anybody have experience with this outfit?

[Michael Hipp]

dep wrote:

> http://www.direcway.com
> 
> i'm contemplating a move to a place where there's no cable, no dsl. this 
> appears to be the lone alternative. almost sounds too good to be true. 
> anybody know about these guys?

I'm unfortunately close to being an expert on DirecWay. I had it at home 
for 2.5 years.

Satellite is the pseudo-broadband of last choice. No-one in their right 
mind would want it if they could get cable, dsl or wireless. But it is a 
dream compared to dial-up.

The newer hardware versions of DirecWay work much better than the old 
windows-only software version. Their box fairly well approximates a 
decent consumer router.

Things you need to know:
- For the consumer version ( approx $60/month) there is a FAP limit 
(Fair Access Protocol) that caps you at 169MB of download before they 
throttle you back to near nothing.
- The ping times will be 800ms - 2000ms (yes, you read that right). The 
latency up to the bird and back make it near useless for things that 
require high interactivity (games, SSH, VNC, etc.)
- Hughes is a cesspool when it comes to technical support and billing. 
Tech support is in India and their billing dept can't get anything right.
- The system must be "professionally" installed. Which means they will 
send a $3/hour flunkie to drill holes in your house and not ground it 
according to spec and know nothing about software much less Linux. The 
good news is that you'll never see him again since they will send a 
different flunkie next time.
- Service is dependent on the weather in three places: a) your house, b) 
whatever is southwest of your house, and c) Germantown, MD where the 
Hughes NOC is located.
- It gets pretty good download speeds. 100KB/sec is fairly normal. Can 
even be more.
- Upload speeds are like dial-up. 3KB/sec is normal.
- These people will become your best friends: 
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/sat . I'm BigCreek there, even tho I 
don't visit there much anymore. You'll have to learn a lot more about 
satellite than you ever wanted to.
- There is a FAQ for tuning Linux to cope with the high latency time: 
http://www.dslreports.com/faq/4554 . Most versions of Linux I've tried 
are essentially non-functional without this tuning.
- The consumer version of DirecWay puts you behind an impenetrable NAT. 
You will have a private (10.x.y.z) address, no port forwarding or DMZ is 
possible. Some applications that depend on your having a public address 
(even a dynamic one) simply won't work. And you can't host any form of a 
server.
- To get a static (public) IP address means you must upgrade to the Pro 
version for $90 per month.
- The up-front cost is typically $600-700 for install plus hardware. It 
includes an 18-month service contract that Hughes *will* enforce.
- Hughes' pop, smtp and proxy servers are so unreliable it defies 
description. You can bypass their pop and smtp servers but not the proxy 
servers.

I abandoned my home office and am now renting an office in town just so 
I could get rid of the satellite. I now have ADSL from SBC for a lower 
price and 10x better service.

Before you go with satellite, check, double-check, and triple-check 
several more times that cable, dsl or fixed wireless are not available. 
See if you and some neighbors could go together for a T-1 and share it. 
Find a buddy that can get dsl and put in a p-t-p wireless to his house. 
Exhaust all options beforehand.

Then, get satellite as it beats dial-up eight ways to Sunday. Also check 
out Wild Blue and Starband.

Michael