Hughesnet satellite internet

[hughes phil]

Vice President Joe Biden picked Dawsonville for a Thursday announcement of the newest government giveaway, billions of dollars for new broadband Internet access for rural areas. Though this sounds pretty good at first, on reflection it really stinks.
Satellite Internet providers
HughesNet

and Wildblue have invested billions of their stockholders' dollars to be able to offer broadband to anyone, anywhere. The federal government just trashed their investment, and they did it, in part, with the stockholders' own tax dollars.

[66N33]

I think this is a great initiative for rural areas in the US that the large telecoms would otherwise not bother with. After all, a great nation deserves a great broadband network. I mean, look at Japan, they are already expanding a gigabit broadband network while we are still haggling with telecoms over how to distribute G3 in rural areas? I mean we practically invented the internet in this country and we are really lagging behind in terms of mass distribution. I think these investments will pay for themselves over time as rural Americans can get better access to more robust and affordable internet that will enable productivity and stimulate competition and new enterprises in rural areas.

In addition, let's be realistic about what satellite internet is for rural consumers...its a last resort! Anyone with a choice will get DSL, cable or wireless before investing in the equipment, installation and premium monthly fee for satellite internet. Not to mention the latency, and FAP issues...

As an installer, I am not going to loose much sleep over these government programs. There will be plenty of holes left in broadband coverage in the US and satellite providers will continue to play a roll for many years to come. In addition, satellite internet providers will also continue to make huge profits from their commercial divisions which provide reserved bandwidth to large enterprises, franchises and government/military. These guaranteed connections are used for VPN's and as redundant connections for mission-critical stuff in urban and rural locations alike. These types of services cost tens of thousands of dollars per month. Not a bad little business for the poor satellite internet providers.

[harshness]

Did Veep Biden say how they planned to do this?

If you're an investor in satellite Internet service, you should be worried as microwave is probably the "wave" of the future.

Like most gubmint projects, this one is going to take a while so it stands to reason that satellite Internet will suffer a slow and painful death at the hands of the administration just like every other business is.

[bradleys]

The billions and billions that the gov is going to spend won't go very far out here in BFE. It's pretty unlikely that they will come up with magic technology that will solve all the problems with service in rural areas. I'd love it if they did, but my own experiences don't give me much confidence.

Clearwire wimax doesn't reach my place, and they don't have plans to try any time soon. They say that there just aren't enough of us to justify the investment.

StarTouch's microwave system requires a 100 foot tower (at $35 per foot just for the tower, NOT including guy wires and extra charges for aiming a system that's 100 feet above ground). The service is $100 per month forever.

Verizon wireless cellular gives me a basic -117 dBm signal. I can improve that to -87 dBm with an external yagi antenna and external amplifier with very short cables. That's still not enough to get reliable internet service.

Verizon T1 service is about $350 per month, but it IS available (according to the salesman who is 3000 miles away in Virginia).

XO T1 - who knows? - they won't respond to my inquiries.

Verizon doesn't provide DSL in my location. I called, and "just for fun" the fellow ran the numbers. They would need two repeaters to reach my neighborhood. Including all the wiring and repeaters, the cost would be tens of thousands of dollars.

Comcast cable is about 3/4 of a mile from my location. They wouldn't give me a price, they just said they wouldn't connect me. Googling around, I'm seeing prices for stringing cable from a dollar to ten dollars a foot. So, that's between $3500 and $35000.

There is a shared 432 foot tower a couple of miles from me, and two shared 250 foot towers about five miles from me. From what I can research, it appears that Verizon and StarTouch use these towers. The signals don't make it to my place. I have five acres, so maybe the gov will put a tower in my yard? Oops - I have "wetlands", so that's probably out.

I use HughesNet for my internet. They charged about $500 for installation, and my monthly charge is $90 per month. I appreciate that they have a large investment in this service (and others). However, it looks to me like they're being properly compensated for their investment.

It would be great to get cheap rural broadband. It would be fun to see the numbers that the gov uses, to figure out how many people they can serve per billion dollars.

[Stargazer]

Satellite Broadband Grant = STUPID STUPID STUPID!!! Satellite Broadband is not a good alternative even if it worked right and even if you got the right speeds and if there were no FAP issues because of latency issues.

[HCI]

Satellite Broadband Grant = STUPID STUPID STUPID!!! Satellite Broadband is not a good alternative even if it worked right and even if you got the right speeds and if there were no FAP issues because of latency issues.

I disagree. Thousands of people everyday switch from dialup to satellite and they are happy with the service.

[Stargazer]

Thousands more are unhappy with the service because it is just as slow as dialup if that parts of most days. You can't do gaming on it, cant do VOIP, can't do those work from home applications, can't watch video or download anything decent until 2 am to 7 am unless you get a very expensive package or get subjected to FAP.

Satellite is a LAST RESORT as an alternative to dialup. It should not be used in place of wireless/dsl/cable/fiber into getting into some areas. I realize there may be some sense in using satellite where it may be harder to get the better services I just listed but a lot of improvement needs to be made on satellite bandwidth.

