pilot_in_fla
04-29-08, 11:32 AM
Starband is a satellite Internet provider along the lines of Hughsnet and Wild Blue. This service should be avoided. I have just had to terminate my account with them after almost 6 years. Over time, the service has gotten slower and slower. In the last few months, it has been only slightly better than dialup.
Recently, Starband has introduced limitations on downloads that affected me and will be likely to affect any user doing more than once a day email. If you use more than a certain amount of bandwidth (and you have no way of monitoring your usage in real time or verifying their numbers) your service is "throttled". Starband claims that they throttle you to twice the dial up rate (remember you are paying $69.99 per month) but in reality the throttled service is much slower. After repeated calls, Starband support admitted that they also limit the number of TCP connections as well but they didn't specify what that number is. The result is that a webpage like www.yahoo.com might take 5 minutes or more to load.
Don't expect anyone at Starband to sympathize with your plight. After being continuously throttled for more than two weeks (and having to use a dialin account for most of that time (like now), they were unwilling to grant me any relief.
AVOID STARBAND.
Ed
Recently, Starband has introduced limitations on downloads that affected me and will be likely to affect any user doing more than once a day email. If you use more than a certain amount of bandwidth (and you have no way of monitoring your usage in real time or verifying their numbers) your service is "throttled". Starband claims that they throttle you to twice the dial up rate (remember you are paying $69.99 per month) but in reality the throttled service is much slower. After repeated calls, Starband support admitted that they also limit the number of TCP connections as well but they didn't specify what that number is. The result is that a webpage like www.yahoo.com might take 5 minutes or more to load.
Don't expect anyone at Starband to sympathize with your plight. After being continuously throttled for more than two weeks (and having to use a dialin account for most of that time (like now), they were unwilling to grant me any relief.
AVOID STARBAND.
Ed