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I'm using the two-way DirecWay right now, as it's my only option other than dialup. It's *way* better than dialup for me.
Uploads are at good dialup speed, though they do go through the sat and no phone line is needed. Downloads of files are lightning fast -- fastest I've ever seen. Blazing fast. I haven't looked at stats, because the biggest files I download are just *boom* done.
Biggest problem for me is https (secure) web pages (like for online banking and such). The browsing proxy can't use those so they creep along, slower than dialup and with many timeouts and failures.
Second biggest problem is the software on the DirecWay DW6000 router that sits between my network and the satellite dish. Sometimes it crashes, usually if I try to open ten web pages at a time. Since I'm working wireless in a different building from my router, this requires me to put on pants and shoes and go outside to go reboot the router. Pain in ass -- I suppose I've done it twenty times since November.
Third biggest problem is the latency from all the round trips to orbit. Packets move really fast, but a web page with dozens or hundreds of distinct components (usually small graphics) can take forever because the components load in series, and sometimes the browser seems to wait until it gets one piece before it asks for the next.
In five winter months I've had perhaps half a dozen weather-related outages, of half an hour to an hour each. Plus, I lost one whole day to unexplained outage at the ISP end. Folks are right, there *is* no customer service.
Price is high, 18-month contract is ridiculous. But bottom line for me is: the service is good enough to run an adult business (power blogging and affiliate work, not building or running paysites) and dialup isn't good enough. DirecWay is not the most wonderful experience ever, but it's good enough. I'll go back to cable as soon as I can, but I wouldn't choose dialup instead.
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