Question about Satellite ISP's

[n1wbd]

Do Satellite ISP's Hughesnet,Wildblue Starband etc. suffer from a high churn rate of customers as conventional broadband is deployed across the country in rural areas.

I know when DSL came to town here those with Satellite Internet dumped them quick to make the switch.

Do you think we'll see the day that Satellite Internet will have a "shelf life" as conventional broadband is deployed and will cease to operate due to lack of subs within the next 15-20 yrs or so?

Bob

 

[grohgreg]

Until we get an administration that is actually serious about broadband for the masses, you can count on needing satellite access in rural areas. First responders will need it indefinitely during natural (and man made) disasters. I might be leaving the fold however - after 10 years on DirecPC/Direcway/HughesNet. Just picked up a PanTech USB modem to see if I can get a decent throughput from a nearby Verizon tower that's just been outfitted with 3G.

//greg//

 

[AntiMoz]

The problem you will run into with a 3G modem on verizon will not be band width so much (can be as high as 2mbps down and 0.5 mbps up) which will bw OK for normal web use. Your problem will be the 5gb per month cap on usage. Anything over this gets into very expensive overage fees. Last i knew they were $ 0.25/megabyte over the 5 gig limit. Streaming audio and video even at lower bit rates will put you over fairly quickly.

 

[navychop]

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.

 

[AntiMoz]

The plans have changed and the limits/costs are different from when i last checked. (i have the 5 gig plan, didnt know about the 10 gig plan until now). The 3g plans are the same.

For 4G USB Modems
4G Mobile Broadband Plans
Monthly Access Fee Monthly Data Allowance Per-GB Rate After Allowance
$50 5 GB $10
$80 10 GB $10

 

[HCI]

Hughes could loose all of its residential subscribers and continue to live strong. See a dish on a gas station, pharmacy, etc, chances are its a Hughes dish. They even handle large corporation's terrestrial based networks that are back-boned off of the local cable or phone company, even Evdo from Sprint. I think Hughes netted around 20000 subscribers last quarter also.

 

[zamar23]

Do all satellite ISPs install modems at subscriber sites, or some allow customers to use DVB-S/S2 Sat Cards instead of satellite internet modems?

 

[grohgreg]

Sounds like you're talking about a satellite TV PCI card. They do not work for satellite internet.

//greg//

 

[zamar23]

One-way satellite internet providers like Skyway used to offer PCI sat cards for internet traffic download leg instead of sat modems, while upload leg worked via telephone dial-up service. Sat PCI cards do work with one-way sat internet and are broadly used for that purpose in many 3-d world countries. I was wondering if any one-way sat internet services provider in North America still allows using sat cards instead of modems to receive sat internet, i.e. receive own internet traffic. That option seems to be cheaper if one already has a sat card used to receive FTA sat tv.

 

[grohgreg]

Now that you've essentially confirmed that you're actually talkin' about TV cards, I can only repeat; they do not work for satellite internet !! Besides, I'm pretty sure the dwindling number of one-way satellite internet providers left in the US haven't issued PCI modems for 6-8 years now.

//greg//

 

[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!