What satellite Internet options are available?
If you live in a rural area where landline broadband service is not available and cell phones do not display any bars, satellite Internet access may be your only option. Don’t feel bad as even Silicon Valley icon and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak cannot get DSL at his home.
There are a lot of satellite providers out there. So I have taken a look at the major players providing services to consumers. After a lot of searches, chats with customer service reps and phone conversations, I compiled a quick comparison.
Surprisingly, the two major satellite TV providers, Dish and DIRECTV tell a little fib about offering satellite Internet access. They only offer it bundled with their other services, and they partner with another company to provide the Internet service.
In Talking with a rep at DIRECTV, I found out that they partner with many carriers for Internet access, but the partners all offer DSL lines for the connection. Unfortunately this does you absolutely no good if you are in an area where you have to get an Internet connection through satellite.
I had an online chat with Joven at Dish and he pointed me to a link that is not readily accessible from the Disk web pages. Their partner is WildBlue, so we will look at them first. It is interesting that all of these satellite Internet providers offer three plans, so comparisons should be easy.
WildBlue
WildBlue offers three “exceed” service plans as follows:
Plan name: exceed 12-7.5 GB
Monthly cost: $49.99
Download Speed up to 12 Mbps
Upload speed up to 3 Mbps
Monthly data plan (up + down) 7.5 GB
Email boxes 10
Installation $0.00
Setup (one time upfront fee) $149.00
Contract 24 months
Equipment – Lease is $9.99 a month or purchase is $219.99
Plan name: exceed 12-15 GB
Monthly cost: $79.99
Download Speed up to 12 Mbps
Upload speed up to 3 Mbps
Monthly data plan (up + down) 15 GB
Email boxes 10
Installation $0.00
Setup (one time upfront fee) $149.00
Contract 24 months
Equipment – Lease is $9.99 a month or purchase is $219.99
Plan name: exceed 12-25 GB
Monthly cost: $129.99
Download Speed up to 12 Mbps
Upload speed up to 3 Mbps
Monthly data plan (up + down) 7.5 GB
Email boxes 10
Installation $0.00
Setup (one time upfront fee) $149.00
Contract 24 months
Equipment – Lease is $9.99 a month or purchase is $219.99
HughesNet
HughesNet offers three satellite Internet access plans with download speeds of 1 Mbps through 2 Mbps:
Plan name: Satellite Internet Basic
Monthly cost: $39.99
Download 1 Mbps
Upload 0.2 Mbps
Contract 12 months
Plan name: Satellite Internet Power 150
Monthly cost: $79.99
Download 1.5 Mbps
Upload 0.25 Mbps
Contract 12 months
Plan name: Satellite Internet Power 200
Monthly cost: $109.99
Download 2 Mbps
Upload 0.3 Mbps
Contract 12 months
STARBAND
STARBAND offers three pland with download speeds between 512 Kbps through 1.5 Mbps:
Plan name: Nova 500
Monthly cost: $49.99
Download Speed 512 Kbps
Upload speed up to 100 Kbps
Email boxes 5 (7 GB cloud storage per email account)
Equipment and Installation $0.00 (after $150 mail-in rebate continental U.S. or after $135 mail-in rebate outside) continental U.S.
Contract 24 months
Plan name: Nova 1000
Monthly cost: $69.99
Download Speed 1 Mbps
Upload speed up to 125 Kbps
Email boxes 10 (7 GB cloud storage per email account)
Equipment and Installation $0.00 (after $150 mail-in rebate continental U.S. or after $135 mail-in rebate outside) continental U.S.
Contract 24 months
Plan name: Nova 1500
Monthly cost: $99.99
Download Speed 1.5 Mbps
Upload speed up to 256 Kbps
Email boxes 15 (7 GB cloud storage per email account)
Equipment and Installation $0.00 (after $150 mail-in rebate continental U.S. or after $135 mail-in rebate outside) continental U.S.
Contract 24 months
You can also go to the Broadband Expert satellite internet page to find providers in your area and get the latest deals.
