Question about Satellite ISP's

[zamar23]

Thanks Greg!

[Stargazer]

I'd expect the churn to be quite low, as their customers generally have no other options.

Sat ISPs have latency problems, not so bad for those that do not game online. They also have FAPs, which may relax as capacity grows. But I really don't think they're growing very fast.

The satellite companies are probably growing faster than their capacity is. The most important is to increase quality of service which means increasing capacity to allow people to get the advertised speeds more often, then raise the caps, then last reduce prices. If the quality of the service was better (more closer to quality of DSL/Cable) then they probably would not see so much churn, at least as quickly, when another provider comes to the area.

[grohgreg]

If the quality of the service was better ...

As a satellite telecommunications engineer, I'd rephrase that to something more along the lines of; "If the general quality of satellite internet installations was better....". The current problem as I see it is there's little financial motivation for mass market installers to perform a quality installation. I cite my own installation as an example. I spared no time or expense in personally engineering my own HughesNet system, which has turned out to be more reliable than both my wife's cable connection and my own DirecTV. Her cable is out for more minutes per month than is my internet connection, and my satellite internet signal is down fewer minutes per month due to rain than is my DirecTV satellite signal. Matter of fact, I'm posting this now via my Hughes connection, while my TV screen is displaying the "searching for signal" message.

Bottom line; the reliability of a two way satellite internet connection is directly proportionate to the quality of the installation.

//greg//

[skynetamit]

^^^ as a owner of an installation company, AMEN!!

[atlvsattech]

V-sat is the ultimate back-up!