Recommended Tests

Was just wondering if there was any updates on the terrible latency/ping issues concerning wildblue internet connection? Was hoping somebody might have heard if they are trying to make it better.

I'll be switching to a different satellite provider here in a month when my contract ends with wildblue unless they are willing to start handing out the service I paid for.

Thanks, and my prayers go out to all you other wildblue customers.

Aye, I am on hughesnet now and just letting my wildblue contract run down till I can just cancel the service. I had to use the wildblue service for a few days last week because I had to have my hughesnet dish remounted and let me tell you, the difference was night and day, wildblue will never compete at the rate they are going. My pings on hughesnet almost never exeed 750 and never exeed 800 for any reason and as a contrast my wildblue pings never do better than 1200 and seldom better than 2000. Also even with the HN7000S modem my speeds are usually above my service level and never more than 20% slower than my service level so that proves it can be done, wildblue just doesnt care about anything but the money, that has to be it.
When you switch services, if I were you and if you are going to hughesnet I would do my best to spend the extra cash and get the power pack to get the bigger dish and the 2 watt transmitter. I have had both the normal residential system back when it was DirecWay and now the bigger system and this dish puts the smaller one to shame when it comes to wind and weather interferance. Also some claim that it won't make any difference on spped and pings but the trouble shooter guy I had out the other day said that it really doesnt make any difference on speed but that if you do your homework you will see that it does make a difference on pings. Just remember that if you do switch to hughesnet that you will still get rotten service with peeps reading from a script, is best to establish a relationship with a good installer if possible. Also I want to add that if you do get the power pack, find the spot on hughesnet.com that tells what is included with the power pack setup because if you are like me the installer will try to charge you for a pole mount and pole mounts are included with the power pack. That way you can show him when he arrives to do the install, from what I was told the installers or alot of them dont even know that is suppose to be included at no extra charge.

When you have paid so much for the dish and equipment on Wildblue, is it worth it to pay again for Hughes dish and equipment.  My contract with Wildblue runs out next month and I am looking for a cheaper plan.  It seems that rural areas are penalized because the DSL, etc. is not offered and what is offered is very, very expensive -- and slow.

Ahh the new fap isnt as bad as people make it sound. You can still use a download manager and avoid it altogether and as long as you think ahead and subscribe to a plan that will cover most of your downloads it isn't a bad deal. I personally still like this fap compared to wildblue's myself and I love my pings. As for it being worth buying new equipment? Well that would be up to you I guess. It was for me but I am rather picky.

EVDO is a broadband connection over cellular. It is usually around 800k-1mb+ and has uploads ranging from 300k-900k. The ping times if your lucky can sneak under 100ms. The key to having good speed and good latency is to get a strong signal. If it is weak then you may want to get an antenna and maybe even a booster, because it will help your connection substantially. Also steer clear of Verizon EVDO because they have a nasty 5GB bandwidth cap on their so called "unlimited" and they will cut you off for good if you go over it. Sprint and Alltell should be fine. You can look at Sprint's coverage maps here ---> http://www1.sprintpcs.com/explore/coverage/CoverageOverview.jsp?ATR_ExtraOne=chp_sprint_plans

Oh you mean Wildblue got rid of thier indian tech support? Must have been after I canceled out cause I dealt with them till I was about to scream when I was on there. I guess I must be fortunate on the ticket side, in the year I had hughes before and the 6 months I have had it this time they have always been very timely on my calls but I know some have troubles with em.

Thas a possibility, I never thought of that but rest assured even if I am routed to a higher class of tech support they are mostly still in India, I have gotten US peeps once or twice though but I am sure it was a fluke more than common. And I hope for all of your sakes that wildblue did go all American.