Experiences with DirecWay Satellite Internet 771
Since moving outside Ann Arbor almost 2 years ago, I've had only a 56k modem to tether my home to the net. Cable, DSL and ISDN are impossible in my location. DirecWay now offers the DW6000, which appears to be an operating system agnostic router for satellite internet access. I already use DirecTV, so this might work well.
I'm aware of the game crippling latency, but that's not a huge deal to me. The monthly price seems reasonable, but is there a catch? I'm abusing my power as Slashdot editor to ask for experiences with this (or similiar) services.
Does it bog down during the day? Not work with common hardware? Hidden costs? Does it cost a fortune for the required professional installation? Is ssh completely unusable?
PEI (Score:4, Informative)
Weather related problems.. (Score:3, Informative)
Everyone I know with Direct TV is basically screwed when any amount of rain or snow is falling.
DW6000 and Router/Firewall Problems (Score:5, Informative)
The DW modem acts as a outer/firewall too. It will assign IPs and the only thing you need is a switch to connect multiple computers to it.
The problem is you can't really configure the modem/router. So you can't disable the router feature for example. If you want that kind of control, you'll need the pro version which is quite pricy (although it gives you a static IP).
Here's a forum [tek-tips.com] I found that addresses the DW6000 and linksys router problems.
SSH over satellite (Score:5, Informative)
If you're expecting to do hours upon hours of work this way though, I imagine it will drive you nuts.
Fair Access Policy (Score:5, Informative)
Similarly - Mobile internet in big rigs? (Score:4, Informative)
i've had it (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Weather related problems.. (Score:5, Informative)
Better than dial up, but not much (Score:5, Informative)
Satellite Usage (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Weather related problems.. (Score:5, Informative)
Simple Physics (Score:4, Informative)
Speed of Light: 186,000 miles/second
Total delay: 44/186 = 0.23 sec = 0.46 for response a two way conversation
Unacceptable
Re:Weather related problems.. (Score:3, Informative)
see if wireless is availible (Score:5, Informative)
I have DirectWay (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Is this a two way system? (Score:5, Informative)
Only benefit it not paying for another phone line.
I have starband, I use a regular dial-in modem in addition to it. Dial-in modem is the default route on my box, and I set up proxies to a proxy server connected to the satellite for web and ftp downloads.
That way I can ssh out without horrible latency, but still download at the faster satellite download speeds.
To his other questions, rain fade is real. If you have a strong enough signal normally, you won't drop service unless it's really coming down outside. Installation for starband ran about $700 or so.
Directway is slower than Starband, but if you want the OS agnostic modem, you currently have to get the small business package, which is $120 per month. Standard service still uses the 360 windows-only modem, but it's $60 per month.
In the future, there will be robots. I mean in the future, there will be a "telecommuter" account type that will assumedly allow people to get the hardware-based 480 modem without paying so much per month.
Plenty of catches... (Score:5, Informative)
They keep a moving average of your bandwidth utilization. Exceeding the unspecified caps results in your downstream bandwidth being halved, (ie 100%->50%->25%->12.5%) and eventually cut off.
My parents used this with the previous generation hardware, downloading a Java SDK & Eclipse runtime (say 100MB) resulted in a noticeable decrease in bandwidth.
It is also way to slow for me to use ssh interactively.
Here's some snippets of the AUP, from http://legal.direcway.com/index.html#agree:
Re:Weather related problems.. (Score:4, Informative)
Peace
The most important 3 words are ... (Score:5, Informative)
There are sites dedicated to the incredible level of FAP abuse that is piled on customers.
Here is a place for you to study [satelliteinsight.com].
This may be more relevant to your needs, here [joeuser.com].
Works in CO Snow Storm (Score:4, Informative)
The only problem I had was when snow got in the actual dish, then I had to get it out. I only had to do that once though. Most of the time the wind blows the snow away.
A Bad Experience (Score:2, Informative)
Don't do it! (Score:4, Informative)
- ssh sessions or terminal server are unusable so if you do any remote access of any machines, forget it.
- web browsing is about the speed of a dialup unless you're looking at pages that are one huge chunk of html with no images. Most pages these days are lots of little images which totally lags on satellite. Note that you may reduce the pain with caching proxies and/or HTTP keepalive/pipelining but it's a lot of work, and at least one of your daily reads will not improve with this.
Anyways, unless you're out in the middle of the jungle, I'd just stick with cheap dialup. You can save your money up and build a long range wifi link.
better than nothing... sometimes (Score:3, Informative)
It pretty much sucks, but until there's a better option, it's usually better than dial-up.
You'll probably find a more informed discussion at broadbandreports.com forums. Also check out their Satellite FAQ [broadbandreports.com]
SSH sessions are pretty bad. However, in pinches they are possible by "typing blind". ie. typing your slew of commands and waiting for them to appear/happen. Can be a bit dangerous.