Yes, people may switch everyday from dialup to satellite, but that certainly don't mean they are happy with it. They are stuck with a crappy service. It is good for those that do occasional web browsing and maybe a download once in a while. I have heard many complaints about satellite.

[HCI]

Thousands more are unhappy with the service because it is just as slow as dialup if that parts of most days. You can't do gaming on it, cant do VOIP, can't do those work from home applications, can't watch video or download anything decent until 2 am to 7 am unless you get a very expensive package or get subjected to FAP.

Satellite is a LAST RESORT as an alternative to dialup. It should not be used in place of wireless/dsl/cable/fiber into getting into some areas. I realize there may be some sense in using satellite where it may be harder to get the better services I just listed but a lot of improvement needs to be made on satellite bandwidth.

Yes, people may switch everyday from dialup to satellite, but that certainly don't mean they are happy with it. They are stuck with a crappy service. It is good for those that do occasional web browsing and maybe a download once in a while. I have heard many complaints about satellite.

You are just dead wrong and are giving false and misleading information. Its not just as slow as dialup. You CAN use VOIP, you CAN use work form home applications or VPN's, and you CAN watch video and download larger files. I deal with it everyday and have seen plenty of customers who use it successfully. As for the gameing no it does not work great but the percentage people who get the service who even ask about gameing is under 1%, and I would say only 10% to 15% of all internet users games and I think I am being very generous with that figure so its a small market. I done over 250 residential Hughesnet installs last year and only 5 or 6 even asked about gameing. I have done 12 installs so far this year including 3 for business, 1 in a CVS which all CVS's use Hughesnet for backup on their T1, 1 in a car dealership that uses it for site specific commercial broadcasting, and 1 in a Tax office that has 6 computers that the reason why the customer went with Hughes is she has it at home so she must be happy enough with it to trust it with the business for the upcoming tax season.

Some business even have Hughes just for their field employees specifically for their VPN use. I also have first hand experience with remote service of my PC when I was using Hughes. I used it for 4 years without a problem ever, and was more than happy NOT to be on dialup. I downloaded songs from itunes and watched plenty of videos without having an issue with FAP as well, yes you do have to monitor your activity when you do heavy downloading, but having a connection that will actually download a 25MB file in a decent amount of time compared to dialup is worth keeping an eye on it every now and then. BTW 25MB on dialup will be over 1 hour, Hughes home plan 25MB is under 5 mins. I do have cable now which is better and yes Satellite internet is only a good alternative to dialup which is who they are trying to compete with look at any of the ads they all say Hughesnet is the solution to people who live in rural areas who don't have access to another high speed service.

As for the complaints you have heard about Hughes, well I have a cell phone and it does not work all the time, I dial numbers or try to send a message and it tells me I have no signal. Sometimes my wife tells me she trys to call me and it goes straight to my voice mail so I guess my phone service sucks. I also bought a Ford truck one time and the transmission failed within 2 months so I guess Ford trucks suck. Do an internet search and you will find any company you can think of have complaints by customers for service or products, everyone is not going to be happy. Bottom line if Hughes or any other satellite internet had as bad service as you make out their would be failing. For Hughes the 3rd quarter 2009 results say it all, you cannot do this with "crappy service".
http://www.hughes.com/HUGHES/Doc/0/M...09_Results.pdf

Consumer business sets new records with impressive growth over the third quarter of 2008:
– Record third quarter subscriber gross adds of 50,000, an increase of 14%.
– Record third quarter subscriber net adds of 17,000 for growth of 49%.
– Services revenue increased by 19%.
– Consumer ARPU increased to $71 over $68 in the third quarter of 2008 and $70 in the second
quarter of 2009.
– Churn improved to 2.3% from 2.6% in the third quarter of 2008.


Subscribers are up, Churn is down. Looks like customers are pretty happy to me.

[oldford]

Thousands more are unhappy with the service because it is just as slow as dialup if that parts of most days. You can't do gaming on it, cant do VOIP, can't do those work from home applications, can't watch video or download anything decent until 2 am to 7 am unless you get a very expensive package or get subjected to FAP..

This is not completely true with Starband.

Satellite is a LAST RESORT as an alternative to dialup. It should not be used in place of wireless/dsl/cable/fiber into getting into some areas. I realize there may be some sense in using satellite where it may be harder to get the better services I just listed but a lot of improvement needs to be made on satellite bandwidth...

I'm not sure what "a lot of improvement on satellite bandwidth" is, but it
is generally true that satellite should not be the first choice over
DSL/cable etc for most users.

Yes, people may switch everyday from dialup to satellite, but that certainly don't mean they are happy with it. They are stuck with a crappy service. It is good for those that do occasional web browsing and maybe a download once in a while. I have heard many complaints about satellite.

As a Starband dealer, I have zero customers who are unhappy with
their service. If the customer is coming from a dialup system at 28-56k
and no DSL/Cable is available, satellite is an excellent solution.

Regards, Eric

[66N33]

Getting back to the original post...I wonder if there are any provisions for satellite internet connections in the government's rural broadband initiative? Has anyone read any articles about which types of connections the government is going to subsidize, or are we just speculating that satellite internet is off the table?...