[LakeSteve]

Called to downgrade to Choice Xtra today since my 3 month introductory free HBO, Showtime, etc. ran out.

The CSR said that as of today, they are offering "Exede 12" satellite internet. I told the lady I'm paying $43 a month (promo plan) for Roadrunner Turbo, which is 20mb down/2 up. She had no idea what a megabit was and was clearly not informed. It's as if they just shoved this in her face and told her to sell it.

10 minutes later, she found out that Exede offers 12 down/3 up. I guess it's about $39.99 a month after they put you into a special offer.

It can't beat my roadrunner turbo. I don't live in the boonies, but it seems like they want to shove this down everyones throat, probably because of the new $4 Time Warner "leased modem" fee. I don't want to give up any speed. The lady had no idea what I was talking about in terms of speed and I finally just told her to drop the subject. I'm normally very patient, but she was clueless as to what she was even selling.

She tried to get me to bundle my home phone as well, asking what I pay for internet and phone. I have no need for home phone, roomie and I have cell phones with unlimited minutes.

15 minutes later I'm finally getting my service downgraded! Geez! Anybody else getting this sales pitch?

 

[HarleyD]

Sometimes the rep is required to pitch these products and can actually get dinged on their performance appraisals if they don't do it.

That doesn't make it any more convenient for you but try not to hold it against the rep.

The upsell to Premier Protection Plan is being pushed pretty hard too I'm told.

 

[Flugelman]

From the Exede website: "The bundle offer is available only to customers who have not had DIRECTV service during the previous 24 months..."

This is to get the $39 bundle special.

 

[iceburg02]

One should only consider satellite internet if dial-up is your only alternative. Between the latency and the caps, it's just awful.

 

[dpeters11]

True. Though I'd looked into one of the satellite providers for someone, and they had a few hours per night that didn't count towards a data cap, basically designed so that downloading security updates and such wouldn't hurt you. I thought that was a good idea.

 

[harsh]

One should only consider satellite internet if dial-up is your only alternative. Between the latency and the caps, it's just awful.

Ecede isn't your father's satellite Internet service.

That being said, I found it unworkable for remote desktop and similar tasks.

The speed was impressive nonetheless

 

[alnielsen]

One should only consider satellite internet if dial-up is your only alternative. Between the latency and the caps, it's just awful.

Ecede isn't your father's satellite Internet service.

That being said, I found it unworkable for remote desktop and similar tasks.

The speed was impressive nonetheless

Latency will always be an issue with satellite internet due to the distances the signal has to travel. I haven't looked into Ecede, but every other one I have seen have had caps that doing much more than email would cause you to hit that cap.

http://www.exedebroadband.org/exceed-internet
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-18438_...ite-broadband-service-youve-been-waiting-for/

 

[MattScahum]

The service itself isnt bad. Im a sup in bundles and it only pops up where we have no other bundle option. The site for.excede gives us a tool to calculate usage.to put you on best plan. The data isnt affected between 12am to 5am in your timezone which is nice. If an alternativr is available.this isn't the best option but most of the areas.that have.this have little to no options so it.is a viable.one.

 

[Jacob Braun]

The service isn't bad. The speeds are fairly good. But the caps. Oh dear the caps. The $50/month plan has a 7.5GB cap. If you have HughesNet or WildBlue definitely look into it. But if you can get DSL or Cable internet, Exede is not a good choice.

 

[MattScahum]

The service isn't bad. The speeds are fairly good. But the caps. Oh dear the caps. The $50/month plan has a 7.5GB cap. If you have HughesNet or WildBlue definitely look into it. But if you can get DSL or Cable internet, Exede is not a good choice.

The $50 cap is 10gb

 

[Jacob Braun]

The $50 cap is 10gb

My mistake! However my opinion still stands...10GBs a month is easy to blow through, although there is the FAP period during off-peak hours which can help.

But still, this is amazing for people who are in rural areas.

 

[lesz]

The distance that the signal needs to travel with a satellite connection is going to make it such that satellite internet connections are always going to have disadvantages when compared to terrestrially-based internet service, and the cost of launching and maintaining the satellites is always going to be such that it will require severe bandwidth limits and higher cost to subscribers.

Nevertheless, given the reality that those in sparsely populated areas often have very limited internet service options, a satellite connection can still be a wonderful alternative to dial-up. Living in such a sparsely populated area, I had a Hughes satellite connection for about 5 years, and I considered it to be a very attractive alternative to dial-up. I learned to live with the bandwidth limitations and latency, and I also learned that, while speeds and quality of service on the base package can be troublesome, it you are willing to pay for a higher-tiered package, speeds, reliability, and quality of service improve dramatically because, on the base packages, the service providers are forced to oversell limited available bandwidth. With higher-tiered packages, customers are sharing bandwidth with a much smaller number of other users.

