Going Rural - Need High Speed Internet

[Dave Rubin]

My wife and I are shopping for a new home. We will be leaving behind our current house, deep in the heart of DOT.COM heaven, where I have become spoiled by my cablemodem connection. We are looking at places where we will be able to see stars in the sky. (And no, we haven't seen funny looking kids with banjos out there.)

The problem is, I know they don't have cablemodem out there, and I don't think I could get DSL out there either. So I have been looking into Satellite (DirecPC) solutions. I am hoping that you folks will be able to share your observations and experiences with me.

First off, are there any other types of connections I should investigate (short of getting my house wired with T1)? Is DirecPC the only satellite solution now available?

How has performance been?

Do any of you have the new Satellite Return (2-way) feature yet? Does it require a second dish? Is it similar to 2-way cable in that you get a dynamic IP address? Can a friend ping you?

Are you able to share your DirecPC between computers? How about protection? (I currently use my Linksys cablemodem router in liu of a full fledged firewall)

Thanks in advance,

Dave

[Andrew Pratt]

Dave I think ThomasW has some thing like this set up and I believe Doug was at least looking into it. I'm sure both will be around soon to answer your quesiton

[Lex]

Dave, I heard before Christmas that Radio Shack was to be offering a 2 way Satelite link, that isn't phone line dependent at all. I love the sound of that! I have not been back to check because honestly, I have yet to be billed for my hybrid cable/56k modem. Great download speed, but slow on uploads. Of course, 90% of what we do is downloads, except for posting to boards and such.

I think there was one other outfit coming with this, but not certain on that. Be sure to ask the Shack if they ever "unbundled" this option, that was supposed to be available with the purchase of a Compaq computer from them before Xmas.

My employer (though shaky situation) has offered to pay for my Cable modem, but until they charge me, I am letting them pay my 2nd phone line. If I leave, and don't have support in this area, I will be looking at that option as soon as the cable folks start charging, lol. They are not charging until the network is very reliable. Which is fine by me.

Lex




Cable Guy DVD Collection

[ThomasW]

Dave

I've had DirecPC running for about 18 months. I just bought the kit and did my own install. No big deal really except of finding the "bird" in the sky. The window is one finger width with your arm extended. If you decide to go this way let me know and I'll tell you a trick or two about aligning the dish.

I think the performance is great. Very reliable except when the dish gets covered with snow. As far as the 2-way is way is concerned it's too expensive, and the technology is still "beta". I followed DirecPC's development from inception and now it's a mature, reliable, technology.

If you have access to DSL or cable then those are the way to go, but if you don't then DirecPC is a god send




theAudioWorx
Klone-Audio

[Dave Rubin]

Thanks, guys. This is looking more and more a reality all the time. I have determined that neither cable or DSL are available in the places I am looking...

I am curious about the "experience" of satellite induced latency. Do you take the delay "hit" only on the first time you make a connection, or does it occur with every "navigate" action?

*********************************************

It is interesting how they don't make it easy for people to determine availability of service. When I go up on Verizon's web site, you have to enter an existing phone number to run a query. Well, I don't live there yet so I don't have a phone number!! I ended up using the current homeowner's number instead, but still..... There are no maps, no nothing more useful. Duhhhh.

Time to do some serious monopoly busting!!

[ThomasW]

Not sure what you mean regarding satellite induced latency. This is the only high speed connection I've had so I can't compare/contrast it vs DSL/cable.

The limiting factor appears to be the website you trying to load.

Regarding service as long as your local ISP doesn't use a "bundled" dialing system/program (something like AT&T World.net uses) isn't compatible with DirecPC connnection, you simply set the DirecPC dialer to call your ISP, then the connection is setup. It actually is a sort of like a LAN with regard to the satellite relay. You will need to be able to get into the TCP/IP settings to enter the DirecPC IP address and DNS config numbers for the best/fastest connection. The actual connection speed to the ISP isn't important because it's only sending out the request. My download speeds are typically 400-600Kbps depending on the particular server. I occasionally see bursts as high as 800-900Kbps for large file downloads from fast servers.

If you currently have a high speed connection you might want to download the latest version of the DirecPC software. Sometime the latest version isn't included with the hardware. BTW I use their external USB "modem" setup instead of the internal card.

http://www.direcpc.com/customer/downloads.html

Regarding security I ran Steve Gibsons "Shields Up" connection tester. It reported excellent/very good security for all the forms of protection tested.

The 2-way return service requires completely different hardware from the regular DirecPC ($399 vs $149). Never thought of having anyone ping me. I ping out on occasion when I want to test the connection.

Hope this helps
Thomas




theAudioWorx
Klone-Audio

[SiliGoose]

If you are at all interested in playing games online the high latency of a satellite connection will be worse than a 56k modem. Otherwise, I've heard great things (it is expensive compared to DSL and Cable though).




-Sili