Wildblue: Does anyone know what's going on?

Hello, we have WildBlue and are having problems.  

My husband works for HP and can work from home.  We live in the country and can not get DSL or Cable.  We have WB satellite, and when we first got WB for about three months it was wonderful.  But now when he hooks up to the HP system, his connection becomes slower then dial-up.  

We have talked to all the techs at WildBlue more then once but because our speeds are good when not connected to HP they can not help us.  Not sure why they were great for three months and now super slow??

Is there something we can buy or do to help get faster connections to HP?  Thanks for you time.

thank you Greg,

Any ideas why it would be great for a few months and now is super slow.  What would cause the change?

Assuming the performance problem is associated with the VPN, you might suggest your husband ask if his company supports SSL-VPNs.   He probably has an IPSec VPN, and because the original TCP data is packaged in a new VPN "envelope" the acceleration techniques used by broadband satellite vendors won't work.  

SSL-VPNs encrypt the data, but leave the original TCP headers alone so that the acceleration techniques continue to operate properly.

I have no familiarity with WB, but I was involved in the original DirecWay rollout and what happened was the first users got great service until more sites were added and the system became saturated.  Because these systems always start with huge debt, the providers are unwilling to add more bandwidth until the system starts to show profitability.  

However, since you indicated in your orginal post that the performance is satisfactory when connected to sites other than HP, the chances are pretty good that this is a VPN issue.  

If HP wants to keep IPSec VPN software on the employee PCs, and if they have enough employees using VSAT services to justify it - then you can have your husband direct HP to Packeteer who bought a company called Mentat some time ago.  Mentat makes a solution to accelerate TCP on the user's PC before it hits the VPN software, but it requires an appliance at the HP site, as well as licensing fees for each PC using it.  

Another solution, if HP is willing to consider it, is to take the VPN software off the PC, and use an appliance from Encore Systems called the Bandit.  One box is required at the remote site and the data center.  It operates similar to an SSL-VPN, insofar as it encrypts the data, but leaves the TCP headers alone, so the acceleration techniques work properly.  

I'm just thinking out loud here, and have no idea if this will work, but it just occured to me.  A possible solution is to use a product called GoToMyPC and have your husband use that to remotely access his PC in his office which can connect to the HP network at full speed.  I believe that the GTMPC product uses SSL for security, so the TCP Acceleration should work.  It basically echoes the screen and keyboard to your PC at home, while the actual data connection is between the office PC and office network.  If someone tries this and it works, please post the results.

Along the same lines, you might have him check and see if HP supports Citrix, which could also provide a similar capability.  

Good luck, you aren't the first to encounter VPN performance issues over satellite.  The best and simplest solution is probably an SSL-VPN as this connection operates very much like a secure credit card transaction on a web site - and I'm sure that works fine on WB.

Pat

A proxy server is in the path only if
a. the WildBlue Optimizer utility has been run on the affected PC, or
b. if a proxy server is manually entered into the browser/VPN client connection properties.

If either of the above applies, the proxy path can be bypassed by removing the server address from the appropriate connection properties. Maybe even by uninstalling the Optimizer, but I wouldn't count on that.

//greg//

No experiance with your service but-
I use the Hughesnet with static IP, 7700 modem, VAR 512/2mb and also iDirect 350/1mb service at two sites.
These are at the remote sites.
The office runs Ms 2003 small business server & firewall for cable connection to internet.
We run a Enterprise2003 server with Citrix Presentation server ver.4 to lower bandwidth requirements and latency reduction for remote clients.
Clients establish a VPN connection to SBs server, then run Citrix to connect to a VMware Win98 machine to access old NT4  sever running as a VM server.
A complicated arrangement, all aimed at providing dialup type speeds and responses to eliminate long distance $$$ charges from outside the US.
Our project is successful, but will never exceed dialup speeds, unless we invest in another investment in VPN acceleration appliances on each end for another 5-10K.
Citrix works very well to reduce bandwidth requirements and help offset latency affects. We are happy with dialup speeds and no long distance charges of $800 a month.

Tom

I don't think your statement is accurate.

I've been installing WB for about a year so far and I have not found any problems with the service. I have over 100 customers so far and believe or not, no one has cancelled their service.

I have had problems with the service. For example, the most common is a bad tria. They have failed a lot lately.

If you have the service and you're getting a slow connectivity please call wildblue and schedule a service call. Ask your installer to replace the tria and try it immediately. The connectivity will become faster and you will enjoy the service again.

It's true, WildBlue has been very succesful and they over crowded the satellite but they suspended installations immediately. It was approximately in March 27th when they release installations with the new satellite WildBlue-1. Try it and please let me know at gcservices@wildblue.net and if you have further questions please don't hesitate and drop a line or two.

Regards,

Gil