Satellite Internet

We used Hughes for the first five years we had our current motorhome which has a Motosat dish on the top. The service in our motorhome worked but was slow and expensive. The reason I stopped using it was Verizon cell phone wifi got so good almost everywhere that it was better for RV travel than sat dish.

On the other hand sat internet at a fixed location should work fine, but it will always have a latency issue vs land based systems. This is another word for reaction time.

Hughesnet post

Verizon coverage is so good now, unless you're camping in a canyon I don't see why you'd need this.

We we moved into our current house about 9 years ago, there was no internet available. Over the phone lines or cable systems were non existent as our home was in a small pocketed area in Madison County, Indiana, where AT&T and other providers and such cannot not come into because of monopoly laws.

We didn't realize this until after we purchased the hosue. So we decided to try HugnesNet. First, it cost over $100 a month (just for internet only). Second, there was too much lag time in the responses. For example, playing on-line games, our responses were always behind, and to put it simply, we were blown out of the game.

Because of the lag response time, we looked for any other alternative, which we found in our area that uses a line of sight from cell tower to cell tower, not microwave, but something like that. Worked very well, and have been using it ever since.

Meanwhile, canceling the HughesNet account and getting our money back and their equipment returned took months and months. They billed us for equipment we returned, because the returned equipment got lost (which they eventually found after more months that went by). Not to mention how horrible their phone service was, going through, Push this number for this and push that number for that, and spending hours (yes... HOURS... waiting to talk to a real person). Sign up was very easy, canceling was the worst night mare we ever experienced!

But finally, we got everything straightened out. And we've been much happier with our line-of-site system now, plus, it's much, much cheaper and works much better.

Bottom line, if you do not do "gaming" but pretty much things like on-line banking, and checking emails, it will work pretty good for you. But if you do streaming videos or anything that demands "real time", the lag with your response will drive you nuts.

Maybe they've improved in the last 9 years, I don't know. All I know is, I'll NEVER use HughesNet again. Never!

We also use our cell phone hot spots, not at home, but when camping! This works MUCH MUCH better than Hughes Net ever did!

2oldman wrote:
Hughesnet post

Verizon coverage is so good now, unless you're camping in a canyon I don't see why you'd need this.

I find this funny. I live in the east side of Anchorage and can't get through on either of our Verizon phones half of the time. Then when I do, 50% of the calls are dropped. Internet on the phones is very slow.

Just recently did the east coast of the States and Verizon didn't work near as well as they do out West. AT&T was somewhat better, but still poor. You couldn't walk around while talking and if you tried your mail, you should have a book in the other hand to read. Very disappointed in both carriers back east.

Having said that, I think they'll be better than a satellite connection.

Bill

2oldman wrote:
Hughesnet post

Verizon coverage is so good now, unless you're camping in a canyon I don't see why you'd need this.

We live in CT where people say it's a city from NY to Boston. There is no Verizon here and one bar sometimes on AT&T. We live in the country but my mom lives the next town over near the center of town, she doesn't have Verizon or AT&T.
Cell service has a long way to go in my opinion.

Trackrig wrote:

2oldman wrote:
Hughesnet postVerizon coverage is so good now, unless you're camping in a canyon I don't see why you'd need this.

I find this funny.

I don't. I've traveled all over this country and had very few Verizon problems. Their data service tends to be better than voice, which I believe is what the OP is asking about.

Perhaps the OP is traveling to places Verizon works, not the East Coast or Alaska.

Wind River wrote:
Does anyone out there have real life experience with Hughesnet or Dishnet? I would be interested in RV or home usage. Are these reliable and as fast as advertised? We do not have access to cable at home and the phone company is super slow.

First, Dish does not really have satellite internet. They resell the services of either Hughesnet or Excede.
Second, satellite internet is really, really bad compared to cellular internet and cellular internet cannot compare to any home service you might have (OK, unless you have bad DSL).
The other problem you will run into is that the updated satellite internet services are spot beamed so it's not just a matter of moving and re-pointing your antenna like you can with satellite TV. You also will have to use a VERY large antenna plus a heavy duty tripod to mount the setup and the pointing routine has a very steep learning curve so you will need someone with experience to show you how or plan on long frustrating days trying to figure it all out. Then, the real kicker....You will have to call each time you move and have the service provider change you service location so you can be on the correct spot beam. The service is also only available in the lower 48 if that's an issue.
Let me know if you need more details about something.
As an aside, I have been all over the East Coast, West Coast and middle of this great Country and while all services suffer when in the middle of nowhere, I have yet to find a service with better coverage than Verizon. AT&T is a very close 2nd. I have service with Verizon, AT&T and Sprint. Don't get Sprint!

I have exede at home. Their prices are dropping and service is improving. But expect data limits. 12 gb for $49 up to 150 gb for $99(this is new) these are with 12 meg download.
Within the next month or two they will be bringing a new sat online, and services will improve more and cost likely drop.
If you can wait, I would, plans will improve.

We have tons of experience with dish net, my advice is DO NOT do it! It was the worst most horrible experience we have ever had.
1. To know the frustration of their costumer service, just give Dish network a call and ask any thing, you will be pulling your hair out. Dish Net is only worse.
2. They restrict your usage, if you want to watch youtube, or a netflix movie or do any thing on line where you are using data, you will not like it. Our phone has larger data allocation than what Dishnet allows.
3. It is expensive
4. You will have to deal with the equipment, which may be a factor or may not bother you.

We had it for a couple of years, we lived rural and had no other choice, but when another service became available we jumped for it.

We had Hughesnet for a few years and changed to Dishnet (Exceed) We found Dishnet to be more reliable and had decent speed. The major caveat with Dishnet is the data limitations. They are supposed to be increasing the limit a d offering higher speeds in some areas but as of early 2017 the higher data and speed was not available where we live in NE Oklahoma. All that said it worked well for us for a few years. We only used this at home, not while traveling.