Reliability is pretty bad. We have regular snow and rain storms which usually knocks it out of service.
Speeds, http download is alright, although there is always a slight delay before things happen due to latency. Other download speeds suck, especially anything is encrypted. Upload speed is as slow as if not slower than modem.
But, we don't have any other options at the moment (come on airships!)
BTW our setup two way direcway using a dedicated w2k box with crappy internet connection sharing.
Re:Is this a two way system? (Score:5, Informative)
1. Latency is horrible. He gets a 1000ms ping to anywhere, so that's a 1 second delay after he clicks anything before the remote server he's hitting even gets his attention.
2. Download caps. I think he's limited to a few gigs a month, maybe one.
3. Bandwidth throttling. This is time dependent as in time of day also. If you download too fast during certain hours of the day (internet prime time if you will), you get throttled waaaay down to a few KB/sec for hours.
4. Complicated software that's windows only. Everytime he calls me for tech support, I cringe. It's always an XP problem and always hard to troubleshoot. I've been wanting to get him on linux for years but with the satellite it's just not an option. He has the 2 usb boxes setup for his connection, maybe this new router would help.
5. Awful browsing. Since the latency is so high, some servers timeout before you can get a page from them. I had him install Opera awhile back (the lightning fast caching helps alot when navigating sites on a high latency connection) and he loves it, uses it exclusively. Without Opera, surfing the web is painful.
6. Unplayable online games. With that kind of ping, you can't play anything online, except maybe Yahoo Java Chess or something where reflexes don't count. Flash games may be playable too, not sure.
It basically sucks for anything but leeching big files, and for that it sucks too thanks to throttling and bandwidth limits. It's hard to believe that in this day and age people in remote locations have to suffer with crap like this. Then again, bandwidth isn't a god-given right...but it should be.
Speaking from experience... (Score:2, Informative)
By the way, I also have DirecTV, which works fine, so that shouldn't be any indicator for how well the satellite internet will work.
Re:Weather related problems.. (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sure it is, it sends using roughly the same frequencies (so roughly the same problems with water absorption), to satellites in roughly the same place (so about the same angle, so about the same amount of weather and trees to punch a signal through).
About the only difference is TCP/IP will do retries and DTV broadcasts are limited to doing forward error correction ('tho with the latencies involved I hope they also FEC the IP traffic).
I have had DTV for about 3 years (in two different houses). I have only had a (noticeable) signal loss from rain twice (I think), and I've had more signal loss from snow it seems to be only very short periods of time (I don't lose an hour show, I have 5 seconds of screwed up video and the audio is OK...or maybe I lose video for two minutes and audio for 90 seconds). Maybe your friends have crappie installs, or maybe the east coast (where I am) has a better line on the satellites then wherever your friends are. (my DTV outages definitely haven't added up in length to a single outage from my cable TV provider)
All that said, I'm on dialup because I can't get cable IP service, DSL, or (apparently!) even ISDN here. There seems to be hills, trees, or mountains between myself and every wireless provider in the area (I'm about six miles south of Point of Rocks in VA). I have been holding out for something other then IP service from DTV. Maybe EV-DO will come out here soon. Maybe.
My reading of the fine print from DTV is if you buy their service you are not canceling for 3 years, not unless you want to pony up at least $700 or so in fees. That kind of lock in doesn't make me eager to try. The service might be really bad (either in general, or for my usage patterns) and the $700 fee seems pretty painful...
StarBand (Echostar/Dishnetwork) (Score:2, Informative)
Rain OFF dish (Score:3, Informative)
Keep the dish dry, and the focus stays sharp, and the only effect the rain has is a minor attenuation in the path from the bird to the dish.
(*Pure water is an insulator, of course, but given dirt in the air and on the dish and you will have enough ions in the water to make it a reasonably good conductor - enough to alter the dish's focus.)
Re: Complicated Software (Score:3, Informative)
"Q: What is the difference between the DW6000 modem and the DW4000 modem? A: The DW6000 is the next-generation DIRECWAY system modem with a sleek new design. It makes connecting to the Internet easier by incorporating DIRECWAY software inside the DW6000 unit. So there's no DIRECWAY software to load on your computer or upgrades to download. The DW6000 automatically updates itself via the satellite. Also, the DW6000 modem houses both the transmit and receive components in one compact unit, unlike the DW4000 that has separate transmit and receive modems stacked together and linked by a 24-pin serial cord.
It also uses a simple Ethernet connection to connect your computer to your DIRECWAY service. Once your satellite dish is installed and connected to the DW6000, all you need to do is connect your computer by using the provided Ethernet cable and you're high-speed surfing (see 'Can I run DIRECWAY on a small network?' for networking capability requirements).
