StarBand To Shut Down September 30

[dfergie]

StarBand, a once-promising satellite-based high-speed Internet service, announced on its Web site that it will shut down the service on September 30, citing “steadily increasing operating costs, bandwidth demand and competing consumer broadband alternatives.” StarBand, once known as Gilat-To-Home and now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gilat Satellite Networks, launched its two-way service in 2000. It merged into the operations of Spacenet Inc. in 2005, and sold its Spacenet subsidiary, to SageNet, for about $16 million, in December 2013.

multichannel.com

 

[KE4EST]

I used to have them...I think it was 2001 - 2005 nice service for what it was, had good up-time, but was very expensive even for satellite internet.
I switched to Wildblue in 2005 and bill was half what it was from Starband.

 

[radio]

When Starband was first out it was an exciting time! My town had NO high speed, and I DID with Starband! Starband allowed me to go through the install training online to install my own, and they were interested in HOW WELL each subscriber's system worked.

We went from the first generation modem to the 2nd, the first, if you wanted networking had to go THROUGH your PC to other computers or items.....the second (modem) upgraded many capabilities. I have to say, it was an exciting time to have this "new" technology. Even had small amount of stock for awhile......sold it, make some money under Gilat, not much, just enough to say it was "fun" there, too. They had a nice reduced subscription rate when combined with Dishnet, too, and back in the 110/119 (only) days, it was darn cool to have it all in one place on the building.

Always got a kick out of one thing, however. Lived next to a bar....they had GREAT food, too. Lunchers would come down from the school or town for lunch, and one constantly left their radar detector "on" parked in front of my building. .....my internet would drop. I'd go in the bar and ask (sometimes publicly) if someone would turn OFF their radar detector....and then, the signal would return.

Again, sorry to see them leave!

 

[EarDemon]

Wow, I had no idea Starband was still in business, I haven't heard their name in years. When I was a kid, I wanted high speed internet so bad, Everyone I went to school with was getting cable internet, but I lived further out then most of my classmates and my neck of the woods was the last TWC upgraded in the general area to be able to get Road Runner. Verizon ofcourse did not offer DSL. I almost had my parents sold on the Starband/Dish Network bundle with that combo dish that could see 110 and 119 plus Starbands satellite, but we received a mailer from TWC saying Road Runner would be in our area soon and within 6 months I had cable internet.

Never really saw Starband in the wild. Most people who can't get cable or DSL had DirecPC -> Direct Way -> HughesNet in these parts. I see a few Wild Blue/Excede dishes, but it's mostly all Hughes.

 

[Claude Greiner]

I had one of the first beta test units.

Didn't pay for service for almost 4 years.

I remember all the dealers on the dealer board also had a demo account. Half the dealers on there where using the same IP address.