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Stay Away From StarBand


vern

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I signed up for the new 481 modem and the 750 / 100 telecommuter service in May of last year.

The installer mounted the dish with a tree partially blocking the LOS to the sat I was assigned to so my first 3 months of service was much time of no lights on the modem. It was so bad that a bee flying in front of the dish would cause a loss of signal.

After I posted pics of the installation that an employee of starband saw, the installer came back and moved the dish to an unobstructed location and for the next two months I had decent service.

After IntelSat lost T 7 for a few days

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:)  vern

First welcome to the site, I'm sorry to hear about your experience with starband. From your description it has not been a pleasant ride...  :( We certainly are thankful that you gave us a heads up on their what appears to SOP, not only that it ain't cheap. If anything changes please let us know, word of mouth is the only thing in this case that allows someone to see the real deal..... Thanks again.. :)

8) Microwave

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I dont know if its just ME or what...but everytime i read about a sat user.......they are upset and dissapointed.....

why cant they fix this? they have DOPPLER up in the sky, taking massive photos of the earth, they can read weather (sometimes hehe) and do all this other AMAZING stuff.......but cant get good internet service up there....

i really just dont understand.....if someone can explain it would be great

and sorry vern about your problems with starband :/

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I dont know if its just ME or what...but everytime i read about a sat user.......they are upset and dissapointed.....

why cant they fix this? they have DOPPLER up in the sky, taking massive photos of the earth, they can read weather (sometimes hehe) and do all this other AMAZING stuff.......but cant get good internet service up there....

i really just dont understand.....if someone can explain it would be great

and sorry vern about your problems with starband :/

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vern,sorry to hear of your poor experience with starband. i posted earlier this week of my experience with starband and their customer no-service department. i signed with starband in october '04 and got a lightning strike that fried my modem and transmitter, their response to my situation showed me just how valuable i, as a new customer, was to them. they offered to SELL me a rebuilt modem 484 ($350.00) and a rebuilt trans ($200.00) and return damaged equipment. i politely asked for a little assistance with the cost, since i've only used their service for less than 3 months. thier response was basically "tough shit, write us a check". i now have the almost same fancy little ornaments sitting on my desk, only my lights don't work. i now subscribe to cox cable and their service and speed is uncomparable. they actually act as though i am important to their company.

again sorry to hear of you misfortune with starband, spread the word, i am!!!

Almost    :evil:

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Update:

I have located an installer who only lives a couple of miles from me and I may be able to get the dish re-pointed to T 7 at NO cost to me.

I've been told that the nntp server for those on T 7 isn't throttled and the transponders on it aren't severely overloaded so I am hopeful that i can get my performance back to what it was for roughly 2 months of this adventure in space communication with speeds of close to 1 meg down and 115k up.

If it doesn't improve with the re-point I will consider it a lost cause and SB in breech of contract and change over to DirectWay.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have been a Starband customer for over 5 years and have been generally satisfied.  On Sat last, the system went down overnight. Since that time I have called for service 11 times and have never received anything other than a)15 minutes wait time, B) 90 minute wait time, or c) Sorry office closed.  i have sent 5 emails and other than the automated reply saying they will respond, no reply.

Toady after five days , I called the number for applying for new service figuring at least they would try to sell a new customer and got first-no response and then music.

I have held for as long as two hours and received no human response.

There is no customer service email available.  Any one having simialr problems?  this is not a "redirection to new satellite " problem as occurred earlier in the year last December.

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The installer came yesterday and re-pointed me to T 7.

No cost to me.

Results:

:::.. Download Stats ..:::

Connection is:: 2184 Kbps about 2.2 Mbps (tested with 579 KB)

Download Speed is:: 267 KB/s

Tested From:: http://www.testmy.net/

Test Time:: Sat Feb 5 15:29:36 EST 2005

Bottom Line:: 39X faster than 56K 1MB download in 3.84 sec

Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/id-DEWJ2AH3O

I'm happy again :)

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:::.. Download Stats ..:::

Connection is:: 1244 Kbps about 1.2 Mbps (tested with 579 KB)

Download Speed is:: 152 KB/s

Tested From:: http://www.testmy.net/

Test Time:: Sun Feb 13 11:43:31 EST 2005

Bottom Line:: 22X faster than 56K 1MB download in 6.74 sec

Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/id-JSU5X1WPZ

Things are still OK after the switch to T 7.

I suppose having to use high priced high latency satellites for internet service is just the price I pay for peace and quiet.

