BPL, if it ever gets up and works, may be the best solution for you. It’s just unclear at this point how reliable or unreliable the service will be since they have yet to get their network up and optimized. BPL has many inherent problems, but if they can get the net stable once they bring it up, it will serve some areas that have no other choice.

Yes, on Hughesnet Satellite we can view videos from most websites and from youtube.com The problem you get into with Hughes and Wildblue, their competitor, is a restriction to so much usage within a 24 hour period. And viewing videos it doesn’t take long to exceed their daily allotment. Hughes will cut you back to dialup speeds for 24 hours, WB for 30 days! If you exceed their threshold, and they are both very expensive.

As for the promised speeds by IBEC for BPL, the current package according to the information on their published website, says it will be 256K for 29.95 per month, which frankly for speed is nothing in this day and time. Better than dialup, you bet, but left in the dust to most anything else. Now if they can provide the upper tiers of service listed there, 1,3 and 5 mbps, now we’re talking! But as you can see from their website you are getting into some pricey territory, and I would have to see 5 mbps working to ever believe that BPL can deliver that on a consistent basis. But believe me, I would love for them to prove me wrong, that would be fantastic news!

I will know much more on the nTelos potential after a Friday meeting and I’ll pass that on here!

-T-

We’re just trying to sort our way through all this info. We are currently using Ntelos, which operates through a radio satellite signal. The speed is usually way better than dial-up, but not fast enough to download a U Tube video. Weather definitely affects connection quality, but there is no FAP problem.

Is your experience with Huges Net better than this and just what are the initial speeds promised by IBEC?

Thanks,
Bonnie and Dan
Tanbark Drive

Having had both Wildblue and currently on Hughesnet for sat internet, I can tell you the advertised speeds for the initial rollout of BPL aren’t impressive in comparison. The attraction, at least for us, is hopefully more stability. WB is very problematic during rain, even light precipitation and they have oversold their capacity so many times I have lost count. A new satellite about a year ago was supposed to eliminate that problem, but from the input I have from current users here in Nelson, it’s not much better. Hughes, might be considered a notch better, but barely. They are a bigger company (not always a good thing) but their infrastructure is better and they own a lot of those birds hovering over the earth up there. Generally we lose our service only when a big rain event is happening. But it’s frequent enough that it is a hindrance.

Right you are! BPL will do away with that pesky latency issue of traveling 22,500 miles up and back. It will be a big help on secure servers like banking, etc. Sat internet by it’s nature, can’t overcome that. When a secure server sees all of that delay, it gets worried and takes a while to complete the request. In theory, BPL should eliminate that. It should also eliminate the issue of having no service in rain and or heavy snow events.

Sat internet has the other big taboo, download / upload restrictions.(FAP) or fair access policy. I personally know two WB customers who blew through their allowed upload / downloads and were restricted to dialup speeds for 30 days. Hughes has a similar policy but only penalizes the user for 24 hours vs 30 days. Either one is total highway robbery for what we pay as sat users.

Personally, I can tell you we are keeping both satellite and BPL for awhile. The roll out of BPL, for obvious reasons, leaves me with no faith that the service will be any better. In our case redundancy is a must, and I am also worried that with BPL once the switch finally is thrown, bandwidth may be an immediate problem with everyone getting on all at once. I would love to be put in my place and proven wrong on this, but we’ll just have to see once it does happen, one day.

All of that said, if IBEC can deliver what they say they can, it should be a more stable, reliable service with no FAP, and eventually some pretty nice speeds if they open it up to the higher tiers of speed mentioned.

-T-