WildBlue ViaSat1 the real scoop

I thought all that was supposed to change once the new system is up and available. And I thought we were to buy the modem. Looks like it'll be $250 or "free" for install and I'd guess that includes the antenna, etc. I suppose Chris will update us as the time approacheth.
 
I'm not sure how accurate the information is on this site I viewed but it does show some prices and volume rates for data. They did flip the blue and green areas as to the speeds but appear to get it correct on the other pages. The plans show 7.5GB/$50, 15GB/$80, 25GB/$130 with what would appear to be 1GB/$8 for over your limit (my assumption). Didn't see any $ on the monthly lease fee for the equipment.

lease is $9.99

Your Pricing is off a tad. All but the middles package are with out the lease and the middle one has it added... More Details later. we also have 3 Stimulus packages (NO we are not out of stimulus funds)

Had an installer the other day who is a HUGE HNS fan tell me he is very impressed. So much he is starting to market WB a lot more now....:)
 
I've been a customer about 6 years. I own my own equipment, and pay ~$50 per month. For more than 90% of that time, I averaged close to, below or above 7GB average FAP download usage. With that amount of usage and absolutely no actual uploading of any kind (no file backup, emailing/uploading pictures, nothing), upload usage is around 800-900 megs or so. Currently it's 7.5GB down and separate 2.3GB up, 9.8GB total combined. The new system, unless they change it which is unlikely, will be 7.5GB total combined on this package. Subtract the number with absolutely no uploading beyond what's needed to "make it go", thats about 6.6GB of usable download. In other words, stating the obvious, a downgrade, and not a small one, pretty much no matter how you look at it. The faster speed is very much useless, if the only things that truly benifit from it, such as large file downloads, video, etc. can't be done much because of the low cap. So what are the options? An extra gig of data is $8 (proposed), not reasonable. The next package up is even more ludicrously priced as well, I won't pay more than $60 for home internet, that is insane (even $60 is ridiculously high). So basically, with the calls people have been getting about upgrading, the price to upgrade for some is about $150, then mandatory lease fee which I don't have now, $10, and a new 24 month contract. So it would cost close to $400 more over two years, for less data than I currently use. Nope, not an upgrade of any kind. Also, up to 5 megs where I am, don't know why it's the same price and amount of data for those who can get up to 12 meg in VS-1 areas, that isn't really fair either.

You can say what you want about how impressed someone is with the connection. I was a user back before pings were doubled by Wildblue back in '06, it was quite impressive back then for what it was. Skype was even usable on this base package back then, and it worked quite well actually. Pages responded MUCH quicker, https logins were much faster, etc., until they implemented the traffic shaping. I had people who had DSL back at that time use my system, and say they couldn't tell much difference, back then. All this extra speed does little for the general browsing experience (extra speed beyond a certain point, on many webpages), and again, useless if any amount of usage goes over the limit, with out spending piles of cash. Tweaking and reducing latency are more noticeable in general browsing. I've spoken with 5 of my neighbors so far, showing them everything out there about this, NONE of them are "upgrading".

A Verizon tower is going up now, if it is a 3G tower and not 1x, I will be able to get 20GB of data for $60, that's where WE will be headed, if WB doesn't offer something that is not insane. Crossing my fingers that they didn't cheap out on their tower.

The average household in the US uses over 30 GB, and the average household will not spend anywhere near $130 to get it. With all the hype this was getting, you'd have thought service would be upgraded instead of cut back. A decent analogy I've seen, what good is it to have a car that can go 200mph easily, if you only have a 10 mile long road?
 
Yeah, and your observations aren't unique. There's a lot of grumbling on other satellite internet forums about this very point. Folks who actually pay attention to what they're buying are not liking what they see. Many are contending that the new plans combine a higher throughput worm with a lower FAP hook, then profit again from a subsequent $7-$8/GB overuse penalty on folks who find themselves locked into a 2 year contract. Latency is another concern. Legacy connections via Anik-F2 and WB1 PING are subject to atrocious (and artificial) RTTs. So a huge unanswered question is whether or not this ludicrous WB-added delay will persist. In my book, there's absolutely no reasonable justification for an artificially induced 2000-3000ms PING.

This is the type of reality that I tried to warn Chris about up front.

//greg//
 
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Great post! "emanresu2" I'm mulling over my options too.
Where can you get 20GB for $60?
 
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Great post! "emanresu2" I'm mulling over my options too.
Where can you get 20GB for $60?

Here's a forum you can read. Millenicom forum | DSLReports.com, ISP Information

Just Google the name to find their site or research. Depends where you are on how good their service is the way it looks. And they use either Sprint or Verizon, so the plans vary on that. Sprint lets you bring your own device, Verizon doesn't, so more of a startup fee. But NO CONTRACTS either. I'd think one of the devices in a 3g wireless router so that it would work like a hotspot would be decent, and the little devices have a port for an external antenna. They won't bend on bringing your own device with Verizon, they are much cheaper elsewhere of course. Middle of last year I checked and you only have 24 hours to cancel and get a refund if activated and not satisfied.

