StarBand Launches New 481 Telecommuter Service; Commercial-Grade Internet Service Sol

[silversurfer]

MCLEAN, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 24, 2004--StarBand(R), America's first high-speed, two-way satellite Internet provider to residential and small office customers, today announced the national launch of the new StarBand 481 Telecommuter service. This service provides customers with a business-grade satellite modem compatible with a wide array of operating systems (including Windows, Macintosh, UNIX, Linux) and offers faster download and upload speeds than current StarBand Residential satellite offerings.


With the high-performance StarBand 481 Telecommuter service, customers receive download speeds up to 750 kbps, upload speeds of 100 kbps in Turbo Mode (available for most large file uploads), limited VPN capabilities, ten free Web mail accounts, free basic Web hosting and an optional static IP address.

"The StarBand Telecommuter service is a perfect fit for those who work from home and need high-speed Internet access, but are unable to receive DSL," said Chief Executive Officer Zur Feldman. "This addition to our family of StarBand products fills the gap between our StarBand Model 360 Residential service and our StarBand 480 Pro Small Office service by bringing the power of our business grade service to a home user."

"StarBand is the only satellite Internet access service provider looking out for the interests of the millions of telecommuters across the country today," said StarBand Vice President of Sales and Marketing Howard Lossing. "We will continue to launch new products and services to meet the needs of our customers and as such, will have more exciting announcements in the near future."

For more information about StarBand and the StarBand 481 Telecommuter service, please visit: www.StarBand.com or call 1-800-4STARBAND.

About StarBand Communications Inc.

StarBand Communications Inc., headquartered in McLean, Virginia, is America's first nationwide provider of two-way, always-on, high-speed Internet access via satellite to residential and small office customers. In 2003, StarBand introduced its fourth generation satellite modem, the StarBand 480 Pro, a professional-strength, network-ready and business-grade modem delivering high speed connectivity and instant networking capability. StarBand also launched new Residential price plans with monthly fees as low as $39.99. The StarBand antenna accommodates both StarBand high-speed Internet service and DISH Network satellite TV programming in the continental U.S. StarBand's network comprises customers and service in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Visit StarBand at www.StarBand.com. StarBand is a registered trademark of StarBand Communications Inc.

 

[thevoice]

Ban

I wonder is they are still banning anyone that uses what they consider "too much bandwidth"? I never understood why companies claim to have "unlimited" internet downloads and use, but soon as you make a chart for "top downloader" - they turn your service off. I heard these guys and the cable guys are known for doing this - anyone confirm this?

 

[martincva]

Starband does not have a "bandwidth ban" per se. DirecWay does -- if you download more than their unspecified limit, they will throttle down your downloads to some other unspecified limit.

Starband has a limit, but it is different. If you set up the system as directed, there is no limit. The current system includes a direction that you MUST connect the StarBand modem to a PC running their WinGain software. From that PC, you can then share the internet connection to other PCs. Some users found that they could connect the modem directly to a router, and share the signal from there. Apparently by doing this, you can get full bandwidth on each PC, even though you are only paying for one. Once this "trick" became known, Starband decreed that if they could detect that you have connected their modem directly to a router -- rather than to the required PC -- they would throttle down your bandwidth.

I have no problem with StarBand's policy. I can download (at about 600 - 850 kbps) as much stuff as I want, all day every day. If I try to cheat the system, and get busted, they will nail me. That seems fair. DirecWay is different. Even if you set the system up just as they direct, you cannot download all you want whenever you want.

That is my understanding.

- martincva

 

[Stargazer]

Charter automatically charges you $10 extra if they detect two computers hooked up at the same time to their Charter Pipeline service.

 

[MikeF]

This looked promising to a Direcway user, but at 119.00 a month I think I will pass. Tghe unlimited downloads is not worth DOUBLE the price. And who needs to send anothe 600.00 for equipment.

 

[reedl]

When I had Starband, I had the model 360 modem, and it worked pretty well. The download speed was somewhere around at least 500 kbps, and during non-peak times over 1 megabit/second.

The Modem was plugged into a computer running winproxy then split into 7 other computers in my house (yes I have a large network of computers in my house), and it worked pretty well, although of course the latency was a killer. I had not too much trouble with being able to download files on multiple machines, and never hit any download limits that I knew of.

Of course now I have DSL at 1.5 down, 160 up for $30/mo.

Reedl