I personally have Verizon fios and have never tried the satellite internet although I have Directv for tv and love it. But my nephew in Louisiana has internet through Direct tv and is very happy with it. My sister (his mother) was so impressed with his service she is now signed up with them also. They are in a rural area that has no DSL or cable and the dial up is horrible so this was about their only option also. I do not know who exactly Direct tv down there contracts with but they said the speeds are very good and the uptime is excellent. That is the extent of my knowledge on the subject.

Dish Network has partnered with WildBlue and they seem to have the best price from what I have found.

I am sticking with dailup - I'm too cheap to go another route :)

From what I have learned - and maybe this has changed - the "upload" speed on satellite is comparable to dailup. The "download" speed is better though. My friend has sat. internet, and it really isn't much better than my good dial up connection. I wouldn't pay 3X the price for that. I am sure results differ though.

i have satellite only alternative to dial up. Said, there would never be anything else available in my area. DSL is one road over from me. I have only had problems a couple of times with it being unavailable due to something being in the way and it was a very short time. I was on dial up and had a second phone line cause other wise phone would have been tied up all the time. So by the time i had paid for second phone line and the isp i was paying almost as much as i'm paying for the satellite. I did think it would be a little faster then it is but still a lot better then dial up. When they say it's through directv it's actually through hughes net and that's who your billed from. The bill is not in with your directv bill. You have to have a credit or debit card and it's taken out of that each month. They won't do it any other way. The initial cost is quite high but i'm paying something like $59 month. If you get it have a 2or 2½ pipe to put in ground if you don't or can't have it mounted on the house. They charged about $200 for the pipe and dug a hole to put it in. If we had known this we would have had the pipe here and dug out own hole. All and all it's still better then dial up.

I have had WildBlue over two years, and while it is a stretch to call it true "broadband", it certainly beats the slow dialup I suffered with before that. They run specials on installation, so your price there may vary. Most important is a good installation by an installer who knows what he's doing. I have the basic package, which is $49.95 per month, so it is a little cheaper than HughesNet. Both systems have their pros and cons. Both suffer from slowdowns during prime usage hours, but I understand cable does, too. When you have no other choice, it's certainly better than dialup. The biggest improvement for me is in downloads, especially large updates. I can also listen to streaming radio, which was impossible with my dialup. You Tube works just fine. Forget gaming or VOIP---won't work with satellite.

Before considering Wild Blue, you may want to read up about them. They were my worst nightmare in 2007.

They claimed to have tech support 24/7, yet more than once when I called I waited on hold for over an hour due, before giving up on them ever coming on to help me.

I had several outages in the first few days, and wasted hours upon hours for someone to answer.

The link below details the last straw, when I had them cancel my service (??) and I took the equipment down, boxed it all back up in the original packaging and returned it to them. Thankfully I still had all the boxes. I also got proof of delivery, and then in time was able to get the equipment charges removed from my credit card.

I had it installed June 2 2007. In this thread Wild Blue ISP-Beware! please see my posts on June 12th , when I first posted about my nightmare with them.

You might also want to check out: WildBluesucks.info

or Wild Blue Class Action Law Suit

Good luck in finding anything reliable at a good price without an expensive long contract. Be careful of those dotted lines and having to take the chance of paying for service you may never receive.

Sue

Here is a link that might be useful: Satellite receivers Wild Blue

Thanks everyone for your input. It hasn't made me want to contact either outfit.Quest DSL is 1/2 mile down my road. I was promised this back in Oct. but they seem to be balking,saying it would cause too much service on their part due to how far I'd be from main source.I guess I will just wait a while longer. I'll be outside & away from PC during the summer.Iris (another Iowa girl)

Iris, i too was told dsl would be available soon and it's now five years later and got tired of waiting so that's why i ended up going with satellite. We live on a gravel road with only four house and there all spread out so i knew chances were slim of the dsl.

I might add, I did end up getting high speed through the Electric Company in town. There was no contract, but I did have $500 initial expense of setting a 50' pole, so I could get a signal. It was either that or wait years for them to get additional towers out here in my area. Cost is $35 a month.

There has been talk also about high speed being provided by my Rural Electric Cooperative, though it is still in the experimental stages somewhere in the not so local area.

You might try asking at your electric company or Rural Cooperatives in your area. Note, the one I have linked to is CORP, and not 'the other' one found via Google with the 'corp' left off..

Sue

Here is a link that might be useful: Citizens Communications CORP