10-08-2006, 09:45 PM
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.
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.