Wild Blue or DSL?

Go with the DSL,
I have wild blue, and if I ever get the chance to go with DSL I'm there..
While the wildblue is better as far as speed than dial up, I have found that it doesn't stay connected. If you have any air traffic in your area, it will kick you off-line. Bad weather also affects wild blue.
Another problem we have with wild blue or any of the satelite internet providers is that they have a down load limit and up load limit. With 4 computers in our house, these limits can be a bear to deal with...and we have the top package from wild blue.

The lag time can get annoying with satelite internet, you can't play "real time" games on line because of this. I guess the biggest problem for us are the limits that they have. Now we don't know if the limits are theirs or the governments, but they are there none the less...

If you need specifics let me know and I will try and answer what I can..

Thanks for your input. That definitely lessens my interest in satellite internet to a great degree. I guess my only options if I want to have internet are giving DSL a try or living with dial-up.

I still would like to get some clarification though about how the age of the phone lines might affect the qualilty of the DSL service. If I were able to find out beforehand that I'm unlikely to have much luck getting anything better than dial-up speed, I may not even bother at all, especially since internet would be the only reason I'd get a land phone line connection in the first place.

On my limited budget, I'm not sure that paying over $40 for dial-up speed would be worth it. I'd just have to go in to town to the library. Though it sure would be nice to have this resource at my fingertips as I plant my first garden and get used to country living.

I have buried phone line from the road too and although telephone use seems ok the fastest dial-up connection I could make was 9~12k but dsl running through the same line is constantly reliable at the promised speed.

__________________
Montani semper liberi


The United States Constitution © 1791. All Rights Reserved. — this message approved by Congressman Ron Paul

I have had DSL in the past in 2 different locations - and now have WildBlue - give me WildBlue anytime. While there are occasional downtimes due to stormy weather, it rarely exceeds an hour or so and we breezed through our first hurricane season with flying colors last year.

With DLS came an entire huge phone package that one way or the other simply costed more money than we ever had need for [$110 bottom line w. all taxes and stuff added into], since we pretty much exclusively use our cell phones. Broken up into basics and just added DLS came to even more - we also had a very poor connection here with the phone line and had the phone company out countless times - I am sure they hated us calling and complaining so much. Another point - when you own dogs in the south - that usually goes hand in hand with a lot of digging in the summer months in the yard - they forever unearthed the phone line [probably one reason why we had such poor connection with lots of static, although it already was bad when we first moved here] - no such thing w. the satellite uplink.

One more thing I like about Wildblue - we are moving - and the Wildblue goes with us - my ISP email address stays the same - important when you run your business from your main ISP addy... after the initial equipment layout - WildBlue's bottom line is a heck of a lot better than whatever the phone company can offer me, as we both have cell phones that we would continue needing anyway. No landline needed any longer...

Lmnde

Yikes, that definitely would not be worth $40. How much do you pay for DSL? This local phone company offers basic phone service and DSL for about $70, which seems a little high to me.

It sure would be nice if there was a less expensive option for basic phone line service, especially in this age of cell phones, for people who only need the line for internet access.

It stinks to have to pay for features included in the basic phone package like voicemail, call waiting, etc. that you don't even need. Heck I don't even need to use it to make phone calls, yet I'll have to spend $35 to get the basic phone service I need to get the DSL.

Hmmm... Thanks for complicating things. You read my mind though about unnecessary phone expenses, as you see from my post right below yours.

Once you get past the initial investment of the Wild Blue, you are paying less and only for what you actually need. I don't need/want land phone service or tv service. All I need/want is good internet access and netflix to watch the movies and documentaries, I specifically want.

Internet service is $20.00 and DSL is $33.00 monthly. That's a bit pricey for me but with an alternative of 12k it's necessary. I'd not heard of Wildblue before reading this thread. Sounds interesting. There is no cell coverage out this way—but then again, I don't care much for cell phones...

