It started with the magazine article I read in the dentist’s office about two-way satellite Internet connections. It was obvious that a cable company was never going to come to Becket and that even if Verizon got around to dropping a DSLAM into town we were still too far from the CO to make it work. ISDN was too expensive, stupid, and slow. My back was up against the wall. I connected from home on a good day at 31kbs and Val and the kids were ready to kill each other over connect time. I needed broadband and it better work across the network. Ah, satellite- it always seemed too expensive and the original implementation from Direcway where your uplink was via modem and your downstream connection was via satellite seemed, well, flawed. And the FAP policy that limits the amount you could download seemed you know, facist or something. Then I read the article about the promise of StarBand- the first two way system- "all you need is a view of the southern sky and the Internet is yours…" Still, the installation was about $800.00 and the monthly fee was about $80.00. Pretty steep at the time. Besides, I had a T1 with the full 1.5 mbs throughput at the office- I barely connected at home- but the kids were getting desperate. Then sometime this Spring the flyer from Direcway came. The install price was down and the monthly fee was down. If I cancelled the AOL account and another web ISP I’d grown out of it would only be an increase of about 25 dollars a month. I read and re-read the flyer from Direcway over and over again. "All you need is a view of the Southern sky…"
I called a local installer asking about Direcway. He never explained that Hughes virtually owned the skies and advised me that the best software was with Pegasus — much better than Direcway, Earthlink or anyone else. OK sounds good to me. Of course, Pegasus doesn’t offer the cheaper installation or cheaper monthly fee that Direcway does but hey, for better software…
The day arrives for my installation. The installers get out of the truck, look around and look very worried. Seems that "a view of the Southern sky" isn’t quite all you need. You need to have a 40 degree view of the sky. My property is surrounded by beautiful, tall stands of Oak, Birch, and Maple. The installer wants to know if I would consider chopping any trees down to assure a good signal…I’m not interested in this so they attempt a roof installation anyway and low and behold it works! The installer tells me that an acceptable signal strength is about 60 to 75 however when the signal only comes in at 40 — 45 I’m told that that’s good too. But what do I care- I have Broadband in the middle of nowhere! And it runs on the network too — well sort of.
My first attempt to run it on the network was with the Vicomsoft Intergate software router. The Intergate router is a true software IP router which I wanted to use because I didn’t want to mess with proxy servers of any kind and I had heard just awful things about Windows Internet Connection Sharing software. I had a couple of Macs and a couple of XP boxes on the network so I thought the router would be best, after all I thought, IP is IP. Boy was I wrong. It seems that IP isn’t implemented on the satellite network quite like it is anywhere else. Your USB satellite adapter (which thinks it’s an Ethernet adapter once installed) gets a unique IP address from the Hughes Network Operations Center. "Hughes?" You ask, "I thought this was Pegasus"- well it turns out that it’s all Hughes. Pegasus, Earthlink etc. is just how they divide up the tech support and email services. What one must remember is that it’s all Hughes- the hardware, the NOC, the software, the whole nine yards. Anyway, The IP router wants me to unbind local IP from the satellite adapter. This turns off the satellite connection, causes the software to balk and in short becomes a real mess. Finally I get a "working" configuration where all the nodes are finding the Internet but the Host can’t access the Internet. Also, the clients get half the throughput of the host on a good day. So I go to the Pegasus site for some help- guess what? Nothing- nothing there, nothing at Direcway, nothing at Earthlink, no technical help at all. I finally stumble on the satellite forum at DSLreports.com and find out that I haven’t really lost my mind at all. There are others beside me that fight these systems on a daily basis. Courageous souls who are willing to earn their broadband, not just a bunch of sissies who hook up a cable modem and a router and avoid all types of exciting system maintenance . Anyway, thanks to the other brave souls on the forum I chuck The Vicomsoft software, suck it in, put up a new win2k host with Internet connection sharing, tweak the hell out of it and voila- broadband heaven! 1.5 — 2.2 mbs on the download (56k up but who cares, I can upload at work). Everyone is happy on the network- the XP boxes get 1.5 easy, the Macs barely get 512kps but hell- 512 at home? Complain about that, I dare you…
Well, the fun was just beginning. I didn’t mention how cloud cover and rain (over your location as well as the Hughes NOC) can shut you down. I didn’t go on about how Pegasus was soon sold to Earthlink and I was sold with them. I didn’t mention how my transmitter died after 4 months and Hughes kept telling me that reinstalling the software would fix it (it didn't and they did eventually get me a new transmitter). I didn’t mention how the Earthlink people weren’t sure if I still had a lifetime guarantee since I was no longer a Pegasus customer (turns out I do, duh...). And of course my original installer tells me that now Direcway has the best software and when I get this mess with the transmitter fixed maybe I should switch…
Satellite broadband- not for the feint of heart. When it works it is unbelievably cool- when it’s down, it is unbelievably frustrating. I never thought I would long for the day when I could stare at the HyperTerminal screen and bring up the command line to configure a Cisco 1700 series router. Satellite has made me appreciate the consistency of a good old dependable hard wire. But like all good things, there’s no turning back now- out here on the top of this mountain this system needs me and I need it.