DirecWay

[Neutron]

What do yall think of DirecWay? I'm ditching our cable internet because the cable company (Insight Comm) can't fix anything, they just love to blame my equipment (modem and router) for the problem. DSL is out of the question because the way they have our phone lines done, I'm in town but 31,000 feet out. ISDN is too expensive, and I really don't want to go back to dial up and get a max of 28.8

I've been looking at Satellite Internet because wireless internet isn't available to us either. Does anyone here have DirecWay?

 

[Stargazer]

If you get satellite internet there will be around an 8 second delay in voice if you use the internet to make phone calls or to voice chat, and you would have some bad ping times which makes it bad for gaming. It is not as fast as cable internet that is fast as 1 MB or 2 MB. Dish Network is coming out with two-way satellite internet next year that will have free hardware and service for under $40 a month.

There is also a new service called Sky Way that has just started that offers one-way internet access where you send the information back through the phone line but makes downloading quick and you would not have the lag times as bad with the voice and gaming as you would with two-way internet and its cheaper starting at $29.99 a month and the hardware is only $99 with a $149 install (may be different depending on who puts it in but that is their retail price). You have to have a credit card or do electronic fund transfer and sign a one-year contract in order to get the service. If you do not have a local isp they may get one to you if there are enough subscribers in the area or going to be enough in the area or you can use your own and save $6 on the satellite internet service (which does not make up for all the cost in most cases unless you find a very cheap isp that may not be much count as a result).

 

[Perfect Tech]

Stargazer do you have a link for this service? I have no access to cable or dsl in my area and until d-way lowers their price that's out of the question. signed: "sick of dial up"

 

[bradleys]

Neutron,

I have a floating cabin in rural British Columbia Canada. My "landlord" has DirecPC internet (which I assume is an old name for DirecWAY). I connect to his DirecPC system via wireless routers to get my internet access, with his computer as the gateway and proxy.

It is very fast (700-900 kb) when using proxy mode. I have to turn off the proxy to use secure sites (anything with "https"). The speed drops to 30-50kb without the proxy turned on. It seems to work fine directly from his PC, but connecting other PCs creates this problem. If you only have one PC, then this is not relevant.

I don't know if this is because of some basic function in the DirecPC software, or because we have something set up incorrectly. There may also be some new magic box available which doesn't cause the problem.

 

[Stargazer]

Here is the link to Sky Way one-way internet Click Here for Sky Way Website

 

[klang]

I just had DirecWay installed last week. The new DW6000 modem they use now enables regular networking like a cable or DSL modem. I have no other option but dial-up and Direcway's speed sure beats dial-up. So far I'm a satisfied customer.

 

[Neutron]

klang, what speeds are you getting?

 

[Wdam33]

Well, I am in the same boat here. Telephone system in the community has DSL but it is $70 bucks per month (mom&pop telephone company). However, the way the system is set up, half of my neighborhood has DSL access (within 15000 of the CO) and I live in the new section which is not on that CO (I'm 21,000 ft away). I considered DirectWay but I have heard that DirectWay (and the Earthlink version) have installed quotas on the downloads (something called FAP). Apparently, if you exceed certain download quotas, then your speed gets cut down. Anyone experieced this?

-mark

 

[Stargazer]

A man from Sky Way told me that they have quotas on downloads where if you download too much they will cut your speed down.

 

[Wdam33]

I went over to dslreports and looked at the FAP (Fair Access Policy) from Hughes. Basically you have a bucket so to speak of 169 mb. If you download that 169mb, your speed is cutback and the bucket will recharge back to 169 mb in about 8 hours. Looking at that, if you were just using it to surf the web, its really not a problem. However, if you are trying to download some Microsoft apps or the Linux ISO discs...it could take a while. The 169mb is for residential, while buisness accounts get a 500 mb bucket and the recharge rate is faster.

