Satellite access?

[Jeffbx]

Anyone here use satellite to access the web? I'm trying to help a friend get a high-speed connection out in the boonies - he doesn't have cable, DSL, or even ISDN available.

I saw that a company called Starband is offering a DSL speed two way satellite connection, but it's $70/mo.

Any experience with satellite - good or bad?

Thanks!

[hapoo]

i'm not sure about the 2 way service but the older one way (satellite downloads, modem uploads) sucked cause the ping times where like 400.

[topane]

A acquaintance of mine set one up for his small business. It works, it's expensive to set up (I think his install and equipment was $700.00 or something), and from what he tells me it is not as consistent or reliable (I guess with bad weather) as a wired connection. However it's all he could get at his location and it is speedy enough for a few users to share and downloads are quick.

[giambona]

it probably would be much less if installed in a residential area than commercial. The cable company quoted a relative like $2000 to install a cable modem in the building (including bringing a cable line into the building).

[speedracer120]

I think DSLreports.com reviews satellite access now. I read something about high latency issues because of the time it takes the signals to get from your dish to the satellite to the ground station and then back takes quite a long time.

[jarfykk]

My brother-in-law got DirecTV's new up/down stream Satellite service. Very cool. He lives in the middle of nowhere (big house, nice yard, but in the middle of nowhere) and nothing but ISDN was available @ something like $300/month. This new service rolled out and he called me up. I go out, meet the DirecTV guy and we make a morning of it. All working, no major fuss, good connection speed (never clocked it but as fast web browsing as anything and Timbuktu runs fine when I need to "fix" something).

[Jeffbx]

Excellent - thanks for the input, everyone.