SatSig topic:

Internet access at no charge ?

(Read 17464 times)

Jul 4^th, 2011 at 9:35pm

A friend of mine has been bragging for years that he gets free satellite internet via a 10' dish in his back yard. He has shown off the connection speed and all even brags about how he doesn't have a bandwidth cap because he's getting it free...

I recent moved into a house with an old 10' dish that has a C and Ku cone on it and was wondering how do I get this free satellite internet. My friend won't reveal how he does it.

Jul 5^th, 2011 at 12:56am

Quote:

My friend wont reveal how he does it.

Because in all likelihood he's been pullin' your chain. No such thing as "free" internet. It's much more likely that he's pirating an unsuspecting neighbors unencrypted wireless router signal.

//greg//

Aug 20^th, 2013 at 5:25am

Yeah... i haven't heard of such free internet.

I expect a lot while clicking this thread...

Nov 10^th, 2013 at 7:40pm

I imagine he gets free lunch too.

Nov 11^th, 2013 at 12:33pm

Years agoooooooooo (very long time) I listened about a "free" satellite internet.

It consist in listening the satellite communications and capturing the data traveling between the satellite and the earth... but you can't transmit anything, just READ, LISTEN the waves, and decode it, and.... if any is interesting for you... save it.... a software, or something like that......

But this "free" internet is for enjoying, for learn, is not useful.

Second, many many persons, thinks.... antenna = satellite.

I am installing satellite in Spain, in the farms, away from the cities and the people always say me. Here nothing, no coverage.. I reply: This is satellite.... you won't need coverage from traditional ISP. I they said: I get an antenna before and no coverage, the satellite suck.... but they are thinking in wimax, 3g, gprs, etc etc and they think.... antenna = satellite.... maybe your friend is confused...

Feb 6^th, 2014 at 12:31pm

Well Kindle 3G/4G uses the Sprint network and allows users to use about 50MB's of data for free per month. It's also possible to turn your kindle into a hotspot allowing laptop's and phones to use the free 3G functionality almost anywhere for free. (within Europe and America at least) -I don't know if the 50MB's is enforced or not.

I'm not too sure about the legality of the technique - and as far as I know you need a kindle to get the connected goodness. not sure.

Feb 6^th, 2014 at 1:53pm

Ain't nothin free about Kindle + internet. To start with, the c******t Kindle HDX with 4G costs $299 up front. So that pops the "free" bubble, right outa the chute. Second, Amazon dumped Sprint. You simply can't get a (new) Sprint-enabled Kindle from them anymore. Choice is limited to AT&T or Verizon. Third, the internet part ain't free either. After spending $299 up front, you then have to shell out a monthly subscription rate to the service provider:
AT&T:
o Mobile Share is $10/month to add your Kindle Fire HD to an existing AT&T voice and data plan.
o Individual data plan options currently are:
o $14.99/mo for 250MB
o $30/mo for 3GB
o $50/mo for 5GB
Verizon
o Share Everything is $10/month to add your Kindle Fire HD to an existing Verizon voice and data plan.
o Individual data plan options currently are:
o $20/mo for 1GB
o $30/mo for 2GB
o $50/mo for 5GB
o $80/mo for 10GB

Moral of the story remains; "no such thing as free internet"

//greg//

Feb 6^th, 2014 at 4:24pm

Wow I'm glad I don't live in the States, my kindle cost me about $80 and most of the books i have are freely available on the net. Contracts are evil.

Also I've never understood what people are meant to do with 3G/4G style things. I mean most places have wifi... do people need a connection so badly they can't wait for the next hotspot? Also connectivity's really expensive in the US, I hear it's cheap in the UK. I mean most company's do unlimited wifi enabled internet for about $7 a month or something.

Feb 6^th, 2014 at 6:10pm

Don't know where you live or where you even hear this stuff, most of it is simply not true (in the USA). First of all, nearly all American internet is metered nowadays. Pretty much the only folks who have unlimited accounts are those still grandfathered under older accounts . And $7/mo won't even buy the smallest of allowances under todays regular consumer data plans. In this country anyway.

