vern

Actually you will gain a lot by switching to wildblue. :::.. Download Stats ..::: Connection is:: 1561 Kbps about 1.6 Mbps (tested with 2992 kB) Download Speed is:: 191 kB/s Tested From:: https://testmy.net/ (server2) Test Time:: Sun Dec 04 2005 06:04:27 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time) Bottom Line:: 28X faster than 56K 1MB download in 5.36 sec Diagnosis: Looks Great : 18.8 % faster than the average for host (212.22) Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-0MTOPYBSI :::.. Upload Stats ..::: Connection is:: 209 Kbps about 0.2 Mbps (tested with 579 kB) Upload Speed is:: 26 kB/s Tested From:: https://testmy.net/ (server1) Test Time:: Sun Dec 04 2005 06:05:30 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time) Bottom Line:: 4X faster than 56K 1MB upload in 39.38 sec Diagnosis: Awesome! 20% + : 33.97 % faster than the average for host (212.22) Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-VTIXZRMJB Pinging yahoo.com [216.109.112.135] with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 216.109.112.135: bytes=32 time=673ms TTL=49 Reply from 216.109.112.135: bytes=32 time=704ms TTL=49 Reply from 216.109.112.135: bytes=32 time=701ms TTL=49 Reply from 216.109.112.135: bytes=32 time=671ms TTL=49 Ping statistics for 216.109.112.135: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 671ms, Maximum = 704ms, Average = 687ms Equipment - $299.00 Install - FREE Monthly fee - $79.95 Contract - One year But you better get it quick. The beams are filling up fast.

That doesn't work so well when the wb connection will not send more than 200 KB at one time. The only test that will complete is the smart test 97 KB one. The others time out. Trying to ftp a file and after about 200 KBs is sent it stops with an error: file transfer failed. 10 days of WB service and not a single day without problems. 20 more days and if it isn't fixed by then; that 30 day money back guarntee will be quite useful. vern beam 28 / Syracuse gateway

The most I have done in one month with SB is a little over 15 gigs. And that was back before the big T 7 failure and i was averaging 8 megs per minute on downloads. In 15 months my average bandwidth usage is less than 10 gigs per month. I ordered the wildblue pro pack yesterday. I have to wait 2 to 6 weeks due to a combination of high demand and low supply of hardware right now. Cost: With tax - $316.00 Installation is FREE. I would not recommend SB to anyone for fear that if they took my advice; they could possibly, at a later time, find me and take revenge.

As far as I'm concerned you can have all the bandwidth on SB once i get WB installed and running. Enjoy it while you can cause i see another chapter 11 coming soon for starband and I highly doubt they will survive this time. WildBlue will eventually degrade but I figure it will take about 2 to 3 years for that to happen and in the meantime maybe i will be able to get real broadband like wireless or maybe even hit the big lottery and get my own personal DS3 line. Let's see here. SB - 484 system - up front costs - what? around 1,000 doallrs? Plus installation costs. Monthly fee? close to 150 dollars per month? speed? 1 meg down and about 200 up? WB - Pro account - up front costs - 300 dollars plus 179 for installation monthly fee - 79 dollars per month. speed - 1.5 megs down and about 240 k up. monthly fap limit - 22 gigs. Starband won't be overloaded for much longer but my guess is that when enough users jump ship to WB they will once again reduce the number of transponders they lease and the remaining users will be in the same sinking boat.

How much does Spacenet pay you dell? Just curious. BTW SB has been FAPing users since June. Noone knows what the limits are but if you get FAPed; it lasts for 7 days. My 481 system is basiclly worthless for anything other than large downloads and those have been capped at 500 Kbps for the past 7 months. Big sites like Google and Yahoo take longer to load on the SB system than they do on my PeoplePC 26.4 connection. Patiently waiting for WildBlue which not only can, but WILL provide the service they say they will when you sign on, and cheaper than SB or DW.

It happens because they have too many users crowded onto too little bandwidth.

Regular web surfing is slow due to the overcrowding of the transponders. I'm seeing average ping times of 3000 ms or more. Sometimes it takes two to three minutes for Google news to load. eBay is mostly unusable. I'm on the waiting list for WildBlue. They are using the new Ka band transponders which have way more capacity than the Ku band that SB and DW use so it should take longer before they get "crowded". They are offering 1.5 meg down and 128K up for less than Ii'm now paying SB for 750 / 100 which Ii haven't seen for more than 4 months.

