I live in the country, and have a small business that I run from home. When dial-up became too slow for me, it was time to look into other options. I knew that WildBlue internet was available, but I'd heard a lot of bad things about satellite, and wasn't sure it was for me.
However, my options were few, so I went online to do some research. And I did end up learning a lot about this type of internet, and why I'm not able to get other kinds of internet like cable and DSL.
I didn't know that the cost of running land lines to rural areas was so expensive. Once I read that, I realized why our area never seemed to be able to get cable or DSL. But I still needed some kind of better connection than I had.
I found some material online about the pros and cons of satellite. As it turns out, there were fewer cons than I thought. There was the whole issue of 'rain fade', which could cause my internet to go out when the weather got bad and cloud cover was low.
But I learned that some companies have 'hybrid' systems where they can switch to land line internet when bad weather happened. And I found out that when the switch happened, most customers would barely notice it, as it would hardly affect their speeds at all. I liked the idea of having some 'insurance' and knowing I could keep my business going no matter what.
But the speed was what kind of worried me. I thought somehow that satellite would be slower. That wouldn't be good for all the important emails I send and receive in a day, not to mention keeping up with my deadlines. But I learned that satellite speeds these days are a lot faster than they used to be. And I discovered that the top speed I could get was more than enough for what I needed to do online from day to day.
I had also thought that satellite was really expensive. While it wasn't cheap, there were a few options available to me to save money, like the Recovery Act program where I could receive money from the government to offset the costs of my satellite service. There were also incentives offered by the satellite companies themselves to new subscribers, like a few months of service for cheaper or free equipment.
Not only that, but when I did a little more checking, I discovered that I could save a ton of money by signing up for service online. It seemed like every company had some kind of deal on for new subscribers. When I added up all the mail-in rebates and other discounts, I realized that I would be getting a lot of value for the price.
I entered in my zip code, and discovered I could get service where I was. That was it for me; I signed up for service right then and there. I'm glad I had another option besides dial-up!
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