Does anyone have experience with satellite internet?

[thebolt]

I am looking at a remote residence in an area which is not covered by cable internet. The home will be in Elbert County and I appreciate any alternative which would be less expensive and/or more efficient that satellite service for my location.

I have been reading different satellite company claims but would like to know if anyone has personal experience. I know this will be slower and more costly than cable but that option is off the table. I thought some here might have personal experiences with this same issue.

Thank you for sharing your wisdom.

[trlcavscout]

Are you looking at the local wireless internet providers or the actual satellite? I haven't seen anyone with the satellite service for a while, but they were getting like 2 mb downloads and .5 mb uploads because it used their phone line for upload, so generally DSL is a better option if you can get it. The wireless options are better and I know a few people out in the sticks getting like 5mb download speed but the service is kind of limited as to wear your located and most people report issues with bad weather.

Their May be other options I haven't seen, but if available the wireless services are generally better then the satellite. When I worked for U.S. Cable we serviced all of BFE north of Fort Collins and we swapped customers over from those services to cable, but it's been a few years since I was around it much.

[thebolt]

I've spoken to the Comcast and Verizon reps and each have said I am out of their coverage zone. I am not that knowledgeable about this but the Verizon rep explained the only way I can receive internet is going with the dish and receiving internet via a satellite dish. He offered Hughes as the company they refer their customers to.

[BushMasterBoy]

I think wireless is the way to go. I used to have it in the Colorado Springs area, but I can't remember the company name. It used a square shaped antenna and got its signal from the top of Cheyenne mtn.

I googled this...

http://kellin.net/residentialservice.html

[Honey Badger282.8]

11 years ago when I was in high school my family moved to Parker and we could only get dial up, DSL or DirecWay (now Hughes Net). We opted to go with DirecWay in a bundle with DirecTV. It was horrible, atrociously slow speeds, slower than dial-up, and terrible reliability. I don't know why but we would lose internet far more often than we did TV, it didn't take much for the internet to go. My parents swapped out with Qwest (now Century Link) DSL after about a year and we got about quadruple the speed which still wasn't fast by any means but at least it solved the reliability issue.

It very well may have improved in the last decade, I do know that my parents are chomping at the bit to ditch Century Link now though.

[jmg8550]

Satellite internet is garbage. We had DishNet/Hughes, slow, unreliable, and dish would slow down in our speed claiming we went over the data limit. Which never happened, I didn't stream movies on it. I now have Charter (Cheyenne), much faster. Atleast 30 meg.

[thebolt]

I anticipate needing this service in Elbert County and appreciate any suggestions or solutions to service to help in my area. I have not heard much good news about satellite service but don't know if I have alternatives being outside the "footprint" of Century Link and Comcast.

Thanks to all the replies thus far and hope someone has suggestions for my specific area.

[Bailey Guns]

If Skybeam is available it's a much better alternative. I've used sat internet for several years in Bailey and, honestly, I'd almost rather have dialup. I worked for Dish as an installer, too, and several install techs (including me because I used it at the time) would recommend against it to customers who'd already ordered. Yes...it's that bad.

Skybeam is a little better (I had it when it was still Wispertel) but you must have a direct line-of-sight to a tower. It's very finicky with weather, specifically thunderstorms with lots of lightning. But it's head and shoulders better than sat.

You won't be able to stream a lot of movies because of the "fair use" policy. Your bandwidth allotment per month will be small compared to DSL or cable.

If satellite is your alternative that's the only reason I'd recommend it.

[ColoWyo]

Call Skybeam. It's who I use out here in Elizabeth. It's line of sight dish to dish. It's really quite fast.

[TRnCO]

I'm south of Elizabeth and we use Kellin, which the link has already been posted. My wife works from home and we're happy with internet service from Kellin. You'll have to contact them to see if their service will work for your location. The tower that we ping to is over near Singhills west of Delbert Rd.

[Gman]

Satellite Internet is where you go when you don't have other options.

[GilpinGuy]

Satellite Internet is where you go when you don't have other options.

This is spot on. We have no other option. We had HughesNet for a few years and it REALLY sucked. We switched to Exede (aka Wildblue) and it's much better. Not anything like cable, but still a lot better than Hughes.

A line-of-sight service would be great if you can it.

[Aloha_Shooter]

I used DirecPC many years ago. Excellent download speeds but upload was basically dialup speeds and of course the latency was acceptable for surfing the web or chatting on bulletin boards but wholly unacceptable for gaming or trying to snipe on eBay. It'll work if you're downloading videos or email but probably not a good solution if you can't take a lot of latency.

[mjzman]

I had WildBlue (now Exede, I think) several years ago. It was decent, not great. But if ultimately your only options are them or Hughes, choose WildBlue(Exede). Hughes has always-like for ten years, had horrible service. Of course with satellite Internet you won't do online gaming because of latency, and they limit you to so many Gb per month. And when it rains or snows your service will drop out.

[thebolt]

I was not aware of these options and its great that people shared their wealth of information. I truly appreciate all this advice and offer my appreciation to everyone offering for their experiences and advice.

Thank you!

[Holger Danske]

What about a T1 line? My friend has a ranch out east and the neighbor had a T1 line installed.

[Herman]

I worked from home for years south of franktown. We used a smaller company. Kellin.net. They are fantastic. I cannot recommend them high enough. It think it was around 45 a month.

[thebolt]

I plan or researching Kelin and Skybeam as both sound like good options. The line of site could be an issue due to the location and terrain but I'm hopeful one or both work to keep me from needing satellite.

Thanks again for everyone's thoughts and ideas.

