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Queries fro Satdrive

I just want to thank the Satdrive employee for taking the time in commenting on this Forum, I also have a some points that I am not quite clear on, and was hoping you may help with.......

Living out in the sticks I am desparate for a broadband connection, but this will mainly be for downloading. Will I be able use the satellite connection with download managers such as Gozilla, getright, etc. AND with Peer to peer filesharing applications such as WinMX and Kazaa?

If I currently have a redundant Sky digital dish that I want to make use of, can I redirect it and install a DVB card into my PC (such as the Hauppauge DVB-s) and be able to receive your service. (I am based in England)
 
As a Satdrive user myself I can certainly help with some of your questions :)

Yes, you can use the apps you mentioned with Satdrive for downloading. Satdrive works as a proxy server with various ports which are configured for http, ftp and socks (used for Kazaa etc.). You just need to configure each application to use the appropriate port and it will use the satellite instead of your dial-up to download with.

As for the Sky dish, I think you might find this too small a dish to get a good satellite net connection. You can of course try it with your own card and just buy the software. The one I received as part of their standard package seems to be 80cm (although they do state 60cm) and I get a reliable 89% signal in Cambridgeshire. The Sky dish I think is 42cm so MAY work, but you may well get a lot of problems receiving a signal in bad weather. Even in lashing rain and wind I've had no problems with my dish. It's probably well worth using at least a 60cm dish to be honest.

Hope this helps :)
 
Thanks for your comments Yaz, When you are using download managers, etc. do you still need your dial-up connected, there are 2 issues that concern me about this:
1. I am with freeserve which disconnects every 2hrs, I can reconnect automatically using a connection manager, but its a pain, and disturbs downloads.

2. The missus constantly complaining about the phone line being in use, I want to be able to surf and download without tying up the phone line.

It sounds like you are happy with the service you have received, what is the customer support like? and do you know the average download speeds you are acheiving?

Thanks for your help.:p
 
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Satdrive is a one-way link so you always have to have your dial-up connected to use the service. This includes browsing, downloading etc. - there is a service called SatdriveFIP which is kinda offline browsing but seems to be mostly German pages (the majority of the user base is in Germany). To do this without tying up the phone line you're gonna need a 2nd line for the satellite. All 1-way links are like this (Netsystems, Silvermead, Satdrive etc.) - if you want 2-way it's usually a LOT more expensive.

I also use Freeserve and the 2 hour kick-off can be a pain. Some of the guys on the Satdrive forum have a trick using Dialup Monitor to restart the sat link but it doesn't seem to work for normal ftp clients (flashfxp, Cute). Might work with Getright but I don't use it. If you don't like it, join AOL as most people find they don't get disconnected on AOL - of course this kinda screws your problem of your missus moaning about the phone line ;)

I'm pretty happy with it - speeds vary depending on the time you use it. It's a contended service so I would warn you that weekend speeds can be average (20-30k/sec). However, use it off-peak like overnight or early morning and the speeds are great (100k/sec+). You can always pay to use the higher gear downloads though if you need something fas.

As for customer service, I've found them to be excellent - they're always happy to help whenever you give them a call.
 
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just thought id post what my experiences have been like with Satdrive. Speeds in normal times (eg office hours) are about 40k on average, on weekday evenings i get about 20k to 30k and at weekends about 5k to 15k, so don't expect too much from it. TBH, in my experience at weekends/peak times (eg crimbo) browsing isn't much better than modem, and speeds can be IDSN like. If you need to d/l a lot of data, more than 5gb/month, Satdrive is the service for you, especially if you use it late at night - it whipps ADSL then - 100kbyte/sec and over. If you are a lightish user, ie. download less than 5Gb/month and mainly use it for browsing/streaming (what i use it for) if you can hold on till mid-jan than silvermeads service looks good, and it can be used on your skydish and install is much cheaper. As for dial up etc, both need dial up, so get yourself an AOL account, and either have a 2nd line or Homehighway put in, i would reccomend HH, its a good backup to the service and has a lot lower latency, so browsing will be faster.
Hope this helps you,

James
 
Cheers for all your comments, its given me a lot to think about.
I might check out what silvermead have to offer, but I am also considering 'everywhere broadband', they are setting up this month, so I may bide my time for a month or so, check out how much I can get hold of some equipment for, and who the best provider for me will be.
I tend to leave my current dial-up connection running over night, that way I don't disturb the phone line, and I get better speeds, I don't think I'll have any choice but to use some form of Satellite connection, whether it be one or two way.......anything has to be better than 3kbs :mad:
 
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