“With a Dish, Broadband Goes Rural”
Quoted from Free Press which reprinted from The New York Times; this is a fair and balanced article which while it does tout the benefits of satband for those of us without other options, also points out the downsides without pretending that’s all there is to it.
Due to where I live (far southwestern Utah, closer to Las Vegas than SLC, and at 7000 feet behind a huge “magnet” of a laccolith), satband is my only option other than dialup. It’s pretty hard these days to run a web design and management business over dialup…. Enter WildBlue - and an installer in our area.
Yes, it’s $50 a month. However, I was already looking at having to order a second phone line specifically for ‘net access; Qwest was going to add over $30 a month to my phone bill (by the time they charge you twice for all the taxes, fees, etc. - it’s PER LINE, you know). And going satband meant so much more speed than dialup…. honestly, there was no real decision to be made.
The situation here is that we’ve only 40 full-time families. We’re 40 miles from the nearest cable hub. Any discussion of cable, dsl etc. with the providers in the last few years has ended up with the statement “well, if you can get us 2500 customers who’ll agree to a year of service AND pay $2k up front, we can bring broadband to you - in about 2 years.” In other words, a cold day in hell….
So satband is really our only option. The local installer set up a “valley net” in the lower end of town, but I’m so far up the mountain that I’d have had to pay for a separate antenna/receiver “special setup” anyway so after trying a couple of things that didn’t work very well, he and I talked it over and decided my own dish with WildBlue was the best way to go - it’s only $15 a month more than the others in the valley pay for the “munged” network they all share. AND I don’t have to wait on anyone to clean the snow off the dish…. I just do it myself.
I’m happy; my clients are happy; the other 39 families in town are happy. And the cable providers won’t have to worry about us…. What’s not to love?
