mynameisdan

Is this shit true?

I've never been a big reliant on Customer Service. Plus, I've tried calling twice and both times I've had a nice guy help me out. They spoke english without an accent and it was easy to understand them. but as I was saying, Once I have the satellite I won't be contacting them at all (most likely). I'm a pretty smart guy when it comes to computers and I can figure stuff out on my own. I just want my speeds to be decent.

Hmm... I am in California, since they redirect everthing over here would I get better speeds?

yeah, I can't get DSL or Cable where I live. I am not so worried about upload speeds, more download. I was hoping for 100kb/s+ speeds, but I guess 60-70 would be fine. Any Starband tweaks though?

I thought Starband would be about the same as DirecWay speed wise. I read a thing on a site and it said that the most you'll get is like 70 or so KiloBYTES a second. That doesn't sound too great for 60+ a month. What are typical speeds for you guys? and are there any starband tweaks like the SatSpeed for DirecWay?

I just got done calling Starband and asking them about it. Their AUP is better than DirecWays.. by alot. They offer you 2GigaBytes over 7 days. DirecWay gives you 176MBS over a 4 hour period.. then if you go over you have to wait like 6 hours for it to be normal. Starband, you can download a 500MB file with no problems.. wait a few days before downloading another huge file. You'll stay under the 2GB limit easily. Starband > DirecWay.

Nice catch on that, Fikester. I read through it and they don't actually say that they'll limit your speeds though. They don't give a 'punishment' for it. I e-mailed the person back and was a little more straight forward with my questioning. Thanks for the heads up, Fikester.

This is the E-Mail I sent and received: "Well I recently bought a DirecWay system and was bummed out to find they have a FAP (Fair Access Policy). I then read somewhere that StarBand doesn't? If this is true, I'd be interested in Starband over DirecWay. If there isn't a FAP for StarBand, does that mean I can download as much as I want consistantly?" - Me I got a response from Starband: "Dan, You are absolutely right. StarBand does not have a FAP and you can download as much as you want. If you want to purchase the system, please call Sree Thampi at 703-245-xxxx. Thank you" ---- And to be honest, I'd be willing to pay a little bit more for the equipment to download all night at a continious rate than have it drop to 2kb/s after about an hour of downloading.

Well.. I just E-Mailed StarBand last night and was surprised to see that they don't even have a FAP? Then why am I even bothering with this shit?? I think I am going to get StarBand instead. If anyone is interested in buying a DirecWay Dish, DW4000.. Send me an email at [email protected] ; I'll sell for cheaper than what you could get off of the site. $200 should be a reasonable price for it. Contact me and we may be able to work something out.

Wow.. haha, this is all disappointing. I've already bought the Dish, so I might as well just try it for a month and see what it's like. I was all ok with it until I got to the point that Flick said. The download just stops completely? Now that is complete garbage. They don't say that anywhere in their FAP. They say it'll slow down, but for it to completely stop is bullshit. Sigh.. I wish I would of read up on it before buying the Dish.

Yeah, I read that before, but I was wondering, with all that you know now.. is it worth it? Dial-up is my only option at the moment, and as I said, I'm more into downloading movies, music and games. When my download speed is lowered, what's the typical speed that I'll be getting? Right now, on diaup, I get 2KB/s so I know it wouldn't drop below that. Thinking that way it's fine with me, eventhough I'm tripling my money that I am paying. Another question I have is if I download overnight, and I trigger the FAP. By the time I wake up, It should of recharged to normal, right? It recharges while I am still downloading, right? or do I have to completely stop doing what I am doing for it to recharge? Thanks for the reply.

Let me start out by saying that I already purchased my system off of eBay for $89.00 so the equipment is all covered. I bought a DW 4000 system and it should arrive shortly. I called DWay and asked what I had to do, and I was surprised to learn that I don't even have to sign a yearly contract since I own the equipment. I can canel at anytime without any fees, so that really made me feel good. My problem is the plan that I was planning on getting was the $59.00 a month. It's not that big of a deal, price wise, but I got to reading about it and one thing I really don't like is the FAP (Fair Access Policy). That plan only gives you 176 MegaBytes download before it throttles your speed down to 56k speeds.. what the fuck? What in the hell am I paying $59.00 a month for then? Shit.. DSL is cheaper than this and they don't have any limits. Ok, there goes my rant. I just want to know if it's worth it or not. I was looking to download movies and full albums. I usually download overnight anyway, so if the speed dropped it wouldn't be ALL that bad. I just want to know if I download the 176 MBs, what is the speed that it'll drop to? and how long before I can get back to my normal speed.