__________________
Montani semper liberi


The United States Constitution © 1791. All Rights Reserved. — this message approved by Congressman Ron Paul

If you decide to go with WildBlue - you might want to check around for used equipment - your main expense is the satellite dish and the modem to go with it - now I don't know if they will allow you to purchase your equipment used - but it would be worth a try. If someone drops WildBlue - they are basically stuck with it, as you own the equipment [at least I do with mine] and they will have no use for it - so are probably glad to "loose" it for a 100 bucks or so [assuming it works well].

I was worried about our hurricane season though [we are pretty clsoe to the GA coast] - but all went well. But it was pretty quiet last year too - not like the year before. I find on the few occasions where I do loose my connection - it is truly temporary - like in a thunderstorm coming up [when you are probably want to shut down the comp anyway] maybe an hour or two mostly - seldom longer - and there is always other things to do at our place.

When you have an entire bad weather front coming through that may be overcast for a few hours to a few days - I tend to use outlook express for my emails - as they automatically send and download when it reconnects - even if just for a few minutes during the storm or whatever - so you will not be looking at days worth of emails etc without being able to go online at all like when your landline is down, which has happened several times here in the past...

If I would need international phone access again, I would go with a landline again and DSL if available, but for where we are in the boonies - WildBlue is doing good enough for me. And I really like having just one phone ring at me now instead of 3 seperate lines [cell, home and business - especially if someone has all 3 numbers and you are always a ring behind chasing the different phones before voice mail kicks in] - it rings too darn often anyway as it is, LOL.

You also get up to 5 email addies of your choice - so other family members can have their own if they want - and the nice thing - they are not all "spoken" for. How often have you tried to get an email addy that means something to you - only for all variations of what you try to express being taken?

Lmnde

Before I forget - you will need to have a clear exposure to the southern sky [or roof mount it] - in our case at the 8 acres - we will need to clearcut a fair size area - but I will wait with taking the WB out there until I figure out where I want the house to go - I have not even "been" everywhere on the 8 - as it is pretty badly overgrown and want to take my time exploring and getting a lay for land for a year or so before deciding...

I don't have any experience with WildBlue personally. However, when we moved out here, and found out there was no DSL available, I had to pick a satellite company. I picked HughesNet. My close neighbor has WildBlue and it's out all the time, even more than ours. That being said, ours was out a number of times this winter. We also found that we had to clear off the dish when it snowed to get reception. We have also had problems with the download limits above posters were talking about. Likewise, the high latency issue means that my husband can't connect to work over the satellite connection, and can't play online games (not that he did that much anyhow). When the satellite is working at its peak, it is faster than DSL, but I would much rather have DSL and its low latency, reliable connection. As far as price is concerned, when we had DSL, we had an unlimited, call anywhere in the US for however long you wanted, phone package with call waiting, etc. and the DSL for about $65 a month. I pay more for the satellite now and still have a phone bill on top of that.

Wildblue is ok if you don't have the interference, we seem to be in a flight path to and airport.. it always seems to kick us off line at the most inopportune times.... Also since we are running 5 computers (4 for the adults in this house hold and 1 as a server) in a network, wild blues limits have an effect on us. Since 3 of us are fairly computer savy in their own field (1 web page building and design, 1 bulletin board and network design, and 1 Auto Cadd drafter and designer) we can burn up some bandwidth. If the limits weren't there we would be a lot happier...and could deal with the lag time and other minor annoyances....

JMHO

No consensus here on this one. I suppose I may try the DSL first. It's $20 more a month, including for a land phone line I don't really need, but the initial investment is much less.

Since it would come from the local phone company, I also don't think there would be anything like an 18 month contract and if I wasn't getting the right speed, I would only have one company to deal with (unlike my experience with Yahoo DSL who kept referring me to my local phone company).

Have wild blue at office. Goes down fequently, we watch weather forecasts, etc for business purposes for rain & severe weather. Fails exactly when you need it for that. Just as storms approach & are in progress. Also can be slow sometimes. If we could get cable or DSL we certaintly would. It is considerably better than our dial up was.