(Please help!) Satellite Internet.

Howdy everyone!

Let me start out by sincerely apologizing if this is the wrong place to ask this. If it is, I just ask that a mod please move it to a more appropriate location. (Thank you in advance.)

Anyway! Onto my dilemma.

I will be moving from this house to a vacation house up in Maine. The vacation house is in the woods. (On a lake, and on a main road.) There are no power lines for about 10 miles.

Now, as embarrassing as it is to admit, the internet has become a necessity for me. I have absolutely no idea where to start in my search for being able to obtain working satellite internet. This is where I hope you guys will be able to help me.

I'll be checking back as often as possible; I hope to hear from you all! (If you need anymore information, please just ask.)

 

I had one way satellite long ago and when they discontinued the service I was back to dial-up for about two years. I followed the two-way reading up on the good and bad and the bad experiences really turned me off but luckily in that time 3G became available in my area and I jumped on that. I have been very happy with that decision!

Satellite Internet - HughesNet High-Speed Satellite Internet Provider

WildBlue: High Speed Satellite Internet Provider: Official Website

Also check for EVDO 3G service. Quite a bit more reliable and mobile to boot! I was lucky to get a signal here so I went that route and I have been very happy with the service.

EVDO Forums - EV-DO Discussion, Support, Coverage, Compatibility, Tips, Verizon, Sprint, Alltel, Cradlepoint CTR350, PHS300, MBR1000, CTR500, CBA250 and MiFi : EVDOforums.com they can help determine if there is a signal available in your area and get you set up.

Both satellite and 3G will lock you into a two year contract but there might be a way around that with the 3G. They both have limits on how much you can use. The 3G has a 5gig a month limit. I got in before that so I'm grandfathered into the unlimited... unless I go crazy and download 500gb then they would probably cancel me or force me into a new contract.

Hughsnet has 200 - 500mb a day limits and if you go over that they slow your connection down. Wildblue has a monthly limit and I see they have different plans now. I think they slow you down also when you hit your limit for the month.

 

If you can get coverage where you are at the 3g store offers a month to month plan. I also bought 3g before the 5gig limit.

 

Most likely you'll be stuck with the sat being 10 miles from power lines, but maybe you'll get lucky. I hope you do.

Depending on your quality of service you're looking for you could get more of a commericial sat connection. Obviously it's more expensive but you can avoid the fair access policy that is placed on residentials.

 

There are cheaper 3g options than a 2 year contract with a 5gig cap (some are moving to a 2.5 even!).

While AT&T says 90% of users are under 2.5 gigs, these are mobile phones being used to very lightly surf on 3g optimized browsers, they are NOT computers, where you download software updates. A large program on a phone may be 1meg, maybe 3 meg mp3. On a computer, you end up with 3meg web pages, 20 meg anti-virus updates and 150meg operating system updates.

As I said, there are some alternatives.

Satellite has become 2 direction. It's laggy and I dislike it, but it is in many ways better than 3g. It may even be the ONLY option. Like 3G, it too can be pricey but I'm unaware of any hard caps. One of my last places we could only get T-Mobile and satellite. Just before I moved there, they got DSL service to the area, but even now they only have T-Mobile for cell service.

For 3g, read the contract!
Not all 3g carriers are equal in price or service.
Take a look at the Virgin Mobile (now owned by Sprint) Blackberry, they run $35 per month for 300 minutes ($25 more for unlimited calling), but you get unlimited everything else and with a small (free) program you can hook it to your computer as well (wifi, bluetooth or usb). Keep in mind that with them you MUST buy their phones, and the Blackberry isn't cheap ($300). While high, remember, there is no contract and the monthly rate is low, most carriers are actually giving you a loan on your phone, you aren't getting it "free". Crunch the numbers you may be surprised how expensive your "free" phone really is.

There is also data plans for just notebooks, however, most of these plans are INSANE for price (oddly Virgin is one of the highest). Cricket has the best plan at the moment, but they do have a cap, and the "modem" is a bit pricey (you can get them cheaper online though).

Personally, I would have trouble with the data limit on most plans.

 

Thank you all for your replies!

Sorry if I didn't make it clear..I'm looking for Satellite internet to use with my LAPTOP.

Also, as far as I know, there is a huge Satellite dish that is placed a little more than a mile away from the power lines. (I would guess that the dish is about 13 or so miles away)

I understand that Satellite internet can be laggy, but it's more-or-less to use in conjunction with talking to people (Xfire, AIM, etc.), browsing the 'net occasionally, maybe an online game or two. Nothing TOO demanding.

Also, I -think- I'll only need it for a few months. It really depends on what happens. In any case...

I'll keep this updated as much as I can.

 

The dish for your home and internet, the small dishes, have to be within 100 feet of the converter box in your house. You need a clear shot at the southern sky. The big dish will not be used for this.