Yes the 481 can be networked using most any router and does not require any SB software on your machine. I would not recommend that you spend the money for one though. The performance increase is now well below the threshold level that would make the cost worth it. In fact many with 360s are now getting better performance than I am with a 481. If you still want one; mine will be for sale just as soon as another option becomes available to me like WildBlue or wireless. vern

Yeah, well, when i win that 90 million dollar lottery and get my own personal DS 3 line....

Better grab all you can while you can cause those speeds will only last for a week, maybe two, then you will get slowed down. I too was getting 1.2 megs down for a little while after the re-point.

I still have 2 years left on my 3 year contract. I highly doubt a jury or Judge would rule in SB's favor if I decide to terminate it early. :::.. Download Stats ..::: Connection is:: 72 Kbps about 0.1 Mbps (tested with 2992 kB) Download Speed is:: 9 kB/s Tested From:: https://testmy.net/ (main) Test Time:: Wed May 04 2005 11:19:48 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) Bottom Line:: 1X faster than 56K 1MB download in 113.78 sec Diagnosis: May need help : running at only 15.86 % of your hosts average (starband.net) Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-WA23CNMKB

WildBlue will be using Anik F2's Ka-Band spot beams. Equipment pricing has been set at $299.00 US for the dish and Surfbeam modem. If the FAP doesn't change; it seems very reasonable, as does the pricing for the service. If they do actually get their service off the ground, I plan to ditch Starband and give them a go. God knows, they could not possibly be any worse than SB has been since December. As for my contract with SB; I plan to "let myself" out of it. If they try to collect any fees or harm my FICO credit score, I will deal with that when and if the time comes. If WildBlue does not get off the ground soon, I still plan to remove my SB dish, with a sledgehammer if necessary, and I will change to Direcway for my satellite internet service. 6 months of "load" balancing is beginning to look to me like just a "load" of ****.

Since being transfered over to T 7 in Feb. my mission control doesn't work so I have no idea what the signal quality is. I have the 481 modem and the new diag. software for the 48x modems still hasn't been released by SB. I assume the signal strength is pretty high though as since Feb I have only lost the lights on the modem once and that was during a very heavy snowstorm that also took out my dishnetwork for a couple of hours. Signal quality when I was on AMC 4 was usually above 8.

Bill is due tomorrow. On Friday throughput increased from 150 to 400 Kbps to between 700 to 1200 Kbps. NNTP speeds increased from 1.4 K to between 5 and 10 K. :::.. Download Stats ..::: Connection is:: 726 Kbps about 0.7 Mbps (tested with 2992 kB) Download Speed is:: 89 kB/s Tested From:: http://www.testmy.net/ Test Time:: Sat Apr 16 07:07:09 EDT 2005 Bottom Line:: 13X faster than 56K 1MB download in 11.51 sec Diagnosis: Awesome! 20% + : 54.8 % faster than the average for host (starband.net) Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-LJWUGH9EY I still haven't decided whether or not I will pay the bill this month. The same thing happened last month. A few days before the bill was due, service quality dramaticlly increased and a day or two after paying it things went to crap again and stayed that way for 97 % of the billing period. As for complaining: I am posting about my Starband experience here in this forum in hopes of providing others who are considering signing up for their service with an honest description of what they can expect from it before they commit to spending $500.00 to $900.00 for the dish, modem, and install and most important, sign a contract with SB.

There hasn't been any formal announcement from DN yet but Charlie said on last month's charlie chat that the modems were in phase 3 testing, whatever that means. I do know that it won't be connected in any way with SB. 2 months ago Spacenet bought out the remaing shares of SB and now owns it all. Service quality has continued on it's steady downhill slide so I have to assume that Spacenet is not interested in providing residential VSAT service. I really wish now that I had chose DW instead of SB.

There is a rumor going around that DishNetwork is just a few months away from rolling out a new satellite internet service. I'm thinking that SB is just a few months away from making an appearance on the top of the list at F*ed Company dot com.