There is in fact a very limited selection (https://www.cheapinternet.com/free-internet) of "free" basic internet, but it's government subsidized. You have to already be on SSI, welfare, Medicaid, food stamps, that sort of thing. Note the miniscule data allowances. Next tier of government subsidized broadband starts at $9.95/mo, again with pretty restrictive data allowances. The concept of unlimited free high speed internet in 2014 - in the US at least - is simply that. A concept.

Regarding your 3G/4G question, you're talking the smartphone generation. Hardly an iPhone or Android phone out there is not 4G anymore. Only the deep discount second and third tier providers are offering 3G devices anymore. In lesser numbers there is the tablet generation. For some of them it's their only large(r) screen access to the internet. No PC at home, no klunky laptop to lug around anymore. Their entire internet connectivity revolves around having access to the internet 24/7. That means using 3G/4G cell phone access in the absence of a WiFi signal.

I'm no spring chicken (65 years old), but I've graduated into 4G myself. My wireless desktop at home connects to the internet via a 4G router/modem. It connects with any of the four 4G cell phone towers that cover my area, automatically picking the one that has the strongest signal at any given hour. I replaced my laptop with an iPad4, but it's strictly a WiFi device. Away from home, I have to rely on free hotspots. But between those hotspots, I have 4G internet access via my iPhone5.

That's just how things are done these days.

//greg//

Feb 12^th, 2014 at 3:52pm

Hi Greg,

Thanks for clearing some of that up. At the moment we do pay less than $5 a month for our broadband, but we also pay about $25 dollar a month line rental which I guess you probably don't pay for. I stream HD video about 3 - 5 hours a day and we sometimes have 3 people using the net at once. It is unlimited bandwith as far as I know (never had a problem) and I do sometimes download games that are a few GB's. (the biggest games being about 5 gb's.)

Personally I still like my laptop, but also have the internet on my Xbox connected to the TV for movies and we still use normal computers too. In my mind at least tablets and phones are toys and for communication, where as computers are more for work.

Thanks for your comments on the 3G/4G issue too. I've never used either in my life.

Feb 12^th, 2014 at 4:01pm

Also I'm from the UK just to let you know. The price of new technology's about 10% or 20% more expensive than in the US and most of Europe, so I guess cheaper internet sort of makes up for that. Also the $5 a month Unlimited broadband (+$25 line rental) is from TalkTalk ( https://sales.talktalk.co.uk/ )

It probably balances out in the end.

Feb 12^th, 2014 at 4:26pm

Can I add we get about 900 TV channels free on freesat too, but only really watch about 20 of them. (saying that we pay about £145.50, or 240 dollars a year for a TV licence, but that pays for the BBC, which in theory is independent of government or corporate influence, Most TV in the UK's free other than the licence fee.)

Feb 12^th, 2014 at 6:18pm

Quote:

The price of new technology's about 10% or 20% more expensive than in the US and most of Europe, so I guess cheaper internet sort of makes up for that.

I've lived in Germany, Italy, and Scotland. The rule of thumb that I learned on the ground is; what cost a dollar in America, cost a pound in the UK. A good chunk of that is your smothering taxation. I guess when it's so close to you, it's hard to see. But what you shell out to Inland Revenue helps subsidize a lot of those "low" prices you cite. I guess you could consider the taxation as "pre-payment" against services.

//greg//

Feb 13^th, 2014 at 3:40pm

Well you could be right about the higher tax rates in some areas, certainly at the higher end Brits do pay more tax. My income's very low so I pay 0% income tax (Under $18,000 a year and income tax = 0%).

I also feel Brit's generally get much better public services though than in the US. Free (at the point of use) healthcare without insurance obviously saves a lot of money, unlimited non-refundable jobseekers allowance, tax credits, free or low cost easily available accommodation, interest free loans and grants are available to everyone enabling everyone to go to university (even without any money), and colleges pay students to go.

Bank accounts are free, dental care's free, or partly subsidised, museums and art galleries are also free and there's generally more benefits available, so I do think the poorest people are better off here and there's far more social mobility meaning the crime rates lower and ambitious people can achieve and have high life expectations.

