anyone tried Starband Satellite broadband?

[cbates]

the guy that just just installed my Dish Network system was really talking up Starband internet service. He was talking about updates to their system that will be getting transfer rates of 1000+ kps. I'm skeptical of that, but I'm looking for an alternative to DSL/cable. (not availible in my area right now.) However, i've heard ythat the hardware necessary for setup is quite expensive.

I'm just hoping to get some insight from someone who has had actual experience with this. let me know if you have any info...good/bad.

thanks

 

[kylef]

Just took a look at their website...
$500 for equipment + $70/month for ~500kbps download speeds? Doesn't sound that great just yet... Maybe bundled with DishNetwork satellite TV it would equate to a better deal, but for those of us with DirecTV it's a no-go.

 

[c0rv1d43]

Besides the expense of getting the Starband equipment and service set up there are some performance issues. I suppose you're familiar with them, but just in case...

1. The lag between the time you send a command to a site and the time you receive the response is at least one order of magnitude longer than it is for other broadband connections. That's partially because of the extreme distance the packets travel from you to the satellite to the satellite ground station / backbone to the Web site and all the way back over the chain to you. But it's also because a non-standard communication protocol is used between dishes and satellite, and there are synchronization / encoding issues. Starband is supposed to have improved the algorithms in the software which accomplishes this fairly recently.

2. In order to share a satellite connection with more than one PC at home you really need to have a PC dedicated to maintaining the satellite connection and to share the connection with the other PCs on the LAN. Starband just recently released their 360 model modem which does (finally) have an Ethernet connector so that you can connect through a standard NIC instead of through a USB port or through the dorky send card / receive card equipment. Unfortunately this doesn't make using a router for sharing the connection a very good choice. Why? Well, that proprietary software they're using for trying to speed up the proprietary communications protocols doesn't run on any routers that I know of.

I could deal with number 1 because I don't do online gaming and don't really care much about Internet telephony. But number 2 is a major bummer. While they were going about producing their proprietary satellite dish modem they should have created at least a higher end model that would handle the protocols AND share the connection among computers. It's not like very many people are going to be willing to buy separate satellite access for each PC, nor is dedicating a Windows machine as a connection sharing system such a great idea. If I were going to use a box to share a connection, I'd be running something else on it.

- Collin

 

[Gabus]

I have Starband for at least 6 months with the older modem model 180. The people who set it up will have a lot to do with how well it works. I had aligment problems and two returns by the installation people. Normal speed down is 30-50KB. Speed up is about 5-7KB.
Seems to have DNS problems sometimes. Has troubles with sites that are very slow (hotmail) etc. Some News servers don't work (for me)(Supernews) but Newscene works well. I can FTP, IM etc but some people have problems with these and many more programs.

good place to read up: alt.satellite.starband

with all my problems..still way better then dialup but inferior to any other form of broadband, especially if upload speed is of any importance to you.