How many here subscribe to Dish Network or Directv? Do any of you use the internet services they provide? Is there good customer support for the Sat companies? How about outages and clarity? If you are a Sat subscriber do you feel that you are getting a better value than you would get if you were a Comcast subscriber?

The ONLY way to get decent internet service with a satellite provider is DIRECTLY from the owner of the satellite -- Hughes. To go through a third party is to enter a support nightmare just to save $10 bucks a month.

The latest model satellite modem hn7000s is stand alone. Runs itself and you just plug your computer into it. Id dare say its almost trouble free as cable. But I won't based on past experience with third party providers. Ask me next year and I'll give a better answer.

http://www.hughesnet.com

If you do opt for satellite broadband, be aware of the local installers . . . (they install for all satellite internet providers) some of them are true dip shits. Others are familiar with mostly TV installations -- ans many will find any excuse to show up and leave forcing a reschedule -- "need a longer ladder", "need a different pole", "the ground is too soft". I've an antenna mount on my roof thats still there cuz they mis calculated and the dish aimed into trees. They never moved the original mount cuz nobody everu had a long enough ladder every time they came out.

I'm not technically a satellite "subscriber", in that I get all my stuff via Sat as free to air (FTA). It's kind of like how local TV and radio operate. Only this is nationwide (sometimes internationwide) and is situated way higher up in the sky. ;o)

If you have an FTA receiver, you can get stuff for free off satellites that the packages (Dish Net, Direct, Comcrap etc.) wouldn't even touch.

Overall I would say I am getting an INCREDIBLE value as opposed to if I was a CC user (in fact, we were not too long after Columbia Cable/TCI turned into AT&T Cable. My folks stopped it shortly after Comcast took over.)

If you can get a dish for cheap (I got mine free from a neighbour) then it's well worth the $150 you pay to buy the receiver, in my case a Sonicview 4000. Makes up for lack of my old Fortec which went out on me a month ago..........

Outages are about what you'd expect from any other satellite setup; not so much on C-band (lower frequency) as it is on Ku-Band (higher frequency.) A really rainy day can sometimes leave me in silence without my Muzak (Ku-band via Echostar 7.) Clarity most of the time is better than cable (from what I have seen anyways) especially on transponders carrying network feeds. There are still a few analogue sat transponders operating but these are definately a dying breed.

Everything available free to air is just that, free. There is a common misconception that you somehow need to pay some giant company somewhere a huge amount of money to access anything over sat......this partially true, however. There *are* a good number of services (mostly the cable networks) that scramble their signals, requiring a subscription and the use of a decoder to receive it. (From what I understand, tho, many of those channels can be fairly cheap to subscribe to if you are using them at home. I haven't tried any myself but a friend of mine has, mostly some of the Viacom channels and HBO [figures] and he says they tend to run about $2 to $3/month, depending on what you get.)

But really there is no law or regulation that stipulates "all who use satellite services must pay a fee."

There is also a common misconception that the age of backyard dish users is pretty much over; dead and gone. The age of Analogue dish users maybe (because practically all the satellites have gone all digital, or they haven't yet they are probably in the process) but I think it's just as big now as it has been in years past; you just don't hear about it as much today because packages like Dish Net or Direct tend to get more publicity.

But overall I wouldn't get rid of my system in favour of cable. That would be like taking one small step forward, but ten giant leaps backwards.......





(And about Internet access? I use People's PC over a $7.99/month dialup connection, so I guess that's a moot point in this case......... ;o)

I have Dish Network for my TV and Comcast for my internet.

The Comcast internet connection is a 4MB connection and it costs me about $55 per month.

I like the Dish Network for my TV. Just a personal preference. I had Dish, and then switched to Comcast for a while because initially it was cheaper, but they kept raising the price so I switched back to Dish.

I think, since everybody is either already digital or will be shortly, the picture quality is probably comparable between all the carriers.

I like Dish Network because it has t he Sirius music channels on it.

I have had people tell me that Direct TV is better if you like sports, but I don't really care about sports so it doesn't matter to me.

For the internet Qworst (Qwest) will try and sell you on the fact that Comcast is a "shared pipe" in each of their nodes and that the more users the slower your connection is. While that may be a good marketing point, in reality I have never seen my bandwidth slow down noticeably. I'm running a home network with 6 PC's tied to it at the house here and even when we are all on the PC's at the same time, it is fine.

I think it all boils down to what you need to have, what you want to have and what you can afford to have. Somewhere there is a balance between all three items.

My reasoning is that I can probally get better value out of one of the Sats vs comcast at either the same or less price. In my unit the Dish Sat is already installed and not currently used.

