[RTC List] WildBlue?

[David Salmon]

Worry that broadband providers will cap downloads and raise fees is a bad joke, given that I live in a rural area (Kettenpom) and depend on HughesNet satellite broadband.

I take the Pro Plus plan at about $90/month, which supposedly provides up to 1.5 Mb/sec downloads, with around 700 Kb being "typical," they say.  It is a rare day when I can get anything like the "typical" speed.  Yesterday morning, it was 78 Kb/sec.  This morning, it is 102 download, 0 upload.  It's foggy; perhaps that's why.  More typically, it will download between 200-400 Kb/sec, with bursts around 500-700 Kb/sec every now and then.  I complained, went through several days of equipment and software testing and speed tests, only to be told by Hughes in the end that because I do  reach close to the maximum speed occasionally, there is nothing they will do to improve speed.  They do not "guarantee" any particular speed, and if I only get 78 Kb/sec, it is my neighbors' faults for using the system at the same time, not HughesNet's for providing too few transponders to handle the traffic.

Does anyone have experience with WildBlue/SkyBlue?  Do they provide better "typical" speeds?


David Salmon
Kettenpom

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