not know they had different packages. Just lucky our kids are all gone and it is only me using it.

I had wildblue for a couple of years. I hated it. It's only slightly faster than dial up and I was paying for the second level of service. But if your only choices is dial up or satellite, I'd check out all the satellite options available.

I don't have Hughes but have heard from friends and when we investigated when we moved and nothing good said about them on the internet by bloggers.

The Hughes Net site that I looked at says that our daily limit of downloads is pretty high. If we were to reach that limit, we just get a lower speed. Still, not as slow as the dialup we currently have! They also give you a once-a-month code for using to keep the higher speed if you go over your limit.

Thanks for your input. Very informative.

Sue

I've had the lower speed. It is slower than dial up, it shuts your computer down. Can't even get your email.

The once a month code costs $10 every time you go over your limit.
My dh and I do not watch videos, tv, or download music. We still go over the limit every month about halfway through the month.

I did not have a choice, there was nothing else available. It IS better than nothing, I just find it very frustrating for the price I'm paying.