-Mark

 

[Big Bob]

anothe option is to combine multiple phone lines together. There are a couple of names for this. "shotgun" and "multi-point ppp" or something like that. I looked into it a few years ago.
You need two or three modems and someway to combine them. There used to be some specialized boxes just for this. Webramp was one of the companies. Webramp You can still get them relatively cheaply on Ebay. I think that there might be a way to combine them using just windows, but I never really looked into that.
If you second (or third) line doesn't cost toooo much, it can be a practical way to go.
Also, your isp must support it as well.

 

[Stargazer]

There would probably be a lot if isp's that would not support it. I am currently using Earthlink with accelerator software which really helps with web browsing. I wonder if Earthlink would support it. The cost of additional lines would run almost $30 each though so that in addition to what your isp costs (could be anywhere from $5-25, in my case $17-$22 for anything decent). That would bring the cost up to about $47-52 although you have another phone line in which you could pick it up and talk on the phone and still be on the internet at a slower speed until you are done on the phone. Isnt this like ISDN?

 

[klang]

klang, what speeds are you getting?

The couple times I've checked the download speeds varied from 350 to 900 kbps. Upload is about 10% of that. Keep in mind this was compared to 28.8 dial-up.

 

[Big Bob]

There would probably be a lot if isp's that would not support it. I am currently using Earthlink with accelerator software which really helps with web browsing. I wonder if Earthlink would support it. The cost of additional lines would run almost $30 each though so that in addition to what your isp costs (could be anywhere from $5-25, in my case $17-$22 for anything decent). That would bring the cost up to about $47-52 although you have another phone line in which you could pick it up and talk on the phone and still be on the internet at a slower speed until you are done on the phone. Isnt this like ISDN?

From what I understand, (and I have not tried any of this yet) many small rural isp's support some sort of this. Though you need to talk directly to the techs; The sales people generally don't know that they offer it. The cost of a second phone line varies, so it could be much more expensive, or cheaper. Just have to check.

I guess it is like ISDN in that you are combining multiple channels.

 

[Stargazer]

Not much of a point getting two way internet access if it is not going to transmit any faster than dial-up. If you go and put two or three phone lines together to get faster upload speed you might as well do away with the download from the satellite if it is not much faster than the three phone lines connected.

 

[Big Bob]

Not much of a point getting two way internet access if it is not going to transmit any faster than dial-up. If you go and put two or three phone lines together to get faster upload speed you might as well do away with the download from the satellite if it is not much faster than the three phone lines connected.

Sorry I wasn't clear. That was my point.
There are some serious problems with satellite internet. Uplink hassles, download limits, price. For me, the most significant is latency. Calling up a new web page can actually take longer with satellite than with a good dial up in some cases. Satellite is much better for large downloads though. Unfortunately, you may run into the daily cap on bandwidth if you download too much

If you are thinking about combining multiple modems, it is important to keep in mind the connection speed though. If you cant get a good connection with one modem (+40k in my book), you don't achieve as much gain in overall speed when you combine them. I won't try it if all you can get is in the neighborhood of 28k or so

If anyone else has experience with this, please chime in. I am looking for more info on this myself.

 

[jssat]

KEEP YOUR CABLE MODEM AND GET IT FIXED!!!!!! If you are having problems it is useually some thing simple. check all your connections inside and out. Ive had DirecWay and it sucked. I now have Insightbb and love it. 100% more reliable. Much faster and cheaper. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Stargazer]

I would agree, it should be something that can be fixed when it comes to cable situations. The bad thing about having internet through cable is that you have to rely on them to fix your problems if it is in the line. With satellite it is fixable by the end user in many cases. This new Sky Way internet seems to be the cheaper alternative being only $99 for hardware and starting at $30 a month if there is a number local for your area. Less lag times because the information is sent back through a phone line. At least there are more options becoming available now.

 

[klang]

Different strokes for different folks.

So far I'm quite pleased with Direcway.

 

[Stargazer]

It could also depend on if you ever had a cable modem or always been on dialup. For someone that has been on dialup it would be GREAT but for someone that had a cable modem that would be a different story unless they had sucky cable internet.