Anyone use DishNet internet?

My dad had DishNet but ended up cancelling it. It's pretty terrible as far as speeds go. If you have Cox, I would definitely stay with them.

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DishNet is pretty much the last resort internet service.

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Absolutely. They call it "high speed", and it may be reasonably fast once a download starts, but to understand why it's terrible you need to know how the internet (and physics) works.

When you go to a webpage, your browser first has to ask a DNS server where to find that particular website. That's one "round trip" request. Then it has to use that information to hit the actual site you want to go to. That's another round trip. Then a typical webpage contains links to tons of other resources (css files, javascript files, images), each of which requires another request.

Across the ground, whether via cable, dsl, or even dialup, these requests shouldn't have to travel more than about 12k miles (halfway around the world) one-way. Actually, most of these servers you will be visiting are in the US, so typically the distance is less than 3k miles. At the speed of light, a signal would take less than 40 milliseconds to make a round trip. This is called latency or the "ping" time. In reality, the signals travel a bit slower, and there are (very brief) stopping points along the way, and a typical ping time for me on cable internet is about 100ms or less.

Satellite internet signals have to travel up into space to hit the satellite, then travel back down to the ground, THEN travel along the surface like a typical land-based service, then travel back up to the satellite, then finally back down to your home. That is FOUR times the signal has to travel back/forth to space, and geostationary satellites have to orbit 22k miles high. That's 88k extra miles a satellite internet signal has to travel ON TOP OF the typical internet distances. Light can only travel 186k miles per second, so at the very least it adds 475ms to your ping times. Half a second might not seem like much, but it is an eternity on the internet, especially considering many requests require two or more of those round trips to really get things started.

There are "tricks" that they can do to reduce these times, but all in all the experience is pretty shitty. You absolutely cannot play real-time online games. On top of that, they have very small data caps so you can't really use Netflix or things like that very much, assuming the quality would be worth a shite anyway.


So, yeah, don't get satellite internet unless you have absolutely zero other choices. This might change in the future if someone launches a decent low earth orbit satellite network, but until then forget about satellite.

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Thoughts?

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No.

No!

NO!

I have Exede, only because there is no other option at the east end of E Feliciana Parish near the Amite River.

It's expensive. I get 18 GB of data/mo for about $100. You won't be gaming with it, or streaming anything.

If all you do is check email, and Facebook occasionally, you'll do OK, likely with an even smaller data allowance. I have it MAINLY so the wife and daughter can file their lesson plans, we can pay bills, etc.

If you have a wired option, take it. If you HAVE to have dish-delivered internet, use it for what it is. An occasional connection to the web, not something that keeps you in the stream of life.

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I have Exede, only because there is no other option at the east end of E Feliciana Parish near the Amite River.

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I wonder why nobody is starting up wireless ISPs in these areas

if you have cell phone service, that is another option.