I've only used Verizon's service a little in town in their store. They have no display phones, so the clerk handed me her personal one. Internet is MUCH faster than any recent Wildblue systems I've been on (perceived speed, general browsing, click on something, something happens right away). Didn't check downloading. I don't care as much about that speed, I can wait.

The way things work out, I suppose the tower here will be limited in some way so that it won't work for me....
 
I've been a customer about 6 years. I own my own equipment, and pay ~$50 per month. For more than 90% of that time, I averaged close to, below or above 7GB average FAP download usage. With that amount of usage and absolutely no actual uploading of any kind (no file backup, emailing/uploading pictures, nothing), upload usage is around 800-900 megs or so. Currently it's 7.5GB down and separate 2.3GB up, 9.8GB total combined. The new system, unless they change it which is unlikely, will be 7.5GB total combined on this package. Subtract the number with absolutely no uploading beyond what's needed to "make it go", thats about 6.6GB of usable download. In other words, stating the obvious, a downgrade, and not a small one, pretty much no matter how you look at it. The faster speed is very much useless, if the only things that truly benifit from it, such as large file downloads, video, etc. can't be done much because of the low cap. So what are the options? An extra gig of data is $8 (proposed), not reasonable. The next package up is even more ludicrously priced as well, I won't pay more than $60 for home internet, that is insane (even $60 is ridiculously high). So basically, with the calls people have been getting about upgrading, the price to upgrade for some is about $150, then mandatory lease fee which I don't have now, $10, and a new 24 month contract. So it would cost close to $400 more over two years, for less data than I currently use. Nope, not an upgrade of any kind. Also, up to 5 megs where I am, don't know why it's the same price and amount of data for those who can get up to 12 meg in VS-1 areas, that isn't really fair either.

You can say what you want about how impressed someone is with the connection. I was a user back before pings were doubled by Wildblue back in '06, it was quite impressive back then for what it was. Skype was even usable on this base package back then, and it worked quite well actually. Pages responded MUCH quicker, https logins were much faster, etc., until they implemented the traffic shaping. I had people who had DSL back at that time use my system, and say they couldn't tell much difference, back then. All this extra speed does little for the general browsing experience (extra speed beyond a certain point, on many webpages), and again, useless if any amount of usage goes over the limit, with out spending piles of cash. Tweaking and reducing latency are more noticeable in general browsing. I've spoken with 5 of my neighbors so far, showing them everything out there about this, NONE of them are "upgrading".

A Verizon tower is going up now, if it is a 3G tower and not 1x, I will be able to get 20GB of data for $60, that's where WE will be headed, if WB doesn't offer something that is not insane. Crossing my fingers that they didn't cheap out on their tower.

The average household in the US uses over 30 GB, and the average household will not spend anywhere near $130 to get it. With all the hype this was getting, you'd have thought service would be upgraded instead of cut back. A decent analogy I've seen, what good is it to have a car that can go 200mph easily, if you only have a 10 mile long road?


Our packages match 80% of the US households. So not sure where your seeing the 30G average. However, Keep in mind that the Cell Phone guys share data with text bursts and voice. They are primarily designed for smart phones and EVDO Reversion A (EVDO REVA = 3G = 2G on steroids). Last i heard they were capped at 5G with up charge for overage and additional data.

Our research shows that people will pay for bandwidth albeit not all. But did you realize your being treated like a new customer if your not in agreement term?

It is what it is at least for now. If it appears to be a mass issue i would assume we would change..

I have loads of dealers that are very excited about the new systems. They have customers lined up ready to go.. which starts for VS1 about the 16th of this month...
 
I'd like to hear from you, Chris, what the cap (& total price) is to be on the new service. I'd be interested, but mainly for watching what's on my home DVR while camping. And I'd be even more interested if I could run the service for only 6 or 7 months out of the year. Maybe I'm not your target customer.
 
Our packages match 80% of the US households. So not sure where your seeing the 30G average. However, Keep in mind that the Cell Phone guys share data with text bursts and voice. They are primarily designed for smart phones and EVDO Reversion A (EVDO REVA = 3G = 2G on steroids). Last i heard they were capped at 5G with up charge for overage and additional data.

Our research shows that people will pay for bandwidth albeit not all. But did you realize your being treated like a new customer if your not in agreement term?

It is what it is at least for now. If it appears to be a mass issue i would assume we would change..

I have loads of dealers that are very excited about the new systems. They have customers lined up ready to go.. which starts for VS1 about the 16th of this month...

With the cell service, like I said, depends where you live. Here there is no congestion on the areas that are served in the bigger town that's 30 miles away. The new tower is going up outside a village that has somewhere a little over 200 people, and outside of town houses are far apart (my closest neighbor is a mile away, other areas are more sparse), so not much of an issue with crowding. I foresee it being less troublesome than primetime slowdown with WB up 'till now. I've used it a little, and talked to several people. What I mentioned uses the Verizon service. 20 gigs is $60 in my area, you can google the company yourself and see. Sprint area has unlimited (but they check you out if you go over 50). Verizon directly does have low caps, but it is not a home internet service they are selling, it's a mobile service.

