Request for opinions....

[gballard]

I am wondering if I could get some opinions on Direcway Satellite internet access. My neighbor and I are considering going in together and getting this and splitting the costs and sharing the connection via a wireless connection. Can anyone see any downside to doing this? Can anyone offer any tips as well? Any input would be appreciated...

 

[gballard]

well...I dont have any other choices as far as broadband access here where I live. They don't offer cable modem access and DSL is not availabe in my part of the town where I live and there is no date as to when it will be available. I have talked to someone who has the Direcway and asked about the signal during storms and he said it didn't even blink. We spoke to DirectTV about it last night and they claimed that the signal was stronger on the Direcway than on DirectTV...but who knows for sure. The two houses that would be sharing the connection are a lil over 10 feet apart...would running CAT 5 between the houses be a better solution than the wireless access point?

 

[gballard]

well...my d-link wireless access point arrived yesterday and I got it hooked up and went over to my neighbor's house and was surfing from there with no problem at all...except the fact that it was a dialup connection and i have no control over that...but...I think it will work for us...thanks for your input Catch23....its much appreciated.

 

[Snake11]

If the satallite guys follow the guys in the cable companies in future they might threaten to cut you off for sharing )particularly with wireless)

 

[gballard]

well...on the website...it says they do allow ICS to be used for sharing access on a small network....and technically speaking...his house and my house would be a small network i think...

 

[gballard]

I just got to thinking about something. More than likely...the satellite connection is going to be installed on my neighbor's house. So...we will need a Windows XP box there running ICS i think. What I am wondering is there a way to map ports in ICS like you can in a regular NAT? I will need to know this because I use IRC and Yahoo and MSN messenger and send and receive files on all 3 of them. Do you think it would be more cost effective and easier to just run Cat 5 from a hub in house to the hub in my house and just use my wireless access point to service my laptop so we won't have to worry about depending on the wireless gateway to service the two houses? Ackkk...this is alot to plan out ahead of time...

 

[gballard]

Yah..I just talked to a guy here at work that is an MCSE and he suggested 2K server as well. I have an extra machine at home that I will rebuild as 2K server and will be sure to install terminal services so I can administer the machine remotely since I will have to put the machine where the satellite connection will be.