Q: Is the DW6000 faster than the DW4000? No. Both the DW6000 and the DW4000 modems deliver the same DIRECWAY high-speed service experience. The DW6000 modem allows you to connect to Windows- and Macintosh-based operating systems, has no software to load on your computer, and makes networking your DIRECWAY high-speed connection to multiple home computers easier (see 'Can I run DIRECWAY on a small network?' for more information on home networking).
Q: Should I upgrade to the DW6000 from my current DW4000? A: Upgrading from a DW4000 modem to the next-generation DW6000 modem is a good idea if you would like to network more than one home computer or laptop to your DIRECWAY high-speed connection. By networking more than one computer, your family will be able to access your DIRECWAY high-speed Internet connection from any computer on the network and will not have to wait in line in order to get online.
Please understand that all computers on this network will be sharing a single connection. Simultaneous use of high bandwidth applications by multiple users may result in degradation of speed and is subject to the Fair Access Policy. Actual speeds may vary. Speed and uninterrupted use of service are not guaranteed."
Re:What about the price? What about T1? (Score:5, Informative)
I am doing exactly that-- I have a cage with a T1 from the cage to my house. I am also supplying access for a local community WISP [lakeanne.net], so my costs are covered. I ran into some problems because my location is outside the LATA of the co-lo facility. So even though it is only 10 miles away, I would have to pay a very high local loop cost.
Then I got in touch with some folks at BTN [btnaccess.com], they got me set up with a MPLS [btnaccess.com] connection. It is somewhat similar to a frame relay connection, in that it is not distance sensitive. My advantage is that BTN has a connection at my co-lo, so everything fit nicely into place.
So see if you can get a frame relay or MPLS T1, with a little research there might be a very cost effective solution. YMMV
Re:No way (Score:3, Informative)
Links:
[verizonwireless.com]
http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/mobileoption
http://www.broadbandreports.com/faq/5668 [broadbandreports.com]
http://www.patents.com/pcs/ [patents.com]
I'm happy with it (Score:5, Informative)
You do want the new Direcway 6000 modem. The old 4000 modems use a USB connection to a mandatory Windows box. The shared internet connection from Windows is slow and bites in general. MS really sucks at doing simple networking stuff. I imagine Direcway only sell the 6000 now though it might be a little pricier. We got rebates to trade in the 400 and agreed to another years service but it still cost $200-300 dollars.
The new 6000 modem is just a gateway you plug in to your Ethernet LAN. Direcway automaticly upgrades it. I wager its a Linux box but I don't know for sure. You set it up and control it via any browser. It works great from my Linux laptop though they only advertise Windows and Mac. It uses DHCP.
You do want to keep the cable run from the dish to the modem as short as possible to improve the signal stength like any dish. Ours coax is real short and we get about 95% signal strength which is the best the installer has seen.
If you get a lot of snow and wind is blowing it in the dish it does fill with snow, the signal craters and you have to sweep it, but thats true of satellite TV too.
They do have a fair use policy and will throttle you if you use it heavily. Trying to download a 300 MB ISO image it throttles at 200 MB, last time I tried, and you drop to modem speeds until the next day. So you need to stop the download and restart where you left off the next day. They have a place you can check your usage and where you stand. I think they throttle you monthly too if you abuse it though I haven't noticed that.
The performance is better off peak hours. As its gotten more popular the performance has suffered some during peak hours.
Uplink is not blazing though I send 500-600K attachments on email, they do take a while to upload.
Latency is certainly a problem. You notice it the worst on web pages that have a 100 little images and URL's embedded in them. Even then I still take it over a 56K anyday.
I play Everquest on it and its certainly playable though you have to learn to work around the latency which runs from as low as 200 ms up to 700 ms, usually around 500 ms. It was much worse on the old 4000 modem and the shared connection with Windows. You notice it when you try to chase down stuff since they are a 1/2 second from where you think they are so you have to lead them but keep them in view of your camera. Its best to play a caster with snare or root or have a pet to work around this. It takes a while to zone due to the latency.
The latency would probably make shooters unplayable though I haven't tried any.
One down side is I think you are putting money in the pocket of Rupert Murdoch and FOX since they bought DirectTV last year and I think DirecWay went with them. So if you dont like Fox politics...
My sister has the competitor, Starband which is the other satellite option in the U.S. I think it has to run through a Windows machine, at least last time I checked.
Re:Fair Access Policy (Score:4, Informative)
Melting snow (Score:3, Informative)
If you can get away with it, think about not putting it on your roof. I live in NW Indiana and the only weather that would throw it out during the weather were the big spring thunderstorms with the cloud tops over 40,000 feet up. Snow never affected it, nor did ice/snow frozen on the dish.
However, when I got a lot of snow/ice frozen on it, once it started melting, the liquid water running through the snow matrix could take it out for an entire day until the snow melted off all the way. Because of trees in my neighborhood, I had to put it on the roof, and there was no way I was going up there with heavy snow that was melting.
