WIldblue Going Away

[RogerAS]

Hey all,

After the 5th no show for a tech to look at my disfunctional wilblueyonder internet access I am ending the service. I cannot miss any more time from work, even though the internet is a major part thereof. I've been fighting with them for over 2 months now about the dropped signal, e x t r e m e l y  s l o w  speeds, and timeouts with no results. They admit there is enough of a problem to grant me 2 months credit, but I don't want credit I want access I can use. I cannot even listen to Real Audio feeds, packet losses and dropped connections make that a frustration from hell.

I'm going to try to get a complete refund, but I will settle for just getting away from them and out of the contract.

I may be the one person that has had such terrible results but I could never reccomend Wildblueyonder to anyone.

Since I may only have limited access for the next day or so I want to ask some questions.

What alternatives exist for someone with no land lines. I can see a cell tower from my house. I need the net for work so please provide alternatives. I might even consider another satellite service. Suggestions? Ideas? Wisp? Buy a laptop & use a cell connection?

I may only be able to view the board occasionally for a while (please hold your applause) but know I'm still out there keeping an eye on y'all!

Hugs & Kisses,

[Volvo farmer]

Did you look at the EVDO forums link I gave you last time? That's what I'm using, through Alltel, thought Sprint and Verizon also have plans. My (rural) area does not have true broadband over celltowers, I get 150K max down, so it's slightly better than dialup. At $60/mo I could get much faster service through satellite... not for 3 watts though.

I was talking to DanB and his brother weekend before last. Dan has Directway (now Hughes) and Matt has Starband. Dan had no complaints about the Hughes service, He was downloading short youtube movies while I was there and the thing worked flawlessly. He said there is a download limit that you can bump up against, after which they throttle back your bandwidth. Matt's Starband seemed to work OK too, though from what I've heard, it is perhaps the inferior service.

Lastly, check all your local ISPs and see if anyone is doing WiFi line of sight service. There's a company or two doing that here but I can't see any of their antennas from my location.

Sorry to hear about your problems, hope you get it sorted out.

[pepa]

hi

Rodger, now i know why my emails to you keep coming back. email me at www.suesminis.com to establish contact,thanks pepa.

[TAH]

Do you use the aircard or were you able to tether a phone? I used a regular cell phone for a while and then the brilliant people at the cell company decided that it was "fraud" and made me get an aircard. The aircards are slower if you use their connection software but they also use more power.

The two way sattelite people that I talked to said to figure on 80 watts. I didn't like the sound of that.

[willib]

that line of sight  wifi sounded like a possibility

take care , hope to see ya back soon!

[Titantornado]

Agreed.  Find a neighbor with broadband, and offer to pay half their internet bill if they'll let you put up a outdoor directional WiFi antenna bridge at their house.

[Volvo farmer]

I got the Kyocera KPC 650 aircard. I've done quite a bit of research and never read anything about a tethered phone being faster, nor have I read anything about the connection software limiting speed. I'd be interested in knowing more about this. I'm hoping they'll eventually roll out true EVDO in this area but my instinct says it might be a few years off.

[DanB]

I have pretty good luck here with direcway (now it's hughes.net).  If you must have satellite, it works pretty well.  I often listen to online radio (96K feed) and it works fine all day in the shop.  The customer service is lousy but the system seems reliable.  It works a lot better for me than starband did,.

[glassman]

a good source of info is  broadbandreports.com I think you will find that wildblue is pretty highly rated and the installers have been the issue .

I use skyvista which is a reseller of unasat, very expensive up front like almost 2k for equipment and install. more expensive for month also but was convinced that they have rock solid speeds , they are the only satellite company that supports voip , no fair access policy (fap).

 rock solid speed has NOT been my experience and they now have a fap so i am told . with no cell service, no land lines and no line of sight ,there are no choices other than satellite , then again thats why i moved here .

That being said , I am still convinced at the moment that they were and are the only choice for me due to the voip issue. when speeds drop below 70 you can forget the voip.

good luck and let us know , too bad about w/b, i have heard very good reports on w/b .

[RogerAS]

Pepa,

I can't get that url to respond.

You can email me alternately at:

theropod@yahoo.com

roger@gobblerguns.com

call me @ 870-213-5592 (that's a cell so it may not always have signal).

All others,

I'm looking into the options others have provided. I've looked into Huges and they seem ok. A little more pricey but I could live with that if it actually worked. The cell thing may be my only other option. There is a WISP service (line of sight) very near but they have no immdeate plans for expansion. I'm less than a mile from the line of sight, one small hill in the way. Maybe it's time for that 100' tower after all!

Here's the deal. I've been told by WB tech support that my modem looked fine on their end when it was UNPLUGGED! I've been told it was weather at the NY downlink when it was clear and sunny there. I've been given the royal run around by every single Wildblue rep there is. I've called them at least 50 times and used their chat room until my fingers bled. Lots of promises and no results. My best download speeds were in the 80Kbs range and more often in the 25Kbs range. That's on the days it worked at all. Uploads were much much worse. Wildblue may be ok if it's actually pointed at the bird, but after 5 no shows to get that fixed I'm sick of them. How much time do I owe them to get the crapy install corrected? 4 weekdays and a Saturday are enough. I'd hang my head in shame if I were a WB manager! Oh well, such is the way many folks do "business" these days.

