Digiweb SkyStar, any opinions?

Da Man

As I live in broadband darkness, satellite appears to be my only option. I've looked at the different providers and the only one that is remotely cost effective is Digiweb. I've read all the bad stuff on boards.ie. Are there any good reports at all to give me some hope? The SkyStar service is €99+VAT a month 512k/150k.

Mr_Man

Check out the thread on the new service to be laucnhed by WebSat by JaneyMackers. This is due to launch soon and may be another option for you,

M.

Da Man

It looks like about the same price and their service is a complete unknown, even though it's used in other countries I suppose. And I haven't been able to get them to give me a launch date. If they launch very soon I'll take them into consideration but I can't keep waiting for various options to arrive. I was half-thinking of holding off until mid-June to see if any other options show up in the next couple of weeks. I wouldn't be surprised if my area will be covered by wireless as well as those guys roll out their networks beyond Three Rock LOS. Probably the week after I sign up to satellite.

Eurorunner

Mediasat have told me that they have something in the works for residential users but couldnt give me any details just yet. So if you decide to hold back for a bit, dont count them out.

Saruman

You could always avail of FRIACO (no limits free dial up...) and combine it with a one way sat provider like Netsystem (i use em and they are pretty good!). will work out cheaper anyway.

Da Man

Did you install the dish yourself?

I will consider them, but in my view by the time you've paid the [ever increasing] Eircom line rental and the FRIACO fee you may as well go 2-way.

BArra

hmm any more info on this service - as its satallite the ping times would be crazy wouldnt they?

the initial poster said 512k/150k , which means its 2 way which leads me to believe the pings might be good, whats the startup costs for the dishes and what not?

Da Man

http://www.broadband.digiweb.ie/pricing.asp

ednwireland

pings are always crap its the laws of physics of transmitting to something in low earth orbit also the latency causes all sorts of probs, no vpn, no pc anywhere, no hosting, no gaming if all you want to do is surf and download then go for it. they hide the latency thing when surfing by downloading large chunks of data through a proxy.

BArra

would they block the p2p ports

i like my backup copys of all my dvd and games, ud never know when the original cd's might break

Capt'n Midnight

Remember on a two way link YOU are paying something like €1 per MB uploaded - so p2p sharing is kinda pointless

Different ISP have different reaction to p2p - some tell you how to do it on their web sites - while others are blocking ports as the find them..

Remember most people don't p2p and since satellite bandwidth is shared between ALL users , hammering away is not going to win you any friends.

Da Man

If you want a friend, get a dog.

Personally I couldn't give a toss about P2P, but how do you figure the €1 per MB?

So nobody is using the SkyStar service, then?

rymus

i was looking at the 512/1024k package. doesnt say anything at all about that mystical €1 charge per mb (at least not as far as I can see). they do have a "fair usage policy" to ensure that if you are hogging bandwidth you are restricted for a while. After a chat with digiweb today I found out their idea of excessive usage is 2GB and they arent enforcing the fair usage policy yet.

Its either them or mediasat...