Re:No way (Score:5, Informative)
If you have the $$$ there is nothing stopping you from getting a T1. You can get a T1 just about anywhere. The local telco may not like it, but they have to provide it.
Re:Is this a two way system? (Score:3, Informative)
There's no bandwidth limits with Starband at least. And they provide a full usenet server, with a lot of binary groups even. Once I leeched 4GB from their news server in two days, just to see if they would let me. That was when I first signed up, I don't download huge amounts anymore, just normal stuff like JVMs and Linux updates and etc.
Anyway, they are still issuing their windows-based modem standard, but they have a hardware modem coming out, that they are playing games with, making it available only for business accounts currently. And the modem costs about $600 (even if you are upgrading), in addition to paying twice as much per month.
Re:DW6000 and Router/Firewall Problems (Score:5, Informative)
The Linksys "router" is basically just a NAT box. Connect the DW6000 to the WAN port. The Linksys would get an IP from the DW6000 box via DHCP, then do NAT services to anything on it's LAN side. Shouldn't be any strange configuration to it whatsoever.
I've used Linksys boxes to connect stuff similar to this before, and don't think it would really be a problem if you know what the box is actually doing.. I guess you could set the thing up in router mode if you wanted, but it really shouldn't be necessary.
Speednet (Score:2, Informative)
I know they cover most of Saginaw->Mackinac area but I am not sure how far south they go. There is a *really* sucky webpage available here [hypermart.net] that shows WISPs in MI.
I have a few family members that use Speednet and they are really happy with them.
SP
Satellite Hookups (Score:2, Informative)
Using their proxy is required to get acceptable performance out of any TCP based protocol, unfortunately they only proxy a few applications and SSL isn't one of them (can't due to the nature of the protocol and how they proxy to get around multiple TCP setups). SSL is SLOWWWWW.
Summarized: HTTP/FTP/MAIL all are great compared to dialup - anything else is slightly/noticably worse.
I am a current Direcway Two-way subscriber (Score:2, Informative)
Real world experience (Score:3, Informative)
Re:PEI (Score:2, Informative)
Re:SSH over satellite (Score:5, Informative)
Re: weather problems - I've only had a couple of hours worth of outages in the whole time, I wouldn't consider it an issue. If you live in a snow zone though, make sure you can reach the dish easily with something to clean off excess snow. A dusting doesn't hurt, but a foot of snow on the arm pretty much kills the signal :).
Re: SSH and interactive delay - extended interactive work _will_ drive you nuts. The technical term for the experience is "wait and see, squared" :). SSH works just fine for file copies, BK/CVS, tunnels etc., as long as any typing you do is local. I use direct ssh only to set up something less interactive.
My original installation was with a Win2K box and was useless for networking, as any large file that went through "internet connection sharing" got dropped part way though. I switched to a Helius Satellite Router and have been happy with it ever since.
Overall I'm quite pleased with it. I'll never see cable or DSL, and dialup is long distance, so this is the only viable alternative for real network access, but I'd choose it over dialup even if dialup were completely free.
Re:Melting snow (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Rain OFF dish (Score:2, Informative)
Another Option (Score:2, Informative)
fake geek (Score:5, Informative)
A true geek would know that geosynchronus and low-earth orbits are two different things. Unless you want to load it with propellant constantly, which you really don't.
Re:snow (Score:2, Informative)
Did I mention I will never purchase a DirecWay system again?
just my 2 cents.
My experience (posted over DirecWay) (Score:4, Informative)
I've found satellite excellent. It's got pluses and minuses compared to 'normal' broadband, but so long as you understand what you're dealing with then it's a really good choice. In fact if I moved back to an area with cable broadband I'd be very tempted to take this dish with me and stick to satellite.
Good things
* Generally there's no problem with contention ratios. I'm contracted for a 512Kb pipe and that's what I get whenever I demand it. Having hear horror stories of cable broadband being slower than dialup because of the contentiion ratios piled on (20:1 +) it's nice to have a fat'ish pipe to yourself. This is probably the single best thing about satellite. (OK, I know there must be contention management somewhere, but I've never seen it).
* Cost. Although upfront costs are high, and running costs not cheap, you do have all that pipe to do what you will with. I've got cable laid to my three neighbours, who I charge 'normal broadband' rates to, so the ongoing cost works out the same, if not slightly cheaper, than cable broadband. Some vendors don't let you do this while others smile benignly on it so check.
* Easy upgrade - if you need more bandwidth the Hughes system can generally give it to you with little or no kit changes. 512Kb is enough for me, but it's nice to know that could increase several times.
* Reliable - reliability seems excellent. True there's the occassional glitch like any system, but because everybody is going through the same earth station problems tends to effect everyone at once so they really pull their finger out. I've found with systems based on local exchanges that if something goes down because only a few'ish local people are effected it can take days to fix.