Thanks everyone.

 

[Bruce S]

Roger;

   If you do go the route of backboning off someone's WiFi there are a couple really good website's that'll walk to you through building some really killer receivers baciscally from stuff laying around.

I've personally built a couple using old DTV dishes and it's amazing what reception is.

LOS has even been proven up to 5+ miles .

also one site does have software that will give you the ability to "scan" for Wifi.

They all tell you to keep legal by "asking" to get online attached and I know that for me SBC/ATT didn't mind at all, just the normal don't call us if you get hacked kinda thing.

good luck

Bruce S

[RogerAS]

Bruce,

I'm about 25 air miles from the only other wireless net access I can find, I am thinking of offering to errect the tower and give the ISP a 99 year lease for service. I may hang a tubine (or 2) off the side to power it and my own needs. I'm open to anything at this point. I really could live with dialup speed if it was always there!

Can you send urls to the sites you mention?

I have messed around building linear amps back in the day, of course for 10 meter use only (wink nod smirk), and was wondering if I could up both direction power (bilinear) for a wisp and make it work. I know the frequencies are way shorter for these services, but what the hey, RF is RF. With enough power I can burn through trees!!

Ayway, I appreciate the help guys, keep it comin'

[Bruce S]

Roger;

  In the interest of helping anyone learn <0--/o--0> and hopefully the the editors won't kill these links.

Here's 2 of the best known websites for doing all but burning the trees part.

The 1st one is also the oldest site I've known to be doing these things.

He also has the free software that I used to "test" my setup.

www.netstumbler.com

2nd is a fringe site (www.hackaday.com )but dig into the archives and it's all there. The DTV stuff I tried before I knew it was in here only 'cause I got 'em free :--) aka dumpster diving ...

Beaware , some I have had problems with most of the newer wifi cards giving false or no readings.

The good thing is that the A/B multi-cards work perfect , with the linksys working the best. If you have problems or can't find an older let me know I can lend you the one I used to do my testing with.

PS. With a high enough tower the math says you could reach 7 miles before the signal degrades too much, but then withthese things costing so little a booster one could be put up using a small solar panel and some NiCds.

As always Cheers ;

Bruce S

[scottsAI]

Hello glassman,

New World Record for Unamplified WiFi: 124.9 Miles!

You would have to live way out in the boonies to not get this signal.

http://www.wifiworldrecord.com/

Just think what you could do with an amplifier!

I hear similar things have been done for cell phones, Need amplifier 3watts ($260 kit), up high, big antenna (extra!), range over 50 miles with cell phone. With the new cell phone adapters ($200), connects to house POT phone. Makes remote living like being in the city...:-)

At hunting camp, I brought a whip antenna for my cell, mine was the only phone to work. They all said they were glad the cell phone did not work out there. But they all used mine to call home!! We guested the cell tower was at least 5 miles away.

Have fun,

Scott.

[glassman]

thanks for the thought but we have the 3 watt boosters and the external antenna , nearest cell tower is about 35 miles and a mountain in between . we do occasionally have cell service but you don't know from what cell tower you are getting a signal , that is untill the bill comes.

the satellite is really the ticket , if only they could give the speeds they advertise!

daryl

[scottsAI]

Hello glassman,

Sorry about the delay in reply, email was down 3 days 15hr, needed to get my password.

This is interesting, one of the consequences of RE. Many live out in the boonies, requiring extreme measures for communication. One of the Yen and Yang things. Live in the boonies to get away, yet want the benefits of being connected!

Since you have a 3w amplifier, I conclude you're very interested in connecting with a cell. Paid the $ to do so without acceptable results. I do not know if you have access to the mountain peak? A repeater or cell extender may be in order, might not need the 3w amplifier. One example of such a device: http://www.smarthome.com/9625c.html

Several manufacturers make similar devices. Mobil versions are available.

The extender has two antennas, one to point at the cell tower of choice, the other to point at your location (directional for you). Example device has a small whip antenna, can be replaced with a second directional antenna. I don't think you would need the large dish like the WiFi record distance used. Frequencies are lower than WiFI so the gain will be lower if you did. The Primstar 3 foot dish are popular to extend WiFI distances, often are free, could be used for both ends of the Cell extender. A hand held cell phones has 2+ miles of range so, to go 15 (half way) should not require a big antenna, directional is the way to go. You want to pick the cell tower. Careful of that bill!

A co-worker lives in a valley, he was considering an amplifier, did not like the fact the cell phone must be connected to it. The above extender needs no connection to the phone for about the same money. He is very interested. He likes the fact the phone does not work... Yin yang.

WiFi has similar options available if you can't get a satellite working. 11Mbps WiFi is not bad, may allow a cheaper (half) land based high speed Internet to be used.

Top of the mountain is a great place for wind and/or solar to power the system. Just another place to have fun making it work.

I think we need another section under remote living - communication or Internet, phone? Definitely one of the difficult aspects of remote living.

Have fun,

Scott.