anyone use satellite broadband like DirecWay
 

I need net at a remote location and I've tried a wireless ISP without much luck. Looking into the new small biz satellite option from DirecWay, but I've heard a ton of bad reviews about them.

http://www.infosat.com/services/hsi/#

no idea if it's any good or not.

fuck no, i heard it is awful, and the upload is apparently comparable to dial up

Comparable to dial up???? No. you could walk the packets there faster. I know. I had them for 2 years. and in that two years, they were down for a total of 5 weeks. Bad CS, and they lie their asses off.

Yeh I don't know anyone that uses it but I hear it's still really bad.

Too bad, how nice would it be to work from your boat.

this scares me because the wireless I have is the same way... it's about 128 down and 56up. I'd be better off with ISDN.

I can't fucking believe in the last 5 years, not one company has come up with a reliable way to get high speed to rural areas. Seems completely ridiculous to me.

The deal with DircWay is it's for people that can't get anything else. Upload sucks ass let's get that right out in the open. Why does it suck? Because it's 56k They can't upload via the Sat so it has to be done via Phone line.

Download is not so bad, something most people don't know is you can set your computer up so DircWay downloads very fast. The standard Windows settings for 2 opr 3 connections at once. Which means when you go to a webpage it only D/L's 2 or 3 things at a time.

With D/W you can set up for mutable connections I think it was a max of 15 and each connection gets full bandwidth. So even though I think the D/L is set a 800 down with D/W you can set that to 15 connections and the web pages will download very very fast. The big draw back is they limit you to a certain amount of bandwidth per day.

I was certified to install those dishes which is why I know this I've never had one myself but have installed a few. So the short and skiny is, if you can't get anything else they are better than a phone line on the D/L but not on the up..

I lived in a house that didn't have high speed available a few years back so I had no choice but to go with DirectWay, it was pure torture. When surfing the internet you are constantly making new connections to sites, with satellite there is a latency with each connection. It cuts a chunk out of your productivity time but if you have no other options then what can u do?

I guess I'm screwed then. No high speed options that sound feasible.

This is not true. I have Direcway's 2-way satellite service. It sucks, but your info is just wrong, you can upload via the sat modems.

First, you will be lucky if you can upload at 56K. It is more like a 36K modem for me. Second, browsing is a pain in the ass and the system uses a turbo proxy to help with browsing. Sometimes the proxy will be down or slow and it's just better to browse without it. Although the lag will be a lot more than with the proxy on.

Also, they cap your downloads via a FAP (fair access policy) scheme, if you download more than 140 megs (business package is more) they slow your ass down to a 56k modem, until the FAP bucket is replenished.

I use it because I have no other choice but the mediocre Cable co. I have here in Puerto Rico--they suck even more than Direcway!

More informed opinions can be found at:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/sat

I found this http://business.direcway.com/
which claims "download speeds of up to 1,000Kbps"

Equipment & Standard Installation $999.98
Monthly Fee $129.99
Term Commitment (Months) 24

god, this thread make me love comcast so much more

600kb/sec downloads
50kb/sec uploads

w00t for comcast!

50k up? I'm was doing almost triple that with my comcast cable modem.

Everything he said PLUS they cap your uploads too. Pretty important if your a webmaster :) We had them in Colorado for a while...complete waste of $$ :Oh crap

Yea I went through both starband and direcway before finally finding a fixed wireless carrier. Starband and direcway suck balls. My fixed wireless isnt fantastic but its tons better than the satellite options.

I'm hoping maybe one of the biz pkgs is better or will work.
Starband has one that SAYS it'll do 1.5 down and 256 up. It's pricey, but if it works it's worth it.

Save yourself the headache and avoid them. Their contracts are too long and ridiculous to get out of. I had them for the reg. high speed at my office for about 2 weeks and I was on the phone with them daily. They didnt want to let me out of the contract even though the service never worked right. Then they wanted to charge me the cancellation fee... I went through hell with that divorce. :disgust

That's not true. Directway is 2 way. I think Directway sucks too but at least get the facts straight.