That,  and living just 1 / 2 mile from scenery like this:

winterfalls.jpg

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Hello All,

I have been a starband user for about 1 year.  Overall, I guess the service has been acceptable at best.  I live in rural areas of Central Kentucky and have no hope of DSL. cable or any telcom based internet access.  Ironically enough i moved here from LA and there is a wireless DSL service over 2.4ghz that I cant get either  because I am in a valley.

Anyways, to make a long story short, because my home is surrounded by thick trees, I can only be pointed at KA7. I went through tons of hurdles with Starband and the installer to get pointed to this receiver.  Now, they have alreayd scheduled that same installer to come out and repoint and he again told me it would not be possible. My signal is weak enough as it is.  He was supposed to relay that info to starband but they keep calling me and sending me emails that as of Feb 28, if i am not repointed i will experience "severe degredation in performance" which is pretty much a day to day occurance anyway for me.  I am wondering what Starband will do next week when this deadline passes.

I ran the test here and got decent  speed, but its touch and go always with Starband, so I dont consider what Im getting in terms of d/l speed to be what I was promised when I signed up.

Does anyone here think that this repoint issue constitues Breach of Contract if they cut me off without a repoint?

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You are on AMC 4.

I am thinking that SB is going to be losing the last transponder on that bird on March 31.

As for testing SB speeds here or on any other major speed testing site:

I noticed that starting the first week of last December SB had started redirecting speed test site requests through a gi-mongus proxy server located in Ca.

The IPs do not match.

In other words, the IP that this server sees is not the SB IP for my box nor is it the IP for SBs web accelator proxy server.

You may be able to get a clear line of sight to T 7 if the dish is moved to the top of your roof.

You can tell whether or not you can see T 7 by using a cheap compass.

From Lexington T 7 is at

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You are on AMC 4.

I am thinking that SB is going to be losing the last transponder on that bird on March 31.

As for testing SB speeds here or on any other major speed testing site:

I noticed that starting the first week of last December SB had started redirecting speed test site requests through a gi-mongus proxy server located in Ca.

The IPs do not match.

In other words, the IP that this server sees is not the SB IP for my box nor is it the IP for SBs web accelator proxy server.

You may be able to get a clear line of sight to T 7 if the dish is moved to the top of your roof.

You can tell whether or not you can see T 7 by using a cheap compass.

From Lexington T 7 is at  241 degrees on a compass pointing at magnetic north.

The elevation is 26.3 degrees.

For every foot of length the rise is about 6 inches.

So a tree 100 feet away from your dish could be 50 feet or less in height without blocking the line of sight.

From what I've been told those who are on AMC 4 after the last day of this month will really be unhappy with their service.

T 7 is performing at an acceptable level right now but I expect that to degrade more and more as more people are moved from AMC 4 to it.

Ahh But, do I have to PAY to have it mounted on the roof, starband sez yes, I say thats BS, it was working fine where it was . Also, does the speed decrease if I stay on AMC4 mean breach of contract?

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Here's some info that may be of interest from another user:

"I have no problem streaming but starband is updating T-7 sat and are overcrowd on GE-4,so some may be having some trouble.

They are trying to move people from GE-4 to T-7 which is going to help.

Also they should have a new sat just east of GE-4 by april."

Starband, from what I've read on other sites, is one of the best out there and better than DirecWay due to their FAP policy. The most you can get with their SOHO package is 500MB, though up to 800MB can be had going through a VAR. Most people as a rule are more happy with Starrband than Direcway/

One thing to keep in mind is something that's been discussed in lenght on another site, proper installation and GROUNDING.

While other services are coming this year, Wild Blue and Sky America, they are unproven since no one actually is using them yet. Plus, if you read their FAQs, not much different overall. Note how  Sky Amerrica quotes their download/upload speeds, but read carefully and you will find that's the MODEM specs, NOT the actual user specs for what you will get. While they don't actually lie about their service, you do have to read it several times for the fine print and understand how to read exactly word-for-word their statements.

Hopefully the new satellite and T-7 changes will help some because I don't think you will get  a whole lot better. Satellite ISP is after all the nature of the beast and some things just can't be done due to their orbit and distance of travel.

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DirecWay will also be putting up a new one too.....Spaceway. I guess just set back and listen for now, and keep the [glow=blue,2,300]DirecWay[/glow].

FYI spaceway is no longer going to be used for internet instead they are using it for HDTV.

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