High-Speed Access Soon
posted on july 29, 2003, tag: tech
Third Update: I got digital cable and cable Internet! Screw you, satellite!
Second Update: Screw it, what do we have to lose? Anything would be better than dial-up. We're going for it. Satellite crappy expensive Internet service, here I come!
Update: I finally managed to find some real reviews of this service (100s, actually), and it seems to stink. So, once again, I've gotten my hopes up for nothing. Dial-up it shall remain.
Well, it's finally gonna happen. But no thanks to Big Red (Verizon Sucks!). That's right—high-speed Internet access. Finally. How? Satellite.
It has been suggested many times in the past to me that I should attempt to find satellite access, since DSL and cable have not been an option since I moved to Brooklyn. In my defense, I did check into this, but at the time (four months ago now), it was too expensive. That's because at the time DirecTV had closed down their former satellite Internet service (then called DirecPC). The only other options were 3rd party companies that were quite expensive and offered only one-way satellite service (you would download using the dish, but upload over a modem—yuck!).
That all changed recently when DirecTV started their service one more, only this time calling it DirecWay. DW uses two-way satellites, and is a little less expensive than competitors. On top of that, for a small fee, you can use the dish to access both the Internet and satellite television (which is actually cheaper than cable TV).
Download speeds on the dish are impressive, with a non-guaranteed 500 kilobits per second (kpbs). Talking to sales people and reading reviews, it seems some people actually average around 1.5-2 megabits per second (mbps (a megabit is 10,000 kilobits)), which is great. The only downside is that the two-way dish is not asynchronous, so upload speeds are significantly slower (around a 50k minimum non-guarantee). Luckily for me, this is not too much of an issue, as I don't really ever upload anything terribly large, and when I do it's not more than a megabyte or two. Two megabytes in that scenario would take about a minute to upload, which is great compared to now—average of 4k upload via dial-up—when it takes 9 minutes.
This system isn't great for some things—you can't play online games because of "micro-lag" that comes from connecting with the satellite, etcetera—but after being on dial-up for 6 months, it's going to be super. Hopefully this will all happen within the next two weeks. Wish me luck.
Comments
There are 2 comments, comments are closed
mahacarol on 07/29/2003:
sometimes the connection sucks. during storms ect. i have been on satellite for going on 2 yrs now and while it bets the heck out of dialup it does have its issues. for peep in the rual america (like me) or no other access it really is a cheap alternative. i would not do with out it... well at least until dsl decides its ready for me.
Garrett on 07/29/2003:
Yes, this is absolutely an issue. How often do you have connection problems? I'm curious as to whether or not this will be too frequent for me.
But, much like yourself, I feel as though this might be my last option.