I've had it up to here with dial-up. I have been researching direcway, starband, and skyblue. Seems for any good print about a company, there is just as much bad. Help! Good stories, bad, etc. ok. I don't have access to any wired service locally.

 

i don't know anything about them, but just subcribing to this thread because i am interested also.

 

I agree with you Im on dialup an it stinks. Certain times off the day I get on here an everything on here slows down considerably. Just freezes up. Id like to go to high speed but it will cost me about double what Im paying now. Seems rediculous just for high speed internet. How much quicker is high speed vs dialup?

 

I had the first generation DirecPC system for nearly 10 years. It was a 1 way Sat downlink with a dialup uplink. It worked good for what it was. Download speeds were fairly fast, but it had an issue with latency that I suspect the 2 way systems will still have due to the distances involved.
By latency, I mean that once you clicked a link, there was a noticeable delay before the link started to download. Once it started, it came fairly fast from then till complete.
Other issue I had was with the dish size. The small oval dish was just too small to get a really high quality signal, so signal dropout during rainstorms was annoying. A simple spitting mist was enough to cause intolerable signal loss. I was able to cure some of it by replacing the wimpy dish with a larger one (old Primestar dish), but be prepared for loss of signal during bad weather with any dish smaller than 2-3 meters diameter.
Third point is the price. It just seems too expensive for the hardware and monthly service fee. BUT if it is your only option, it is a viable one.
I have switched to a cable based service recently as it became available in my area.

All in all, I was satisfied with the service I got from it as a last resort option.

PS For the poster who wanted to know just how fast High speed was versus dialup.
Try it, you will never go back to dialup as it will simply dazzle you.

Dialtone

 

I've got Comcast cable internet. I really like it. It's nice and fast, not to many problems so far. My son pays for it but, he might drop it to manage his bills some. He's facing a job loss and he might need the money from where he can get it. I told him to hold off, that maybe I'll pay for it. I don't know if my wife will go for that, though. Right now, my son's paying about $30 a month for it for 6 months. After that, it goes up to near $60 a month. I know right now, Comcast here in the Detroit area is offering 4 months for $20 a month. You might want to check it out no matter where you're living. They might have the same offer everywhere.

 

I have Direcway.com and it has very good service, but expensive $100 month. I can't get cable or DSL ..too far out

 

here at home, we have cable, and its day and night between dialup. out at the shop, we cant get cable cause were across the tracks, so we have satelite with dialup as a backup, and you really cant tell much of a diff, they both suck.

 

I had dialup..it sucks.

I had Direcway... It was better than dialup except when the weather is bad anywhere. Then it sucked too. And everyone that works in customer support is named Steve and they all live in India

Now I have dsl, and it's alot better... Until something better comes along then it will suck too.

 

for those of you with cable how fast is your connection speed. a budy of mine has quest dsl that is pretty damn fast and only cost 24 bucks a month, as for me im stuck with netzero high speed[yeah right high speed hahahahaha] and it sucks cost 14.99 a month ive been talking about making the switch for a while now just havent done it yet.

 

Dialup is the worst.

We have comcast cable internet, extremely fast, no complaints at all about it. My cousin has satellite at his new house, its faster than dialup, but not quite as fast as dsl. I think it costs more than cable or dsl and its not even as fast as it, but there's not much else you can do until comcast or dsl becomes available in your area.

 

I have dialup now. I had Direcway for about a year. A total rip off for the service provided. Only reason we lasted the entire year was due to our contract. It sucks not being able to get anything else. Im still pressing them to run cable down my road. DSL will probably never be an option either for me .

 

well, i think i found a glitch http://reviews.cnet.com/7009-7254_7-...E=&&kbps=32640 i think there program is glitching, cause thats what i come up with, but ill try again later.

 

I live too far out of town to get either cable or DSL, so my choices were DirecWay or Wireless (wifi-nw). I went with wifi because I hadn't heard good things about DirecWay. Not sure if it was the right choice. When it's working it's fast both up and down and latency problems like on sattelite, but it's very rare that I go more than two days without it going down. The provider says that we don't have the best angle on the antenna... yada yada yada, but whatever the reason all day long it'll work one minute and not the next. Pretty annoying.

 

I share a satellite internet connection with my neighbours. When it works, it works quite well. However, you can pretty much gurantee that there is always going to be SOMETHING wrong with it. We have the latest and greatest modems. Resetting them is a regular occurance as they seem to lose synch with the satellites. All of the modems we had prior were no different. Rain fade is also an issue. I would only recommend going with them, if they are your sole choice for high speed internet. In our case, it is our only choice.

I personally wish that I lived in my employers new and growing fiber to the premace network. IMO, Verizon has set the bar for packaged phone/cable/internet services with it.