I reside in a triplex me in one unit and my brother in another unit. Would it be possible to get away with one account for televsion for two side by side unts? As most offers I see give u upto 4 recievers.

I miss channels like Bravo, IFC Sundance, and the Encore channels which all seem to be included in the same packages with Sat.

When it comes to internet I am not a downloader primarily just a browser and email.

Living in the boondocks, we're at the mercy of the sats. There's no cable available where we are, no dsl comes this far "up the road" and -to top it off- there's no cellphone reception in our little valley.

So our television comes via DishTV (95% satisfied with it), and we just switched internet from an 18.8kbps dialup to satellite internet from WildBlue, which gives us 1.5mbps and a "rolling 30-day" limit of 7500mb for downloads. It's not perfect (neither in speed nor the limits) but it beats dialup anyday. It costs $50/mo and we're also keeping a cheap dialup around (at least through the winter) to see if a backup may be needed for weather-related satellite outages. But so far, so good: in 3 months of having the WildBlue, we've only had about 6hrs of total outage.

Yes, I'd certainly jump for DSL or cable internet if and when it becomes available, as either would be faster and probably cheaper. But -for now- this is the best we can do.

And, of course, the Sirius radio is going about 22hrs a day (at home and the car) so there's yet ANOTHER satellite we're dependent on! Who woulda' thunk what Sputnik portended?

Don't leave out and GPS receivers you may have.

Mike--

Just remember, last October we saw the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the Sputnik projects!

I wrote a small piece about it, you can read it at http://216.134.195.110/forums/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=MuzakMain&Number=5290& page=0&view=expanded&sb=5&o=365&fpart=1 (click)

Mike, advice: even with the 1 1/2 MBPS available on your Sat Internet access point, just beware of the potential of experiencing the dreaded tell-tale FAP ("Fair Access Policy", the name of which some users consider debatable) slow-down, if Wild Blue has such a policy. In effect, your broadband sat connection could ultimately slow to a point equivalent to what you were probably getting over your 18.8.........................

I have Comcast internet and HD cable and am very happy. My internet is super fast and never down. My TV picture in HD is incredible and I love all the channels I have including HBO and I really dig the DVR features. And all the stuff they have on "on demand" is awesome. Any time I have needed customer service in the last 5 years, which is not that much, they've been available and have solved the issues. We pay about $144 per month after it's all tallied up and I'm okay with that based on the value we get. I'd love to rail against Comcast because they are basically a monopoly, but I can't. Comcast has been good for me.

" I'd love to rail against Comcast because they are basically a monopoly, but I can't. Comcast has been good for me."

Yep. Exactly the same here. My bill pegs at a neato 265 ( 6 DVRs ). My internet has allowed me to stream my station without interruption for a solid year.

It's expensive, but I like what I get for it. There's no On Demand in Salem yet. But after spending a weekend in Portland and seeing what I saw, I can do without it. When it comes to Salem, I'll probably use it more than I think I will. But for now, I'm fine.

Motozak2: yes, we do have the "fair access policy" provision, and that's what I meant when I mentioned the 7500MB limit. It's figured over a 30-day rolling period, which means that I can't have had over 7500MB in downloads in any 30 day period. But it's not been an issue thus far, since the max I ever seem to download in the period is just over 4500MB, so it's not (yet) been a problem.

Forgot to mention that the equipment cost us about $300 and it's amortized (no interest)over the 24-month contract, so it's an extra $12.50/mo, but that's almost invisible. It was a special introductory deal, but I'm sure they're like Sears: everything's always on "sale"!

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the satellite internet.

Let me disclose that I have a dog in the fight; I work for Comcast. Chickenjuggler: look for OnDemand by the end of the year in Salem. As a pure matter of fact, a two-way, constant connection that enables OnDemand is not something satellite can provide, although DishNet uses the term to refer to a "super DVR" that simply records stuff automatically. The advantage you'll see with cable is no contracts, carriage agreements that require every local station except low-power TV stations to be available to all subscribers, and regulations that require we answer 90% of our TV-related calls within 30 seconds of the correct menu item being selected on the phone. When Verizon and Qwest launch their TV services, get ready to see the sat companies panic. It will then be a war between two franchise-holders with reliable wired service. The sat companies will have to rely on rural customers for their base. As for the monopoly stuff… uh… isn’t this thread called “Comcast vs. Dish and DirectTv? Comcast has a monopoly on cable tv like Ford has a monopoly on the Mustang. There are no other Mustangs other than the Ford, but there are other coups!