As I predicted, performance on T 7 has continued to deteriorate. :::.. Download Stats ..::: Connection is:: 381 Kbps about 0.4 Mbps (tested with 2992 kB) Download Speed is:: 46 kB/s Tested From:: http://www.testmy.net/ Test Time:: Mon Apr 4 15:16:16 EDT 2005 Bottom Line:: 7X faster than 56K 1MB download in 22.26 sec Diagnosis: May need help : running at only 53.36 % of your hosts average (80.22) Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-2B9QW0S6Y Is this worth $90.00 per month? Actual http performance is running about 1.4 K on all sites. The service is so overloaded it is close to unusable. I don't think I will be paying the bill this month.

Not true. My 481 account right now is no better and possibly worse than a 360 account. As for a new subcluster on T 7. What possible benifit could be acheived from dividing the bandwidth even deeper? Answer: None and that is just what I am seeing; progressively worse performance as more and more are crammed onto less and less bandwidth. Unless SB adds more transponders things will only continue to degrade. The one remaining working Ku transponder on T 7 was just acquired by Angel broadcasting; not SB. By the way. SB is still adding new accounts and not advising the new pidgeons that there is no way in hell they can provide what they are selling. Looks to me like the only hope for improvement I have would be for more users to quit than there are new accounts

178.21 ends with 80.22. Sound familiar?

:::.. Upload Stats ..::: Connection is:: 91 Kbps about 0.1 Mbps (tested with 579 kB) Upload Speed is:: 11 kB/s Tested From:: http://www.testmy.net/ Test Time:: Sat Mar 26 2005 08:27:16 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time) Bottom Line:: 2X faster than 56K 1MB upload in 93.09 sec Diagnosis: Awesome! 20% + : 51.67 % faster than the average for host (starband.net) Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-NZR5P4CD0 481 Telecommuter system. 750 down 100 up Total cost with installation $854.00 3 year contract monthly 119.00 first year 115.00 second year 109.00 third year They did reduce my monthly bill from 119.00 to 89.99 since the problems started though. The main difference between what I have and what you have is I can chew up lots more bandwidth than you can without getting fapped; well when mine is working, I can. When the news server wasn't throttled and I was averaging about 1.2 megs down on it I could download 2 or 3 backup copies of playstation games in one day that I already owned without SB complaing about it.

481 modem: :::.. Download Stats ..::: Connection is:: 749 Kbps about 0.7 Mbps (tested with 2992 kB) Download Speed is:: 91 kB/s Tested From:: http://www.testmy.net/ Test Time:: Sat Mar 26 2005 07:36:49 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time) Bottom Line:: 13X faster than 56K 1MB download in 11.25 sec Diagnosis: Awesome! 20% + : 26.31 % faster than the average for host (starband.net) Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-HFCZ51IJE Best I've seen for quite some time and they finally stopped using the 80.22 proxy: Note the host IP resolves to starband.net. Now if they would unthrottle the news server I would stop complaining.

The problem with SB is a simple one. In may of last year when I signed up they had 5 transponders on 2 satellites. After my dish was moved to an unobstructed location I was averaging well over 1 meg down and 115 k up even during primetime. The problem began in December when they started moving clients from one of the transponders on AMC 4 to the other one on that bird; the one I was on. On janurary 1 st they had 4 transponders on 2 satellites. As things stand right now they have 3 full transponders on T 7 and part of a transponder on AMC 4 which they may be squatting on as they will not give a clear answer when asked for how long they will have it. They are reducing capacity all the while still adding new accounts. Even if this is rocket science, the math is still simple. Reduced capacity / increased number of users = ?

I get a chuckle every time I read comments made by people who "review" things they do not own and have absolutely no experience with. Of course there are many instances on the net where business' are reviewed where shills from the company in question routinely makes posts singing the praises of the company. By the way if it's details you want for back up; go read alt.starband.general. There has not been a single positive post about SB there since before T 7 went missing in November. Before November posts were running about 50 / 50 positive to negative. As a SB user for more than 10 months my recommendation is still: STAY AWAY!

You won't see that on Spacenet. Just 5 minutes ago it took 4 minutes to download 17 headers with no attachments on the news server. And then another 7 minutes to open the headers and read the text messages. All major websites are loading at a snail's pace. I am giving serious consideration to not paying my bill this month or any other month. It's really difficult justifying paying almost $100.00 for a month of service that isn't any better than my 10.95 per month people pc dial up account.

You don't really know what the actual throughput is. Since december starband which is now spacenet has been redirecting all speedtest site requests