From reading on both Hughes and Excede/WildBlue forums, there seems to be a high level of satisfaction from customers who have upgraded to either an Excede system or a Hughes Gen 4 system from older WildBlue or Hughes systems with regard to speeds and the quality of the connection. Again, satellite service is never going to be a good choice for those with terrestrially-based options, but, for those who don't have such options, it can provide users the option to use the internet to do what a dial-up connection will not allow.

 

[harsh]

My mistake! However my opinion still stands...10GBs a month is easy to blow through, although there is the FAP period during off-peak hours which can help.

But still, this is amazing for people who are in rural areas.

Perhaps someone who is downloading that much would benefit from investing in a few PPV instead?

 

[Rickt1962]

Hey its OK for E-mail or Facebook, But you can do that with Dial up ! With the Cap you wont be allowed to down load alot. And Xbox or PS3 gaming will not work with the Lag time.

 

[lesz]

Hey its OK for E-mail or Facebook, But you can do that with Dial up ! With the Cap you wont be allowed to down load alot. And Xbox or PS3 gaming will not work with the Lag time.

I would consider that to be an extremely inaccurate appraisal.

Regardless of whether a satellite connection is even remotely close to the terrestrially-based connections available to those in more densely populated areas, there is also no comparison between what can be done with a satellite connection and what can be done with a dial-up connection. While it is true that, with a satellite connection, you are going to be limited with regard to doing things like downloading a large amount of video content, using the satellite connection for normal browsing, software downloads and updates, Windows updates, smaller amounts of video content, etc. allows one to do things with relative ease that either can't be done at all or that would be laboriously slow with a dial-up connection.

While I am happy, now, to have an internet service option other than satellite or dial-up, if something were to take me back a few years to the time when satellite and dial-up were my only choices, I would choose to go back to the satellite connection without a second of hesitation. And the recent introduction of the Excede and Hughes Gen4 systems would make a satellite connection significantly more attractive than it was a few years ago when I had a previous generation satellite connection.

 

[Rickt1962]

What ive read on the Web you can not do Xbox 360 or PS3 with it. Am I wrong ?

I would consider that to be an extremely inaccurate appraisal.

Regardless of whether a satellite connection is even remotely close to the terrestrially-based connections available to those in more densely populated areas, there is also no comparison between what can be done with a satellite connection and what can be done with a dial-up connection. While it is true that, with a satellite connection, you are going to be limited with regard to doing things like downloading a large amount of video content, using the satellite connection for normal browsing, software downloads and updates, Windows updates, smaller amounts of video content, etc. allows one to do things with relative ease that either can't be done at all or that would be laboriously slow with a dial-up connection.

While I am happy, now, to have an internet service option other than satellite or dial-up, if something were to take me back a few years to the time when satellite and dial-up were my only choices, I would choose to go back to the satellite connection without a second of hesitation. And the recent introduction of the Excede and Hughes Gen4 systems would make a satellite connection significantly more attractive than it was a few years ago when I had a previous generation satellite connection.

 

[boukengreen]

partially you could surf and dl demos but gaming would be out of the question due to the time it takes to talk to the satellite and then back to the console

 

[Mark40930]

Looks interesting on their website, especially the unmetered time from midnight to 5 am.

I may consider going with them if I move to an area where no broadband is available, but if I can afford it I'd probably go with Skycasters.com for satellite Internet, especially since they claim that their business plan can support VoIP and VPN...

 

[lesz]

A Ferrari can do things that a 3 year old Ford Taurus cannot do, but that Taurus can do much that a bicycle cannot do. If you won't ever be able to own the Ferrari, your choice is to enjoy what the Taurus can do or to bemoan the fact that you can't have the Ferrari and keep using the bicycle.

Satellite internet is what it is. Those of us living in sparsely populated areas are never going to have the internet connection options that the people in other areas have. And, by the time our options improve a little, those in more densely populated areas will have even better options. Thus, our choice is to value connections like satellite connections for what they are and to use them for what they can do or to bemoan the fact that we can't have a 50 megabit connection with minimal latency and keep using a dial-up connection that allows us to do much less than the satellite connection.

 

[dpeters11]

Hey its OK for E-mail or Facebook, But you can do that with Dial up ! With the Cap you wont be allowed to down load alot. And Xbox or PS3 gaming will not work with the Lag time.

Even Facebook would be really slow on dialup. Plus I can imagine that someone in a more remote area may not be ale to get a full 56k. Satellite is really the best option as long as you understand the limitations.