Free At Last - From WildBlue Satellite

[Troutsqueezer]

Anybody out there still suffering with Wild Blue or Hughes satellites for Internet access?

Having a Wild Blue satellite dish for the last three years and hating every minute of it, I was glad to discover that at last there is an alternative (for me, at least). For those of you who live around major metropolitan areas or even in countries where high speed Internet access is a priority (unlike the USA), this won't mean much, but for those of us who live out in the country almost anywhere in the USA, broadband access has been non-existent or marginal at best. There's not enough profit in it for the communications giants to provide us with coverage.

Wild Blue and Hughes have been selling Internet dish antennas for a few years to us hillbillies but the speeds and service are absolutely horrible. Installations are sloppy, rainy weather interrupts service, equipment fails and is expensive to fix, congestion slows the speeds down to dial up speed most of the time, the list goes on and on. I've hated it from the get but it was better than nothing.

The Kid was visiting us a while ago and kicked on his cell phone and noticed 3G was available up on my hill. Music to my ears, so I stopped in Verizon the other day and picked up a USB dongle that connects to the Internet wirelessly. I signed up for the data package which allows 5GB per month. This won't let me download movies or TV shows but that's something I don't need nor want and at $59/month I could wish for cheaper but I'll take what I can get.

Surprisingly, that little dongle gives me faster speeds than I ever got on satellite. I'm can get from around 500kbps to 1.4Mbps, not too bad compared to what I was getting at $49/mo with a cap speed of 512kbps, which it never even came close to. Since I only get two bars on the signal meter I'm limited to those speeds but if you live in an area where you can get three or more, the max speed increases to about 3Mbps, but that's probably theoretical more than practical. I did buy a little add-on antenna to increase the signal strength which attaches to the window with suction cups.

It's amazing that a cell tower which is probably around 18 miles away can pick up the signal from my USB dongle but then, I guess that's what cell phones are all about, huh?

Now the ugly roof dish can come down (it's much bigger than DirecTV's), the modem box can go away and life becomes simpler. Anyway, thought I'd throw that out there in case anybody else here dislikes satellite broadband as much as I do and wants to simply their life. I don't own stock in Verizon.

-Trout

 

[BAH101]

Check out: http://www.wilsonelectronics.com/
They make signal boosters for cell phones for home and car. I got one for my truck, gets 4 - 5 bars where I might get no service.
Bryan

 

[Troutsqueezer]

Thanks Bryan, that was actually my next stop if my window antenna did not work. It would be safe to say that if I were to get a wider bandwidth I would run greater risk of going over the max download of 5GB month. I should have mentioned that the one downside to these Mobile Broadband plans is that it can get pretty expensive if you go over the limit. Verizon charges $.05 per megabyte over. That might not sound like much but if you go over by even 1GB, that's 50 bucks right there.

-T

 

[RobbieM]

I feel your pain Troutsqueezer I live in the country as well, just out of reach for DSL or cable internet services. I had satellite for under a month I couldn't stand it, it would go out all the time and the speeds were terrible. It didn't help that we live on a hill in the middle of a corn field with no trees to block the wind. So I moved on to the 3g card from AT&T your right it is a lot better but I kept going over the 5GB limit and it was getting pretty pricey. One day I happened to turn on my wi-fi card and noticed that there was a hotspot close so I logged onto it and it said if you can see this website call this number to setup an account. So for $45 a month I am getting 1.5Mbps down and 768k up. No limit on the bandwidth either, but I did have to buy a -21dm gain antenna for it work properly. I like that finally someone's trying to get some good internet access that is reasonably priced out to us folks that live in the middle of no where.

 

[mu38&Bg#]

I read about this recently. Coverage isn't super, but if you're in the not so sticks and can't get cable it might be worth looking into. We've been thinking about moving further from then nuttiness that is the Chicago suburbs, ( well mostly the mother-in-law) and not having cable internet is something I've been suffering withdrawal symptoms from already.

http://www.virginmobileusa.com/mobile-broadband/broadband2go.html

I might try their smart phone plan.

Greg

 

[Maryak]

Guys,

Galina & I live on the outer fringe of Adelaide and we have been connected for a month now to a system called WiMax, no ADSL or cable available & 3G was intermittent at best with speeds poorer than dial up most of the time. Our service is 12Mbs Up and 1.0Mbs down, although thats top speed, most time we are around 8 up and 0.8 down. It operates in the 5gH band and is completely independent of the telephone system. For 10GB per month and a VOIP phone, the cost is $AU55 per month. The phone costs are a flat 12c per call to anywhere in Oz no time limit.

I understand this system is in use in USA but just where and under what trade name I don't know. After what we have put up with for 9 months all I can say is Bloody Beauty.

Best Regards
Bob

 

[tel]

Yeah, I'm on 3G as well, 2-3 bars of service most of the time, occasionally 4, but it beats the heck outta dial-up.

 

[Troutsqueezer]

A couple of weeks after I went to using the Verizon dongle, the signal would fade in and out and sometimes go off Broadband mode and into National mode which is dial up speed. So I bought a Yagi antenna online from Wilson Electronics which was tuned to 800MHz. Then I fired up Google Earth to get the exact location of the cell tower relative to my house. Using the ruler in Google Earth, I drew a line from the corner of my house where I mounted the antenna to the Verizon cell tower. I printed it out, went outside and moved the antenna to align with my printout. Now I get a steady four bars.

I waited for several years for WiMax to become available in my area and finally got tired of waiting. The city of Folsom (closest city to me) has been talking about it forever but nothing ever happens. What made it all the more frustrating is the fact that I spent a couple of years as one of the engineers on the WiMax chipset project for Intel. I live 12 miles from the Folsom Intel campus which is quite large and I still can't get it.

 

[Dan Rowe]

Dennis,
I have been on Verizon with a Wilson trucker antenna for nearly 2 years now and that is way better than dialup. You should keep an eye on the data usage as the 5 gig limit can be fairly quickly exceeded and then the bill at the end of the month is a bit steep. ???

How did you locate the nearest Verizon cell tower?

Dan

 

[Troutsqueezer]

Hi Dan,

I went to www.antennasearch.com and typed in my address. It can be difficult to ascertain which towers Verizon is leasing from but in my area there were only a few choices and I quickly ruled out the ones I was too far away from.

One nice thing about the Verizon Connection Manager utility is every time you connect you get a usage report so you can gauge how close you're getting. I usually stay well under 5 gig.