Bad things
* Ping times are unavoidably long. Around 900ms for most destinations as against 250ms for cable. However this is less of a problem than you'd expect for most things. Web browsers can be tweaked to grab more items in parallel - so total page load time is no different, and downloads/streaming media etc it doesn't matter if you're just a second or so later once it starts. However most games are out and video-conferencing is doubtful (I'm told the system can be optomised to make it possible though but not tried)
* You can get outages in very heavy rain under very thick cloud. This is pretty rare but does happen - but generally it's obvious what the problem is so having a beer for half an hour until the heavy rain passes is a fine solution. Also occassionally had problems in blizzards from a build up of snow on the transmitter.
* Some services occassionaly don't like satellite. For example I quite often find ftp upload is much slower than expected. This may have something to do with the way satellite doesn't transmit/recieve a continous stream of IP packets but collects them together to transmit as larger 'frames'.
Bottom line. Unless you find the ping time problem a killer issue then satellite is a really good rural solution. Like all engineering it helps if you have some understanding and 'machine
sympathy'
Issues with DirecPC/Starband (Score:3, Informative)
In the last month, he's spent more time connecting to my wireless net or going to Starbucks for T-Mobile's wireless net, than at home.
The melting snow is a bitch on the connection (Spokane, WA).
SSH is painful for any interactive work. Latency is a pain and games are shot. Bandwidth caps mean you aren't going to be grabbing 3-disk
While it can take a bit to disrupt the DOWNWARD signal, it is much easier to screw your UPLINK signal to the point it doesn't work. Thus, TV is less affected than internet connections.
However, if you have no other option, it beats dialup. It depends, though. Are you far enough out that the phone lines are crap and you are getting 14.4-28.8 dial in? Or are you just in a good area but without DSL/cable?
If the latter, look for an ISP that will allow you to bond two dialup links. Get two phone lines and two modems and get them to bond into one link. Also check out ISDN, though it may be expensive.
-Charles
DirecWay DW6000: What to expect (Score:2, Informative)
DirecWay now offers the DW6000, which appears to be an operating system agnostic router for satellite internet access.
It is agnostic, so you shouldn't have any problems running Linux, OS X, BeOS, Windows, whatever. Instead of 2 units+software it's all integrated into the same system, a box that's about 2x as big as a cable router would be but with cool blue LEDs. Ethernet port in the back, you can set up DHCP on the router or disable it if you prefer (so you can use something else or just use static, whatever).
I already use DirecTV, so this might work well.
You won't get any kind of discount. However, you *may* be able to buy a kit (ask whether you need a kit A, B, or C) to consolidate your programming on the DirecWay dish. If you have local channels or already have a dual or multisat dish, then you're going to need to keep your DirecTV dish for TV. If you can manage to use the DirecWay dish for TV as well, then you'll be less susceptible to rain-fade.
I'm aware of the game crippling latency, but that's not a huge deal to me. The monthly price seems reasonable, but is there a catch?
Yeah, a couple of big fat catches. Tech support is absolutely abysmally bad. The worst tech support I've experienced in 22 years in the IT industry. In addition, you're limited to 165MB of bandwidth per day - if you exceed that then you'll be throttled way the hell down until your quota is built back up.
I'm abusing my power as Slashdot editor to ask for experiences with this (or similiar) services. Does it bog down during the day? Not work with common hardware? Hidden costs?
That's okay - if I wasn't posting this anonymously I'd be in a heap of trouble. Hidden costs would be if you need a tech to come back out to troubleshoot your system. For surfing it's pretty damned quick (lots of caching going on via back-end). Not had it bog down except when bandwidth was exceeded.
However, sometimes there will be trouble with a transponder on a bird which will knock a bunch of people off for days (unless you want to repoint your dish, have the NOC okay your move to another bird - long, long hassle). Of course, rain-fade or very heavy overcast will kick you offline.
Does it cost a fortune for the required professional installation?
No, you have to be a certified installer to put the thing in. But the cost of the install is supposed to be included in the cost of the system, though (depending on market, etc) you may pay $199 for a standard install. If you need a wallfish or have a long run of cable (couple of hundred feet) then you'll have to pay extra.
Is ssh completely unusable?
I don't know - you'll have to adjust your latency thresholds so your apps don't time you out before you get a response from the server you're trying to download from (FTP). Haven't tried SSH over one of these.
Everything said and done, DirecWay is a damned sight better than rural dialup ever will be. Most of the time, you'll love the system. Odds are you won't experience many problems; however, when you do they'll be a royal pain to get fixed. So, keep dialup as a fall-back.
You'll find surfing and emailing to rule. Not so much with anything else, though. Oh, if you need a static IP, expect to pay another $30 a month. Also, if you have an older DirecWay system, you can probably upgrade to the DW6000 for $100 ('cause it's so much easier to troubleshoot).