There are problems too, but I feel the US would benefit if it was fairer and everyone could get a great affordable education (to fill the US's huge skills gap). The average income in the US and the UK's also the same so there's not that much difference.

Feb 13^th, 2014 at 3:56pm

I do hate some of the taxes, especially the tax on wine. in Spain I pay about 70 cents, or about a dollar for a good bottle of wine. In the UK a bottle of wine's about $5 a bottle or more! Absolutely outrageous!

I also know gas prices are much higher in the UK, but luckily my dads a driver so transport's cheaper for us. Scotlands very similar to England price wise. I know foods less expensive in the US, especially corn and such; The cost of meat's been going up a lot lately, especially last year, but at least the minimum wage is about $11 an hour, (Not that this governments enforcing that too much).

Full time workers in the UK get a month and a half's paid holiday, better maternity and paternity cover, etc, and it's a bit harder for CEO's to fire people, so thats something atleast.

Feb 13^th, 2014 at 7:15pm

Sounds like you're too young to have experienced the scrapie and foot&mouth panics in the late 80s/early 90s. Unless you grew and trusted your own, collective mistrust ran available meat prices into the stratosphere. Fortunately I ran a few sheep myself, so my freezer was not bare.

//greg//

Feb 19^th, 2014 at 10:20am

I remember foot and mouth, but the EU's response to it has been very disproportionate. It's now illegal in the EU to feed kitchen scraps to farm animals, even for small holdings! Feeding a pig on your leftover pastor's a million miles away from feeding vegetarian cows other cows brains (which is going to cause problems).

Still in the UK we have a problem that hardly any of our meats traceable to it's source, (apart from locally produced meat, etc). I have no doubt I've eaten horse, human and other kinds of mystery meats in my time. Mind you the US has had more food scandals driven, in part by the lower food prices, I heard McDonalds and the like used to use that wonderful pink sludge which is about as healthy as the name suggests,

Here they do add liquid to some meats to make them look bigger, treat meats with ammonia, bleach and carbon monoxide to correct the colour, and there are many MSG derivatives in quite a few packaged foods that aren't labeled as such. Monsanto's GM/GMO foods are generally altered to withstand incredible amounts of pesticides and to grow in completely dead soil, a lot of food contains very low levels of nutrition and very few micronutrients; it's said human breast milk is the food with the highest levels of pesticides, but it's still healthier than the alternatives and does still raise the child's IQ.

In Galicia the food is so darn tasty! It's a shame the UK's lost it's farm culture.

-------------------------

Anyway on a totally unrelated subject over the next 50 years we'll see the gradual decline of the developed world, with every recession taking more and more, and every boom delivering less. I think global petroleum reserves have been greatly overestimated and that we may see some sharp declines, especially in Saudi Arabia and other countries world wide; I think we'll see ever worsening weather conditions and an increase in natural disasters cause by climate change and we'll also see the extraction of other resources start to fall as they also become exhausted. Populations around the world will continue to grow exponentially demanding more and more, which will mean competition will be much higher driving up costs and production won't be able to keep up. Every year the amount of arable farmland shrinks, the levels of pollutants rise, the demand for everything rises, poverty right now is rising faster than the global population, real terms wages have been stagnant for all but the rich and many people know this unsustainable system won't last forever. Mankind's lived on this planet for millions of years, so 50 or 100 years is nothing but I really think many people are facing a pretty awful future.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the future.

Feb 19^th, 2014 at 11:33am

Good contribution. I like it.

I have the view that the UK should have a population policy aimed at a pleasant very gradual reduction, -0.2% year on year for next 100 years. I'm hoping to avoid an unpleasant and much more rapid decline.

Feb 19^th, 2014 at 2:47pm

I totally agree with your point, a -0.2% would be useful. I don't think economic measurements are useful, obviously if you have more people in the UK they will produce more product, (GDP), but that tells you nothing about how happy the people are, or how prosperous individuals are, it tells you nothing really.

I also agree that the UK's not sustainable with our currant population, and I'm not sure we can continue importing 60% of our food indefinitely; It just doesn't seem sensible.