SatSig topic:

alternative to SkyDSL?

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Aug 18^th, 2008 at 6:51pm

I'm a long suffering user of SkyDSL. Now I don't want to criticize too much as they have provided the service they advertised. But I am tired of the telephone uplink, sat down scenario.

We have TRAC Digital telephone (Telefonica Spain), which is basically a Sony Ericsson mobile phone screwed to the wall and charged at landline rates. All well and good, but no ADSL.

I've investigated 3g internet via Vodaphone, but we are out of 3g coverage. Otherwise, the price is directly competitive.

Now I'm wondering if there is an affordable 2-way satellite solution out there.

Aug 18^th, 2008 at 10:43pm

See this page: satellite internet service providers for Europe for some names of companies who can help you.

Hughes HX (Ku band) and Tooway™ (Ka band) services have been getting favourable reports recenty. Regarding affordability, satellite is generally far more expensive to provide than terrestrial methods. Satellite service costs about $70 per 10kbit/s per month. So, a service at about $70 per month provides 10kbits/s, when averaged out over the month. In shared systems your short term bit rates are typically between 200k and 2Mbit/s download. If you want more total Mbytes throughput you need to pay more. Your experience with SkyDSL is important. Would you have been happier if you had paid more and had more Mbytes per day ?

Best regards, Eric.

Jun 30^th, 2009 at 7:36pm

The problem with the two solutions above is that they are residential consumer solutions (including their "business" solutions) with high over-subscription ratio's which means that the service is more akin to dial-up. Look at iDirect if you want to invest in a solution that actually has QOS.