Re:No way (Score:5, Informative)
I had direcWay for just under a year, and after 3 months, I hated it, with a passion.
First, there's a 100MB/hour cap that they wont tell you about untill you hit it.
Second, it's not as reliable as they want you to think it is. in a year I had less than 80% uptime.
Third: their DNS server fails to include many `offensive' sites. if you want to go there, gotta find a 3rd party DNS server.
Fourth: support is worthless. I averaged fourty minutes a call, just so they could tell Me their DNS machine was rebooting. (yes, ONLY one DNS server)
fifth: it requires a USB connection to the modems (or at least, it did when I got mine) and that limited my max throughput to 1.2Mbit. When you think about it, that's not too bad, considering the 100MB/hour cap...
sixth: their modem control software is buggy. P-3 800, Win2k-fresh install, and the direcWay software, it locked up at LEAST once a day. Nothing else on the box, and the box was load/stability tested when it was rebuilt.
seven: they cant find their ass with both hands, a map, two guide dogs, a tour guide, and a case of montezuma's revenge.
We wanted to upgrade to Hi-Def TV because we bought a new bigscreen, and the direcTV people took three weeks to get a technician out here. He took one look at the direcWay dish, and admited that he didn't have a frigin clue to how this was suposed to work.
we called them back, told them about the problem, and they promised us a technician that knew how to set up hi-def with direcway. a week later, the same doofus came back.
after five days on the phone with their supervisors supervisors, we cann'ed them. Much happier on our Hi-Def Dish Network System, and for the broadband, we went with Aire Networks [airenetwork.com]
I know they don't cover you out there, taco, but I hope for your sake that there is something similar. after 3 months with direcWay,
DirecWay user for 2 yrs - mostly satisfied (Score:3, Informative)
Latency sucks. I'm actively looking for an alternate (I can't get DSL, I can't get wireless, I can't get two-way cable). But I will say that DirecWay is MUCH better than a modem - in most cases.
Latency is not so much a problem for browsing, surprisingly, because if you're used to a modem, you wait longer by far for content to arrive. With the DirecWay software running (on a 3000/4000 box), or with the 6000 system, the thing is smart enough to ask for all the subitems on a page at once, so once the stuff starts arriving, it gets there pretty fast.
The real problem with latency, surprisingly, is EMAIL. As you know, it's a challenge/reply system, where it's necessarily linear - you can't multitask it. So every step takes 2 seconds - which means for checking about five POP3 mailboxes with a dozen saved messages each, and downloading a dozen new messages, can take upwards of 3 or 4 minutes. I usually hit my email button, walk away, and come back later. And when I'm home, I just leave it running all the time. Not worrying about dialing up is sweet.
Same thing with FTP - if you manage a web site, like I do, it can be REALLY painful working with FTP, since the linear nature of THAT transaction is also very slow with high latency connections. Uploading or downloading a hundred small files totalling 100K takes well near forever (10-20 minutes), even though you could do it over ethernet in a second or two.
Finally, browsing any secure site is very slow - since the system doesn't do its magic compression / multi-request with https. So there's really no browsing acceleration there. So each image, or
Uploading anything is REALLY REALLY REALLY SLOW. You're better off uploading over a modem - no kidding. I usually see 2.8k upload speeds. Much worse than I used to see with a modem with decent software compresssion. And that's WITH DrTCP optimizations applied. Since I market software and must download 10Mb installers to my web site regularly, I've learned to just start them at bedtime, and check it in the morning to be sure it finished.
Downloading large files is amazing - nothing to complain about - 10 Mb downloads are painless and I don't even think twice about requesting them anymore, even via email.
I personally haven't yet hit the FAP limit once. So I have no complaints about the capping. Of course, I'm not downloading full Linux installs or anything - just an occasional 10 or 20Mb demo installer for some software. And I don't traffic in MP3s or other multimedia.
Installation was quite easy - I have a friend who's an installer, and he gave me the mount and cable ahead of time, so I ran my own cable and did the mount the way I like it (lots of roofing tar, extra heavy lag bolts, etc.) I couldn't do the dish install because of the FCC requirements, but after my own pre-installation, my friend was able to get the dish mounted and pointed within about 10 minutes. No problem. Be sure to account for TWO RG6QS cables - not just one - to carry both the send and receive modems.
I have had some difficulty with the "commissioning" - where the receiver downloads the adapter keys - when I turn the thing off for a week while I'm out of town, it typically takes an hour or two before it's up and running again. That can be very irritating while it's resolved.
As with other posters, I've only had a few instances of rain fade, and usually very brief.