[BushMasterBoy]

I'd install a ham radio style antenna mast to get "line of sight' before I would go with satellite.

[Ah Pook]

Is there an internet coop (wireless/line of site) option in Elbert Co? Some of these are open to putting a repeater up, at your house, or near by.

At on point I had a 20' mast on top of the roof to get a LoS signal. Now it's a smaller antenna, on a fence post, about 100' from the house. Everyone shares bandwidth. Don 't expect lightning speeds on Fri/Sat night.

Cell phone wifi hotspot?

[stevew]

I had both Skybeam and Directlink when I lived out that way 2 or 3 years ago. Sky beam seemed better, Directlink over sold by way too much. I knew people that had it and they sold them "up to" 4mbits or 10mbits and they only had 50mbits total to sell at the time according to their installer :) Skybeam was a larger company and they ended up saying they didn't provide service in my area when I tried getting something higher from them that would stream something like NetFlix so not sure if they were selling out or what. They were already selling me about a megabit but just a bit slow for Netflix. My company actually makes a bandwidth manager product for higher bandwidth needs than home users so you can imagine that I was used to having high speed Internet and pretty much found out what was available and got the best at that time along with a backup. Qwest told me they would get me a T1 installed but then told me it would be $80,000 for the build out fee. They wanted me to pay to install the fiber for 10 miles :) None of the satellite ones would do things like iP phones or let me work remotely on our computers at a test site or anything else so they were out. Problem with satellite is the distance that your beam has to go, there is no way to speed up the time it takes to hit a satellite and then come back.

[th3w01f]

Rather that start a new thread I'll jump on this one.

It looks like there are two main options for Internet in Elizabeth.

Skybeam
Kellin

Any others that people have used successfully. We'd be about 2.5 miles due north of town.

[th3w01f]

Looks like I'll bump my own bump. We've found a place that is a few miles south east of Castle Rock. They currently have HughesNet but I'd prefer to do something else. I called Skybeam and they said their tower in the area is full so they can't help. I haven't gotten a response from Kellin yet and there is no Comcast.

Any other ideas or recent experience with HughesNet?

[asmo]

Looks like I'll bump my own bump. We've found a place that is a few miles south east of Castle Rock. They currently have HughesNet but I'd prefer to do something else. I called Skybeam and they said their tower in the area is full so they can't help. I haven't gotten a response from Kellin yet and there is no Comcast.

Any other ideas or recent experience with HughesNet?

You can always go w/ http://www.wildblue.com/

[th3w01f]

You can always go w/ http://www.wildblue.com/

Thanks but we're still looking, this is for the whole zip code of 80104.
Service not available.

Due to strong demand, new installations in your area have been suspended.
We apologize for the inconvenience.

The HughsNet plans suck too, 15Mbps with a 70GB cap for $130 a month. On top of that $30 a month for phone with a 24 month commitment, since there is almost no cell reception. This is literally 5 miles from castle rock, maybe this is why they want to move. ;-)

[GilpinGuy]

I have Exede up here, but I think they are the same as WildBlue. I'd give them a call though.

HughesNet sucked pretty bad. Exede is much better so far. Had it for several months now.

[Gman]

I have never inquired myself, but if you're looking at Hughes, maybe you can bundle with Dish and get a better deal?

[th3w01f]

Looks like the problem with Wild Blue is their web site, it said they didn't provide service in 80104 but when I looked up Exede they said they did and led me back to Wild Blue. I spoke with them and they do have service in the area. Their data caps are pretty low (30GB on their $160/mo plan) but at least there's another option.

I may have gotten lucky though, I found out the seller switched from HughesNet to Skybeam a while back and Skybeam said I would be able to take over the sellers equipment and get an account set up as soon as they cancel. They have a 5Mbps, 150GB plan for $~50 a month.

Thanks for the advice, I never realized what a PITA it is to get internet outside of the city.

[cmailliard]

Have you looked at MHO (Mile High Online) (http://www.mho.com/coverage/coverage-co). I used them when I lived in the Rock and had great success for years with them. They have some coverage in Elbert County on the north side of 86. As long as you have line of sight to their tower you are usually good.

[Aloha_Shooter]

For what it's worth, check out this story: http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/09/how-highly-advanced-hackers-abused-satellites-to-stay-under-the-radar/

I don't know how much (if any) of it is true but Ars is usually pretty good on the technical stuff (not so much on politically charged items as they definitely have a left-of-center bias).

[Great-Kazoo]

Thanks for the advice, I never realized what a PITA it is to get internet outside of the city.

1 year ago this would have not even been on our radar. Now with us looking at rural areas, it's one of the top questions we ask. Right after, last time septic was pumped, well GPM and contract for propane or do they own the tank. Who'd a thunk it

[th3w01f]

1 year ago this would have not even been on our radar. Now with us looking at rural areas, it's one of the top questions we ask. Right after, last time septic was pumped, well GPM and contract for propane or do they own the tank. Who'd a thunk it

I'd never though about the propane question, does it make a big deal one way or the other or is it just paying the lease on the tank that's the issue?

Maybe we could us a new thread that covers all of these issues "Advice for moving out of the city". :) There's a ton of good advice that is spread out between about 10 different threads.

[TRnCO]

usually, if you don't own your own propane tank, you are stuck getting propane from whom ever it is that the tank is leased from, and that doesn't allow you to price shop and yes, it pays to price shop on propane. For instance, Amerigas is and always has been the highest priced propane around, at least out here.
I just filled up last week for $.99/gal. which is the cheapest I've seen in a long time. Also, it always pays to fill the tank late summer before the prices begin going up as cold weather moves in.