The 30G was a number mentioned on the other forum, I guess I didn't see where it came from. I checked quick for a statistic but didn't see it. This is a good read, but I didn't read it through due to time, comments probably have some info as well, from earlier last year, What Is Average Data Use And Should You Care? . That 80% number was thrown around on the other forum as well. And it's pretty much useless. I guess if people are put on a limited service and have a cap, and are penalized if they go over that cap, and can't afford to upgrade to a higher package if available, guess what?, they do whatever they are forced to do to stay under that cap, so of course it "works" for most of your customers. Considering the fact that they limit downloads, don't watch much video, etc., etc. Does that statistic account for who has the service, and what they do to keep it that way? Was that a "no" I hear? How many are only part time/vacation users? How many supplement their usage with their cellphones, or download stuff from work, etc. How many drive 30 miles minimum one way to take online classes because the "Pro" pack isn't good enough (like my neighbor does)? Now there is a new option, buy more. Sure, $130 a month is reasonable for home internet....

Yep, I'm sure plenty of people will be signing up for the service, just wait until they find out what they signed up for when they don't understand what they are getting, coming from already having DSL or cable. Guess Wildblue won't care because they will have them in contract. I got an ad in the mail, postcard, colorful, 5 meg service, call now, no mention of cap, I bet if I called, it wouldn't be mentioned unless I asked. And I bet many of the people switching from DSL have no understanding of what they use in a month.

And I'm guessing you and the installers you mention also don't use your own service. How about you check how much data your families use, see how much you would pay, and see how satisfied you would be. I used this example before. Family of four, doing what they want to do, see how much they use in a typical day with ONLY WB as their source for internet.

Also, the announcement at CES, I'm guessing they won't go into details about the caps, or they will blow around that 80% statistic without going into detail, and the average person again won't have a clue how much data it takes. If a user uses Netflix or similar, guess what, they are likely out of that 80%, because you sure can't keep a family in shows for a month with the plans offered, if they are an "average" family.

And sorry for sounding a bit stern. What is going on here, was a promised, much hyped "upgrade" that was supposed to be a cure-all. Instead, they downgrade the service, what I call drastically, and raise their rate, so yes, many people are angry. And like I said, I know my neighbors, I talk to them, they are my friends. They said they are not switching to the new service, if something better comes along besides WB, they will take it.
 
I'd like to hear from you, Chris, what the cap (& total price) is to be on the new service. I'd be interested, but mainly for watching what's on my home DVR while camping. And I'd be even more interested if I could run the service for only 6 or 7 months out of the year. Maybe I'm not your target customer.

I need to hold off on price however it is out there and i cant stop anyone from posting. Data Allowances (formerly known as FAP) are on normal plans 7.5-15-25 with immediate purchase of additional 1gb

At this time we don't have a Snow Bird program unless you out of contract but we will! Hopefully very soon. I hear this all the time and constantly bring it up in all of our meetings. Early last year we migrated to a much better billing system which allows us to do just that...

That said the 5MG systems are working very nicely. The dealers i have heard from (and some huge HNS fans) are very impressed.
 
I need to hold off on price however it is out there and i cant stop anyone from posting. Data Allowances (formerly known as FAP) are on normal plans 7.5-15-25 with immediate purchase of additional 1gb

At this time we don't have a Snow Bird program unless you out of contract but we will! Hopefully very soon. I hear this all the time and constantly bring it up in all of our meetings. Early last year we migrated to a much better billing system which allows us to do just that...

That said the 5MG systems are working very nicely. The dealers i have heard from (and some huge HNS fans) are very impressed.

Thank you. But I did not mean immediately. I prefer to know when things are "official." I'm in no rush- I make no decision before April. I have a sat spotter so I can see if I can find an open spot for LoS. I'd hate to waste an installers' time, especially if there would be a charge to me if he came out and no LoS.
 
ViaSat details home broadband, 12 Mbps service to roll out on the 16th for $50 per month -- Engadget

2012-01-05-viasat.jpg
 

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Data Caps

The $50 basic bundle will get you 7.5GB monthly quota which can be increased to 15GB ($80) or 25GB ($130) if that doesn't fill your data belly.

Boo Hiss!!!!

Might as well go cellular.
 
Not sure why that video link keeps getting blown out. Copy and paste the link below:
viddler.com/explore/engadget/videos/3676/
Impressive. Regardless of the debate about data caps, this is a huge performance improvement compared to other consumer-grade satellite Internet systems. Can you do VoIP or video streaming over HN, SB, etc.? May not be for everybody but, for many folks, this is a very viable option. If this triggers future competition for who has the best data cap plan, great. HN is already gearing up with new options.
 
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21st Hermit said:
The $50 basic bundle will get you 7.5GB monthly quota which can be increased to 15GB ($80) or 25GB ($130) if that doesn't fill your data belly.

Boo Hiss!!!!

Might as well go cellular.

BooHiss times 100.. 25gigs at 130 dollars? Why? Thank the stars I live in a major east coast city with Fios available to me..
 
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