How I got broadband from a mile away

[davemchine]

So speed was your primary motivation for jumping thru these hoops. I can understand that but I have some questions.

I looked into satelite for my grandmother who does not have access to dsl or cable modems. At that time I was quoted $80/mo. Dick mentioned that it was expensive so I'd like to find out if I'm missing something. I know some companies are not mac friendly and you have to use a pc as a router but even that couldn't cost more than $300 or so.

tuqqer the speeds you quoted for the cellular internet are in line with what I've been told, but you also mention that you couldn't share that bandwidth. I think you could if you used an inexpensive wallstreet as your receiving point and then used osx's share feature to share that bandwidth to a wireless router in the house. There are keepalive issues but that can be overcome.

Anyway, you needed the speed so I can see why you want the way you went but wanted to point out the above items and maybe get some more input as I'm sure you've explored them.

Dave

[tuqqer]

I think your satellite pricing is right, dave. It's the latency that makes it hard to use.

[WillyB]

This is the best post of the year!!

[Dick Moore]

dave -- I pay $60/mon for Hughes.net after spending $600 up front for the gear. There are faster levels of service available, but the price increase is pretty steep.

I average between 80kB/s and 110kB/s (that's bytes, not bits) for downloads, but much, much less for uploads. And a hidden problem they don't mention is that downloading and uploading to secure sites (https) is as slow as dial-up, maybe sometimes slower. I don't mind the latency very much until I get to the secure sites, and then every single piece of a site takes the latency hit because the security systems require "handshaking" for all of it.

I use satellite because it is my *only* choice -- our area's phone lines are so old and noisy that a dial-up can't be maintained, and the upper limit is 24kb/s -- that's bits, not bytes.