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Hello, ive been a Starband user for over three years now. At first i thought the internet i had was fast untill dsl and cable internet came around and got faster and faster while satalite internet got slower and slower. So, i was wondering, i havent changed my dish in over the three years ive had it. Would getting a new satalite dish speed up my internet at all?

NO

Your provider and the weather will control your speed.

When we originally got satellite it was because it was all that was available, and I'm not sure, but for him it may still be all that is available.

Cable is (right now) the way to got if your provider has decent prices and speeds.

sat sucks but its better than dialup where cable and dls does not reach.no vontage either or online play

don't forget that any sat service has inherently long pings due to the fact that you're bouncing your packets off a geosynchronous bird.

Actually you will gain a lot by switching to wildblue.

::::::::::.. Download Stats ..::::::::::
Connection is:: 1561 Kbps about 1.6 Mbps (tested with 2992 kB)
Download Speed is:: 191 kB/s
Tested From:: http://testmy.net/ (server2)
Test Time:: Sun Dec 04 2005 06:04:27 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
Bottom Line:: 28X faster than 56K 1MB download in 5.36 sec
Diagnosis: Looks Great : 18.8 % faster than the average for host (212.22)
Validation Link:: http://testmy.net/stats/id-0MTOPYBSI

::::::::::.. Upload Stats ..::::::::::
Connection is:: 209 Kbps about 0.2 Mbps (tested with 579 kB)
Upload Speed is:: 26 kB/s
Tested From:: http://testmy.net/ (server1)
Test Time:: Sun Dec 04 2005 06:05:30 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
Bottom Line:: 4X faster than 56K 1MB upload in 39.38 sec
Diagnosis: Awesome! 20% + : 33.97 % faster than the average for host (212.22)
Validation Link:: http://testmy.net/stats/id-VTIXZRMJB


Pinging yahoo.com [216.109.112.135] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 216.109.112.135: bytes=32 time=673ms TTL=49
Reply from 216.109.112.135: bytes=32 time=704ms TTL=49
Reply from 216.109.112.135: bytes=32 time=701ms TTL=49
Reply from 216.109.112.135: bytes=32 time=671ms TTL=49

Ping statistics for 216.109.112.135:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 671ms, Maximum =  704ms, Average =  687ms


Equipment - $299.00
Install - FREE
Monthly fee - $79.95
Contract - One year

But you better get it quick. The beams are filling up fast.

WebUser - have you used both starband and wildblue? 

For years starband said that ftp and secure sites wouldn't work well over satellite because of the latency. Yet somehow the day I switched from starband to wildblue, no more problems. With starband I would drop to dialup to ftp or whenever I had to load more than a few pages of a secure site. Over starband ftp would fail when trying to upload multiple directories 1/3 of the time requiring retry after retry.

With wildblue, ftp directory listings are twice as fast as dialup (slower to swtich but much much faster to get the listing), and there are no more failures when uploading dozens of files in dozens of directories.

Secure sites load great - again much faster than dialup and much much faster than starband.

Raw download speed is also significantly faster than with starband, upload speed is many times faster so there is no comparison, and browsing has been reliable whereas with starband there were periods of the red-x problem and the constant need to toggle their proxy.

Due to the latency satellite will always feel more like a truck than a sports car like cable or dsl, and will never be as snappy as cable or dsl, but at least for my use (4 1/2 years with starband and since September with wildblue) Wildblue certainly is a significant improvement over starband. I have not a single regret about making the switch other than I wish wildblue had been available sooner

Download Connection is:: 1491 Kbps about 1.5 Mbps (tested with 1544 kB)
Download Speed is:: 182 kB/s
Tested From:: http://testmy.net/ (Main)
Test Time:: 2008/10/25 - 5:15pm
Bottom Line:: 26X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 5.63 sec
Tested from a 1544 kB file and took 8.483 seconds to complete
Download Diagnosis:: Awesome! 20% + : 60.32 % faster than the average for host (wildblue.net)
D-Validation Link:: http://testmy.net/stats/id-JRP2TMFZ0
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092417 Firefox/3.0.3 [/size]

Upload Connection is:: 202 Kbps about 0.2 Mbps (tested with 1496 kB)
Upload Speed is:: 25 kB/s
Tested From:: http://testmy.net/ (Main)
Test Time:: 2008/10/25 - 5:18pm
Bottom Line:: 4X faster than 56K 1MB Upload in 40.96 sec
Tested from a 1496 kB file and took 60.779 seconds to complete
Upload Diagnosis:: Awesome! 20% + : 30.32 % faster than the average for host (wildblue.net)
U-Validation Link:: http://testmy.net/stats/id-T38OMYC6D
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092417 Firefox/3.0.3 [/size]