Shane I will be honest here. I have been hearing from Comcast employees in Salem that On Demand is right around the corner and or here by the end of the year ever since it mades its Portland area debut. Its a total crock of shit and I will only believe it when I see it. Furthermore if Comcast wants their subscribers in the Salem area to use the service they better as hell as entice us with a cheap intro price for the first 3-6 months.

>>Deleted my post.<<

Continue on.......

"I reside in a triplex me in one unit and my brother in another unit. Would it be possible to get away with one account for televsion for two side by side unts? As most offers I see give u upto 4 recievers. "
Would it be allowed according to the contact? No. Could you get away with it? Yes.

Any sat provider has no way of knowing *where* the reciever is physically located, as long as the phone line isn't plugged in (which it doesn't need to be unless you want to order PPV, and even that can be done on the internet). As far as Dish/DTV is concerned, the 2nd box is in "a bedroom".

So, if the "box" is subscribed (has a valid card), and you connect it to a dish pointed in the right direction, you get TV. The box can be anywhere.

The only trick in your case would be getting the 'plex wired up correctly. In my experience, the installers aren't terribly ethical in that regard... and for that matter, running some coax isn't too difficult.

Shyguy,
I don't know if it will be pushed out again. In the past we haven't made a habit out of volunteering a projected date for Salem OnDemand availability for that very reason. But a lot of times customers are rather demanding (no pun intended) when they ask about when it will be available, so we give them the latest estimated date. Then other things come along and push back the completion date. Believing it when you see it is probably not a bad idea.

I use my dish and UHF antenna in a third-floor apartment and wired the whole thing up myself with assistance from my cousin.......just run a length of coax in through where the air conditioner mounts in the back wall, along the doorjamb next to the hole then along the baseboard where the carpeting meets the wall.

Have to run it around a couple of corners before the cable gets to the receiver (and the coax I use is kind of stiff) but in the end it only took about two hours to install, not counting actually mounting the dish to the balcony railling and pointing it.

But that's just in a single apartment........I would imagine a triplex unit would be a bit more involved. ;o)

"So, if the "box" is subscribed (has a valid card), and you connect it to a dish pointed in the right direction, you get TV. The box can be anywhere."

Yup. In fact, a neighbour of mine uses Dish Network and also has an isolated house (one-room shack in the woods, no phone, power etc., but does have a generator) on a large chunk of property somewhere in Eastern WA......he has another DN receiver out there and simply takes the card from his receiver here and uses it there. So even though he's about as far as anyone could imagine being away from the luxuries of telephone, cable, running water etc., at least he still can watch "Sanford & Son" on TV Land when he's away. ;o)

See, generally speaking the card doesn't actually tell the satellite *where* the receiver is located or even who it specifically belongs to, contrary to popular belief--rather, it simply enables the digital descrambler in the receiver (analogue in some really old receivers) to operate within the time-frame set by the user's subscription.

Note that for cable boxes that use cards, this method probably doesn't even apply!

Its not a 2 way system, the boxes are only recievers, thats why they occassionally want you to attach a phone line to the boxes.

Precisely.

As TADC stated, the receiver doesn't even have to be connected to the phone line unless you want to use pay per view.

What would be a somewhat interesting experiment is testing whether or not a DN receiver's modem would run over some sort of VOIP terminal, like Vonage, or even a cell phone equipped with a dataport. Obviously they are compatible with a stantard analogue landline but I am kinda' curious how well they would work (IF they even would work!) over those type of connections instead.........................

Although there are a number of receivers that are two-way (like the Nokia D-box--this is pretty much only available in Europe but is sometimes imported into the USA) and some even include faxmodems, basically allowing the user to send faxes via satellite from pretty much any point in the world. But you'd need a special LNB to do this, because most consumer LNB's are one-way, like the type DN and Direct use.

(To my understanding, even satellite internet uses the satellite link primarily for downloading while the phone line or some other similar method is used for uploading, like HTTP requests or sending E-mail memos. Although to my further understanding two-way sat internet is also sometimes, though not as widely used.)

"even satellite internet uses the satellite link primarily for downloading while the phone line or some other similar method is used for uploading, like HTTP requests or sending E-mail memos."

No.

"Although to my further understanding two-way sat internet is also sometimes, though not as widely used."

The majority of hookups (if not all) these days is 2way. In fact, a phone line is not even required.

That's correct. Initially, the systems were "dual simplex" (satellite download/telephone upload) but the installations done now are 100% duplex. One of the reasons (tho' certainly not the only one) we went to satellite internet was the ability to completely free the phone line from the ISP.

It may seem a little "quaint", but the biggest single thrill of getting satellite internet was the very first time we were on line... and the phone rang!

McMinnville gets Video On Demand before Salem?
lol!