As for the laptop, yes, I hook my Blackberry to my laptop with usb or bluetooth and use it as my internet service when I am out working and the customer doesn't have broadband. I haven't taken the time to figure it out with wifi yet. Sharing this with other systems is more difficult.

With satellite you can easily hook up a wireless router to it after the converter box just as you do with dsl and cable modems.


Gaming with x-fire and such, forget it, the lag will kill you. It can be noticeable while browsing web pages so it will be horrible trying to game. 3g and satellite both really carry lots of lag. You might get onto a server, but people will not be happy with you as you will lag them out. Talking (voice chat) will probably work fine so long as you are not downloading anything at the same time.


3g and satellite lack speed and bandwidth, it's not like DSL and cable despite what those providers claim. In fact it's only a fraction of the speed, think somewhere between dial up and slow DSL in terms of bandwidth.
Good luck.

 

That's disappointing...also, thank you much, leslieann.

I have no intention of blowing $300+ on a phone that will rarely get used along with a contract.

Is there any simpler solution for my situation? I don't know where a library is nearby..and I'd rather not steal someone's internet, especially when they pay their hard-earned money for it. :/

Really stuck here... The internet is mostly for talking to people. Gaming would more-or-less be an added perk. (Plus I'd likely play singleplayer games more than not, since I know that most type of ) Y'know, so I don't lose contact with people. (I think it'd be about 2~ months before I decide to move into an apartment.)

So, Forum-browsers...what do you all think?

 

The $300 Virgin Blackberry phone does NOT have a contract, and you can re-sell it when finished.

Realistically, it's probably the cheapest method to get internet for just a few months. I'm not saying it's cheap, but likely the cheapest option.

 

The more I learn about Satellite and Wireless internet, the more I think about getting the phone..Sounds terrible to contradict my prior post.

I talked to somebody else, and I was told, "The only way to actually get it to work with your laptop and wireless internet, is to pay the $80/monthly for the minutes." This part I need a little clearing up with. Also: what would you do? What are the totals ($) I'm looking at?

Also: thank you again leslieann, for bearing with me. Trying to make sure I don't get isolated from the world.

EDIT: Let me just add in, that a monthly fee may be feasible. (I just don't want a ridiculous monthly fee.) The high-quality apartments run at $550-$850/Monthly, but I'm choosing the vacation house (free to live in) over an apartment at the moment.

 

IPB, I would check to make sure you can receive a 3g signal first. It isnt available at all locations. Even though you have cell service you might be restricted to 1xRTT (CDMA2000) which is not something you'll be happy with.

If you do have EVDO service you can expect about a 90-120 ms ping with a decent cell signal which is decent. I ran ventrilo (voice chat) with sprint cards plenty of times before.

To give you a comparison a satellite will average about 800 ms on the low end. Which for just about anything besides browsing the internet is unbareable. A 56k dialup can do 200ms in most cases.

Ofcourse you'll need to understand latency for most of this to make sense. Bottom line though, make sure you have some 3g cell service before going that route. If you do, it's your best option.

 

Sharing Wifi is pretty easy. I use the small router cradlepoint 350. but instead of using as a wireless router I have it plugged into my netgear router so it sends the signal wireless and over my wired network.

Wireless lag is not nearly as bad as satellite. It's not lacking in speed but it is lacking in bandwidth and too many users can slow a system down. I usually get anywhere from 800-1.5 down and 200-400 up.

The greatest advantage with wireless is I can put it in my pocket and go. : )

I pay $60.07 a month for my wireless.

 

I thought maybe you could buy a used 3G modem off ebay and get around the 2 year contract. The people that run EVDO forums and the users might be able to answer that. If you can get a 3G signal. I live way up on a mountain and the tower is about 9 miles from me and lower elevation and I get a good signal.

[/URL][/IMG]

The people that run the EVDO forums and the users can probably answer the contract question.

EVDO Forums - EV-DO Discussion, Support, Coverage, Compatibility, Tips, Verizon, Sprint, Alltel, Cradlepoint CTR350, PHS300, MBR1000, CTR500, CBA250 and MiFi : EVDOforums.com

 

I paid $300 for my phone, and $35 per month, that's it.
I get 300 minutes, but minutes are my only limit. Internet use is not counted on my minutes. Pretty much no matter what I do (minus actual calls), it's $35 per month (plus taxes, equaling $37 and change). Blackberries have a bit more lag due to how they operate, this may change soon though.

You may or may not have to pay extra per month to connect your laptop. Some carriers do charge for that, some as much as $35 per month extra. However, in many cases, there are programs you can get for free or a one time fee. Tether is a popular one, it costs a one time $49, PdaNet, which I use is free, though there is a pay version for $39, again, one time fee. A few Palm and Microsoft phones, Iphones, and (all?) Blackberries have some way to do this. Even a few Nokias can.

Most people are unaware you can do this, and again, some carriers do have methods of blocking this, though it is rare, which is why the person you talked to said that. It may be true on their carrier.