satellite internet, anyone using it?

[beyondmike]

I'm moving just outside city limits and Shaw is not available for me for high speed internet. Anyone using satellite for residential use? What provider are you with? I could get Telus phone out there but it'll cost me over $1200 to get the service out there, and, they cannot assure me that I can get their ADSL internet service, only phone service. So any info on satellite service would be great. I know many companies use it for business and pay big bucks. I'm hoping to get something comparable to my shaw speed wise for hopefully under $100/month and use a VOIP phone for my landline.

Any advise???

[Hemi RT]

See if Platinum Communications can service you with their wireless service. They have an office in Calgary.

[Frosty]

Originally posted by beyondmike
I'm moving just outside city limits and Shaw is not available for me for high speed internet. Anyone using satellite for residential use? What provider are you with? I could get Telus phone out there but it'll cost me over $1200 to get the service out there, and, they cannot assure me that I can get their ADSL internet service, only phone service. So any info on satellite service would be great. I know many companies use it for business and pay big bucks. I'm hoping to get something comparable to my shaw speed wise for hopefully under $100/month and use a VOIP phone for my landline.

Any advise???

I'm on Ka-band satellite through Xplornet because I can't get cable, and ADSL is unavailable through the current phone service.

My package is about $85/month for service, plus the equipment and install to start. If you're used to Shaw high speed, this setup won't impress you with it's speed. It's acceptable, but not snappy like being on the Calgary grid. I get around 1mb down and 512kb up from speedtest.net, pretty much exactly what the ISP states. Good enough for news and email/minor transactions, but not adequate for bandwidth intensive apps like a torrent client.

[beyondmike]

Originally posted by Frosty


I'm on Ka-band satellite through Xplornet because I can't get cable, and ADSL is unavailable through the current phone service.

My package is about $85/month for service, plus the equipment and install to start. If you're used to Shaw high speed, this setup won't impress you with it's speed. It's acceptable, but not snappy like being on the Calgary grid. I get around 1mb down and 512kb up from speedtest.net, pretty much exactly what the ISP states. Good enough for news and email/minor transactions, but not adequate for bandwidth intensive apps like a torrent client.

thanks for the tip, have you tried voip with this internet connection? i wanna avoid telus if at all possible. thanks!

[ChokeEmOut]

Depending which area of the city you are moving, I know sw of cochrane all the way to bragg creek has a company situated in cochrane. I cant remember the name, but if its any help shoot me a pm and I can tell you more.

It was fairly slow. Torrents sucked. Wireless sucked.

[Frosty]

Originally posted by beyondmike


thanks for the tip, have you tried voip with this internet connection? i wanna avoid telus if at all possible. thanks!

Nope, I haven't. I had VOIP in Calgary and it was terrible for voice quality and Tx/Rx lag, so I decided to go with Telus and Primus out here, even though I hate Telus with a passion :D

[codetrap]

I've used Xplornet for voip on a cisco softphone, and it's not too bad. You just have to set it for a low bandwidth, high latency connection. They are in the process of doing upgrades to their network to better support voip, but it's a little ways away (maybe this year).

Otherwise, it's not unusable, but not as nice as a landline.

[YCB]

Check out www.efirehose.net and see if your moving within their service region.

I'm currently using their services now. Download speeds are about 400-500kb/s, uploads are good too. Faster than telus adsl, but equivalent to shaw.

The only thing shitty about this service is they allow you 45gig free transfer a month (40 down, 5 up), after that they charge $5 /gig.

Will cost you around $300 for the reciever/installation.. then its like 50 bux a month after. No contracts.

[Jay911]

Originally posted by ChokeEmOut
Depending which area of the city you are moving, I know sw of cochrane all the way to bragg creek has a company situated in cochrane. I cant remember the name, but if its any help shoot me a pm and I can tell you more.

It was fairly slow. Torrents sucked. Wireless sucked.

Sounds like you're speaking of Pathcom, which is the one based out of Cochrane (offices right next to the RCMP detachment on 1 St E). Pathcom has never been available as far southwest as I am in the Bragg Creek area, and Platinum was going to be, but ran into problems getting a tower set up in my area. Their coverage seems to be pretty widespread around the outskirts of Calgary though, so www.platinum.ca might be a good idea for the OP.

I eventually went with a wireless provider that was able to get set up and running in Bragg Creek and points south. It's Davinci Broadband and uses the Motorola Canopy wireless transceivers. Speed's pretty good, and their tower site operates off 100% renewable energy (solar and wind) if that kind of thing is one of your hobby horses. Their website kind of lacks, at www.davincibb.net, but it's a good functional service.

[dreamchaser]

have you considered rogers wireless internet? its cheap.

http://www.shoprogers.com/Store/Cable/InternetContent/portable.asp?shopperID=

[01RedDX]

.

[samo147]

yeah consider rogers or bell wireless internet

not sure how it is in canada but in europe my cousin had it and it was pretty fast

[beyondmike]

Originally posted by dreamchaser
have you considered rogers wireless internet? its cheap.

http://www.shoprogers.com/Store/Cable/InternetContent/portable.asp?shopperID=

yeah, i did a forum search before on the rogers portable high speed one. not great feedback from too many people. looks like they are unhappy with the speed as compared to what rogers is advertising. i'll go to the store and check it out. no contract so i may try it out.