Well let's see $600 down and $60 a month for up to 500 Kbps. Does that sound like a deal?

this blows.
it means basically I have no other options for net.

Well when I set them up, the upload went through a phone line and not the satellite but that's been several years and it was when they first started the service. The download was 800 Kps down then and not 500. But of course it was all capped and limited.

Yeah, I don't have broadband available in my area so I have a "high speed" DirecWay satellite. On good days it sucks, on bad days I want to kill myself lolol. It downloads fairly fast but upload is slower than dial up. Plus the latency with everything you open/surf to etc... it's horrible and more expensive for worse service. I had 4 cable connections at a remote location and logging in remotely was a nightmare. Ugh :Oh crap

I can't wait to move and have REAL broadband!

By the way, I have a 2 way satellite, doesn't require the phone line but I paid like $1200 for the hardware, and $100 for the installation. :Oh crap :( :(

Hey Gunner, give me a call or lets talk at Phoenix, i may have someone who may be your answer.

I had one when I lived in a remote location, it sucked, but it's better than dialup. Download was fast, just the 2 sec lag between clicks and the upload speeds were the sucky part.

I posted something similar to this on a broadband users forum, and everyone said the same thing:

"direcway doesn't care what plan you are on they don't know how to refrain from over selling their transponders"

"Satellite has a built in latency disadvantage, so unless latency (lag) does not matter at all to you, I would not even consider it if I had other options."

Not looking good at all. :(

150kb/sec upload?

some of you must be warez uploaders or something :)

All the bad things are true.

They claim in their commercials that it is faster than cable and broadband, its slower than 56k. Also if you inform them of this, they tell you that you are wrong and your browsing much faster than that, as if your not the one in front of your computer doing it or something.

Also when I had it it was down more than it was up and the customer service does in fact suck balls, that is if your even lucky enough to speak to a CS rep that speaks English because they are based in India and have no American tech support to contact at all.

If you have no other choice, there is not much you can do, but I think Earthlink has a sat. program as well, you may really want to try them first.

Earthlink is powered by DirecWay:

"EarthLink offers award-recognized high-speed Internet services nationwide. For locations not served by our DSL or cable services, EarthLink Satellite powered by DIRECWAY is a great alternative."

Oh, God. Don't get me started on Direcway. I live in a rural area and I have no choice but to use it. When they say, "up to 500 kbps", they mean UP TO. You will NEVER go up to what they claim.

My best download speed was 200 kbps - usual download speed is about 130 kpbs. Upload was at 15 kbps the other day, but that was a very rare moment. (And to think I was actually excited about the 15 kpbs). I'm used to 5 kbps with their upload speed.

But if that's the only thing you can get, then you just have to do what you have to do. :Oh crap

so not one person has ANYTHING good to say about DirecWay...
guess it's not an option :Oh crap

Please share with the rest of us! :thumbsup Always looking for broadband wireless options since we live in the mountains. We're planning to build/buy a new home next year and are limited to certain locations where broadband is currently available. Finding a reliable wireless option would certianly open up our options.

Move to a broadband area because if you don't your satellite connection will turn out to be the absolute low point in your life. We were on an experimental service a long time back and at times it was ok at times but those days are looooong gone. Satellite services are now miles oversubscribed and capped to the bone.

At one point we had three PCs in the office connected to the satellite and one connected to 56k phone line as an emergency back-up. Arguments would actually break out here in the mornings over who was going to get a turn on the dial-up!

It's an option if that's your only option. With the exception of buying a 2nd line and using dial-up. :winkwink:

Uploading movies takes SO so so long to do. I have to resort to going to my friend's house and uploading it to the server.

At least with my experience with Direcway, I'm stuck. I am putting up with the crappy connection - unless I move. That's not happening any time soon since we built this house last June. Beautiful area, but bad business decision. :(

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.

There's a new satellite technology/company due to release around June. It might be better than DirecWay www.wildblue.com

i have it here and it blows

you have DirecWay or wildblue?