I've never had a real problem with tech support - they're usually slow to answer the phone but once I get a person we usually have the problem resolved fairly quickly. There was one exception where the guy must have been from Pakistan, couldn't really speak English, and obviously didn't want to hear what I had to say, was just reading a scrip
Remote... try the jungle of Ecuador (Score:2, Informative)
VPN Problems (Score:2, Informative)
FAP (Score:2, Informative)
Product Review by a Current Customer (Score:2, Informative)
First off, talk with the technical engineers because the sales people forget to mention that some traffic like ICMP and others are automatically placed at the bottom of the satellite systems queue. This is why you will see things like a 400ms+ ping time. What we learned is that if you use your link for downloading files it is great. Once the connection is established it goes beautifully. The problem with game playing or even intense web browsing is that you are always transmitting data and files that may be small but the fact that it requires multiple file transfers is the bad part. When you think about it, how many files does your web browser download when you go to a website core html, pics, flash, audio, etc? The more individual files on a site really causes problems for the system's performance. Like I said though when we used it we did data batching scenario and would compress large quantities of data into a single file and then FTP it to a drop box for pick up in our corporate office at regular batch intervals. In this type of scenario we got great performance with a several hundred K/sec file transfer rate.
If you want to deploy any type of remote desktop software you better make it VNC with best compression or forget it. Even the use of VNC will turn out to be a lesson in humility and frustration.
In my opinion the system really stinks for anything other than large file downloads. It just does not seem to be very versatile.
Whether the water conducts or not... (Score:3, Informative)
This is one place where the solid dish is a disadvantage. If the dish was a mesh (coarse enough to let water fall through rather than being held in the holes by surface tension) this might not be such a problem.
Re:Not Quite..... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:No way (Score:2, Informative)
In truth, this is the only feature stopping me from switching to Mozilla (Although I do like Opera's tabbed browsing much more than Moz's)
I have DIRECWAY and... (Score:2, Informative)
Something that happened last year: We had snow. It started to melt. Big chunks slid off the metal roof. They took the coaxial cable with it. The upside was that the repairman was included free in the deal.
File sharing especially invokes the "Fair Use" policy, you must either set low bandwith limits or just have it on for an hour at a time. The prob with that method is losing your place in someone's queue
Web surfing is about the same speed as dial-up because of the lag time.
Where sat. really shines is dloading; it's too bad that it has the restriction... Earthlink is my ISP; they of course use DIRECWAY. At the time Earthlink offered the exact same package as DIRECWAY for about $10 less a month.
It's kinda amusing EARTHlink offering sat. net...
CDMA based alternative (Score:1, Informative)
The card costs about $150, and the service is about $80 per month for unlimited data. Voice can be shared on the same link. I have tried this service from Verizon, Sprint and Cingular. Verizon and Sprint have the best speeds, while Verizon has the best coverage, atleast in the North-east where I live.
My experience with DirectWay (Score:5, Informative)
It is 128kbps up and 400kbps down peak (For reference a T1 is 1540kbps up and down). It's expensive. I didn't realize it was $100/month for the first year and $60/month after that, but it is a two way Satellite system and those are still expensive. Most users seem to get better than 400kbps down, but somewhere around 30-80kbps up. With the one-way (dial-up systems) most users get 18-28kbps up due to the overhead in their protocol.
No phone line is required with the two-way system. There are one-way and two-way services offered.
This is something I wrote when I had the system and using it over SSH:
"I am typing this e-mail over our new DirectWay system, and it is extremely painful. It is far worse than dial-up. Every character I type takes
about one second to appear. I have to count the number of backspaces I want, number of arrow keys, etc.
C:\>ping [My ssh box hosted at Hurricane Electric]
Pinging [My ssh box] [1.2.3.4] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 1.2.3.4: bytes=32 time=1012ms TTL=242
Reply from 1.2.3.4: bytes=32 time=861ms TTL=242
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Ping statistics for 1.2.3.4:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 2, Lost = 2 (50% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 861ms, Maximum = 1012ms, Average = 468ms
Ignore the average, Microsoft apparently counts dropped packets as 0ms.
I seem to be getting about 900ms ping times on average to most fast sites. We are getting about 750ms on average to the first hop.
The speeds vary a lot. When I did a speed test earlier I got 252kbps down/18kbps up. Right now I am getting a lot better:
CA server:
Test running.........
**Speed 827(down)/25(up) kbps **
(At least 16 times faster than a 56k modem)
LA server:
Test running.........
** Speed 653(down)/51(up) kbps **
(At least 13 times faster than a 56k modem)
(For comparison to what I got when I was on cable modem:
2002-03-05 23:03:40 Speed test (la) 780/124 kbps
2002-03-05 22:58:28 Speed test (wc) 772/109 kbps )
I also did the toast.net speed test and got a bit worse results, you can
see them here:
My toast results [toast.net]
I disabled their proxy server to speed up Web browsing, but their software comes up with annoying pop-ups that tell me that I am not using their proxy. I will set it back when I am done. Speed tests do not work through proxies, so that is the main reason I disabled it.
