In my search for the holy grail of broadband Internet access, I thought I’d share some of my experiences along the way. If you’re considering the tranquility of northern Vermont real estate and need high-speed Internet for your work, beware! Many rural Vermonters do not have access to broadband services, where dial-up and/or reduced speed wi-fi may be the only choice.
What about satellite Internet?
When it comes to advice, the following people may not be your best source:
1. Your real estate agent may anxiously offer this wondrous solution in order to close the sale but be careful. He may offer to put you in touch with someone he or she knows who “has satellite Internet and really loves it!”. Unless the person he recommends uses Internet services for their work and spends a lot of time working on the web, their advice isn’t worth a grain of salt. Browsing the web and checking email are a world apart from working via your Internet connection.
2. The satellite installation company. Many of these companies are very familiar with satellite TV services but not very knowledgable about the Internet, Widlblue or HughesNet (formerly Direcway) satellite Internet. While they may do a great job of installing, some know little or nothing about bandwidth, latency or most importantly, the Fair Access Policy. Ask them what the Fair Access Policy is. If they can’t tell you, call someone else.
What is the Fair Access Policy and why is it so important?
Did you know that the amount of files you upload/download via satellite Internet are restricted by usage levels? Most people don’t and neither the satellite providers or installers are anxious to let you know about it either. In other words, if you upload or download a lot of MP3′s, videos, etc. the satellite provider will slow you down to a dial-up (or less) crawl. Usually, you will not be told about this until after you sign the contract and/or discover one day that your satellite speed has slowed to the rate of molasses on a cold, winter day.
Contract? What contract?
You’ll love this. You try out the service for 30 days, purchase the equipment from anywhere between $300 to $1000, depending on which satellite provider/service level you prefer. Then, you pay anywhere between $49 to $150 per month for the wondeful opportunity to access these services. However, according to the terms of the contract, you are locked into a 12 month (Wildblue) or 15 month (HughesNet) commitment. Decide to quit and you pay the full amount anyway. Same rip-off as cell phone and other Internet access contracts. The worst part is that if you get crappy upload/download speeds below what you sign on for, you have no recourse. So BEWARE and take advantage of the 30-day trial before you end up in a less than ideal year long (or more) commitment. Also, you should know now that the 30 day FREE TRIAL is NOT!!! You will have to pay Wildblue a $79 “uninstallation” fee and HughesNet will not refund 100% of your equipment fee either.
Educate yourself before taking the plunge into satellite Internet
Do a Google search on ‘Wildblue’, ‘Wildblue complaints’, etc. and see what others have to say. Visit the satellite provider’s websites and take a look at what is posted on their support forums. You’ll be surprised at what you see. A particularly informative website is Wildblue Uncensored! at http://www.wildblue.cc/. If you live (or plan to live) in northern Vermont, go to their message board and read about the many problems with Laredo: Beam 29 outages. This is the satellite that provides service to northern Vermont. Quite an eye opener!
I’m an eX-Wildblue customer
After having a huge billing error, at the time I signed up ( 1,500.00 ) taken out of my account, Wildblue refunded the money and made us a deal on equipment and instillation, and no contract. After 2 months they lowered the FAP which I was not happy about, but service wasn’t that bad for Satellite. Then at the end of July 06 service went downhill. I was a direct customer, (No third party) so a call to support, were over an hour for a person to pick up, most times. As of Nov. 06, Wildblue changed there service and it became totally unusable for our needs. Secure web sites would not load, or time out while doing transactions. Web surfing became slower and timeouts were the norm. 40 percent package loss and ping times going from what were in the 700 range, now went to to 1,400 +. Add to this Wildblue also changed the way they measure your usage, to the point my 2-Gigs to 2.5 Gigs per month, went to 5.5 to 6.5 Gigs with less time spent on the internet. I contacted the BBB of Denver, about canceling, as Wildblue would not let me, without paying for 12 months, and about 40 days later they cut off my service without warning, even though they were payed though the 11th of the following month. I am just happy to be done with them. Just my story…..