mamamoose Posted June 14, 2018 Share Posted June 14, 2018 Does anyone here have satellite internet who can give me some info and/or a review on how well it works? We live in a remote area with decent internet but have had some issues with the provider. Thank you! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweet2ndchance Posted June 14, 2018 Share Posted June 14, 2018 (edited) We live in a rural area with one internet provider that gave us no end of fits. Our first option after we decided we had had enough of the local internet provider was satellite internet. It was a complete disaster. We tried two different providers of satellite internet and both had the same problem, outrageously tiny and expensive data allotments. 25GB for a month, which was the largest that anyone offered that served our area isn't enough for one person let alone a family. Forget streaming or downloading any kind of video on a regular basis. It will eat your data in a heart beat. You can buy extra GBs after you use your 25GB at $10-$15 per GB. So even if you use 25.15GB in a month, you will have to spend the extra $10 - $15 for a full GB, they will not pro-rate you. And that extra GB you paid for does not roll over to the next month. It is use it or lose it. The solution we found that works for us is cellular internet. Dh and I each have a pre-paid phone. Our plans are a little different from each other but both are relatively inexpensive for what we get (About $140 for both of us together). We are both allowed to tether our phones so cell phones serve as our wi-fi hotspots. Dh's plan is a grandfathered plan that has unlimited streaming video at 4G speeds. My plan has unlimited data usage but tethered data is at 3G speeds. That means for me, watching videos needs to be done on my phone or I just need to connect my computer to his phone to watch videos. I don't watch videos that often so it works for me. Simply surfing the internet works just fine on 3G speeds. I could change my plan to get unlimited 4G tethering but I would have to go to a month to month plan instead of prepaid for that and I don't want to give up prepaid. It works better for us financially to have the ability to just make do without phone service if money is tight rather than juggle late fees and past due balances. Any computer can be made wireless. It cost less than $30 each to add a wireless connection to our desktop computers. Also you can just use a USB cord to tether if you don't want to mess with adding wireless. I don't know if I'm allowed to mention our carrier that allows tethering (not all carriers do) but they are a national carrier with service just about everywhere, even in our little rural area with very limited coverage from most carriers. You can PM if you want more information on our carrier or cellular internet service in general. Frankly, unless we move somewhere with Google Fiber or something like that, I can't see us giving up our cellular internet, we really really like it. Edited June 14, 2018 by sweet2ndchance too early in the morning to proofread apparently 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mamamoose Posted June 14, 2018 Author Share Posted June 14, 2018 We don’t have cellular access. ? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweet2ndchance Posted June 14, 2018 Share Posted June 14, 2018 That stinks ☹️ If satellite is pretty much your only option then just watch your data usage like a hawk. Updates to their software on their router costs you data as well. We found that out when we left town for a week and took all the devices with us and we were charged for data even though the wi-fi was turned off while we were gone and no one was in or near our house (nearest neighbor is too far away to pick up our signal) It is not hard to run up a huge data bill on satellite internet. Shut off all automatic updates to software and only update as needed and as data allows. Like I said before video, even if you only stream it, will eat your data like no other. Limit video viewing or try to do it when you can get to a library or free wi-fi location (I know easier said than done when you live in the middle of no where. We would take our son to McD's 90 minutes away to use the wi-fi. Not terribly pleasant but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted June 14, 2018 Share Posted June 14, 2018 I do not watch TV very often but when I do, it is the news from the USA. I have seen TV commercials for a high speed Internet (via satellite) service. I think it is from Hughes, but it's been awhile and I am not sure about who the provider is. I think they had speeds around 25 Mbps Download. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mamamoose Posted June 14, 2018 Author Share Posted June 14, 2018 8 hours ago, sweet2ndchance said: That stinks ☹️ If satellite is pretty much your only option then just watch your data usage like a hawk. Updates to their software on their router costs you data as well. We found that out when we left town for a week and took all the devices with us and we were charged for data even though the wi-fi was turned off while we were gone and no one was in or near our house (nearest neighbor is too far away to pick up our signal) It is not hard to run up a huge data bill on satellite internet. Shut off all automatic updates to software and only update as needed and as data allows. Like I said before video, even if you only stream it, will eat your data like no other. Limit video viewing or try to do it when you can get to a library or free wi-fi location (I know easier said than done when you live in the middle of no where. We would take our son to McD's 90 minutes away to use the wi-fi. Not terribly pleasant but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.) I was told on the phone data is unlimited. Did I misunderstand? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweet2ndchance Posted June 15, 2018 Share Posted June 15, 2018 I would read the fine print very very carefully. I just looked around a bit at the current satellite internet plans out there and a lot of the plans I saw that offer "unlimited" data offered some small amount at high speed, around 25mbps which is what most people consider to be normal internet speeds any more, and then unlimited data at some snail speed of 1 - 2 mbps or something like that. That is an improvement over what they offered when we had satelllite internet but I'd still be leary. Videos will have to buffer constantly at the lower speed, latency is always pretty high with satellite internet but that is just the nature of the beast, .My best advice is to just make sure you read the fine print very carefully and make sure you understand exactly what you are getting in their unlimited plan. Are you getting unlimited high speed data or just unlimited data where some small amount of it is high speed and the rest is at some slower speed. What is the upper cap for data? Even unlimited plans have an upper cap where you will be told to watch your usage or risk being cut off. Most internet providers say only 1% of their customers ever reach that upper cap but we have reached that cap before just being a large family with several teenagers and lots of streaming. One provider had an upper limit of 1TB, another had an upper limit of 250GB, I've heard of some having 100GB or even 50GB upper limits on their unlimited plans. Even if you don't think you will ever reach it, it's good to know what it is. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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