It took me about 20 minutes to write this e-mail and the connection dropped once during writing it."
I use SSH so much that I went back to dial-up before the trial period ended. I get about 150ms over a 56K connection so SSH is about 6 times slower. Web browsing wasn't improved enough to make the service worth it. Some sites seemed slower even. I believe it was any HTTPS sites like checking my bank account were terrible.
DSL reports has a FAQ available. It is a good site to check out when looking at new ISPs.
DSL Reports Satellite FAQ [dslreports.com]
Had it. Hated it. Disconnected it. (Score:2, Informative)
I had a similar problem. Bought a new house recently, in the middle of a minor city. Before signing the papers i checked with both DSL carriers and digital cable to insure availabilty.
both assured me that all was well.
deal signed, place dsl order and discover that their confirmation of service was based on the zip code. sure, i'm in the same zip code as all those tall buildings, but i am 17,000 feet from the CO.
UGH! same story with cable.
so, thinking i was clever i signed up for dirctwav. ponied up about a grand in equipment and installation costs. and had it installed.
let the horror begin!
first off, you have to have a windows (and now mac, so i have heard) machine to act as your modem. you have to run a user-land appliction to enable access to the radio. it is less than stable software.
second, you have to use ICS to share it. i initially tried ISS, thinking it'd be nice to have a firewall on my gateway, but ISS would not consistently use the radio modem. so, i had all kinds of crap bridged into my network.
third, the data satellite view is narrow. i mean NARROW. nothing more frustrating than having no data connectivity while your directtv signal strength is 98+, just because of a light wind. no matter how often it happens (which was a lot!) you dont get used to it.
did i mention that it takes a good 2 minutes to re-aquire a signal lock?
after months of lost connections, low bandwidth, and a two solid week stint of downtime (which they wouldnt reimburse me for) i stumbled across the last straw.
there is a limit to the "unlimited" use. Hit their threshold (which is never quantitaivly defined by their contract or customer service) and they slap you down to 32K. yes. less than half of dialup. for up to 8 hours!
i found this out after my aformentioned 2week downtime was fixed and was retreiving all my mail to my local servers. too much data, and i was limited.
i used my modem, found a local wireless provider, they cam on site that day and set me up with 1.5down/768up (+ static IP space) for half the price.
i called and cancelled directv. and gave them a piece of my mind.
if i hadnt found the wireless, i probably would have set up a double dialout solution, 100K would have been faster than i was ever able to get from directwav.
in short, its expensive and it sucks.
(i'll sell you the modem and dish, cheep!)
DirecWay support staff ignorant, actively hostile (Score:1, Informative)
I have the DW4000 and am using a Win2K machine as a (poor) gateway (via ICS, which sucks rocks). I considered upgrading to their DW6000, and called their tech support to ask some questions about the capability of the DW6000. I recognized their canned responses and asked to speak to an engineer. Eventually their support personel became actively hostile and rude.
The last person I spoke with was a manager, who told me a few gems like:
Before you do business with DirecWay, do some googling:
DW6000 and DW4020 (Score:2, Informative)
You can use SSH over the DW6000 and DW4020 , which are basically the same things, the DW6000 is a DW4020 that has been scaled down and integrated into
one Box.
I am using a DW4020 myself, I am in Europe so I do not know what grade of service you'll be getting in USA. But here we get up to 256Kbps/2Mbps , I personnally use the 128Kbps/2Mbps service right now on a DW4020 and I already have my DW6000 , just need to plug it in to replace my DW4020
Oh I use FreeBSD behind it and I do all my sysadmin work from it
Also to mention : I admin and install these systems and I know these babies quite well
You can contact me if you need to know more
Re:"Have To"? (Score:3, Informative)
You Americans are so lucky. The Universal Service Obligation in force in Australia mandates 2400baud (2.4kbits/sec) as the min data rate. And I wrote that twice in different ways so you don't think I can't read geek numbers. It's not a joke.
And Telstra are happy to remind you of this if you should ever dare to question them.
There was an enquiry about whether it should be raised to basic rate ISDN 64k but the enquiry decided that Telstra would have ISDN available to just about everyone eventually so why mandate it. Just let market forces provide it in due course. Of course You have to pay for time connected (to Telstra) for the ISDN line and Data downloaded (to your ISP) so its little wonder it didn't become successful. Recently they have really pushed ISDN as an ADSL alternative and as a sop on the pricing they provide no charge connection and call time to an ISP for AUD$16.50 per month. You still pay ISP charges.
But Telstra now uses availability of ISDN as an excuse for not extending ADSL coverage to new housing which is generally serviced by fibre through RIMs. Every new network extension in Australia in the last ten years has been a fibre line through a RIM using pair-gain technology (probably with line conditioning given the length of some of the fibre runs). How unADSL friendly can it get.
T1. Hah bloody hah.