Reliable Internet access is crucial if you are to have a successful web presence, but broadband access is even more important than for maintaining a promotional website. High speed Internet access is a digital divide between rural and urban America. Fortunately, high speed access is available for most of the lower 48 states, even if you live in a remote part of the country, from WildBlue, a satellite Internet provider created for small town and rural America.Digital Divide
Pew Internet & American Life Project conducts research about our habits. According to one of their recent reports "Home Broadband Adoption 2008” nearly 55 percent of all adult Americans now have high-speed Internet in their home, up from 47 percent in early 2007. Guess what? These Americans are located in urban areas.
Obviously, access via broadband has caught on in mainstream urban America, but rural areas and many small towns have been left behind. As of 2008, there were 19,000 communities across the country that didn't have access to broadband. Research has shown that broadband connectivity not only increases an area's economic growth but also supports continuing education in the area. Additionally, it helps users train for jobs as well as conduct job searches.
Our economy is now a global one, and broadband helps our country be more competitive in the world marketplace. That competitive edge should be available to anyone in this country, not just in the metropolitan areas. Rural America can't afford to continue living on the wrong side of a digital divide.
WildBlue To The Rescue
Wild Blue, whether you call it by one word or two, offers 3 levels of service to fit your needs and your budget. With WildBlue Internet, you can choose between Value, Select, and Pro. The good news is that you get the most crucial features with all 3 packages: multiple email accounts, Spam filtering, Antivirus and Spyware software (free the first year and a small monthly fee thereafter), 24/7 Technical Support, and quality Equipment with a Limited Warranty.
They're a Satellite Internet company who wants to win you over. It's easy to see if your area, no matter how remote, has WildBlue available. Just put your Zip Code in the search box, and you'll instantly find out. Call them using the toll free phone number on their website, or fill out the webform and have them call you.
Why settle for Dial Up when high speed is available to you with WildBlue? Have questions? Read their FAQ. In fact, you can even read an easily understood explanation of how WildBlue High Speed Satellite Internet works. The website also gives their new customer offer which includes a hefty discount and free standard installation.
Takeaway Truth
Cross over that Digital Divide and learn how much fun the Internet can be when wait time is in fractions of seconds instead of multiples of minutes.
Have you used satellite internet?
ReplyDeleteWhile satellite internet can have quite high transfer rates, there's a relatively long time
between sending a message to a server, and receiving a reply. That delay is called "latency."
If your only interest in the internet is stealing music, satellite internet is a godsend, because you send one request, and then you get a huge file. For regular surfing, where clicking on a link may initiate requests for 10 to 20 different files, latency is a real killer.
If the files were on different servers, you'd pay one latency price because all 20 requests could be carried out at the same time. Most of them, though, are usually on the same server - and you're allowed no more than two simultaneous connections to the same server. That means that you pay the price for latency at least 10 times for 20 files.
I use Vonage for my house phone, and the cost of Vonage, plus "naked DSL" (DSL service without voice service), is actually cheaper than an ordinary voice line without internet. Thus, it's cheaper for me to have internet than to do without.
However, internet telephony (VoIP) is unworkable over satellite internet, because the delay is so bad. It makes it very difficult to play games over the internet as well, or to place "last minute" bids in an auction, so that someone else doesn't outbid you.
I don't mean to knock WildBlue. From what I hear, they do a much better job of satellite internet than most cable companies do of cable internet - but the time required to send a signal from the ground to a geostationary satellite and back down to another earth station isn't something WildBlue can do anything about. And you make that earth-to-sky-to-earth trip not just with your requests, but with servers' replies as well.
It's better than dialup, if that's your only other option, but don't kid youself. It just doesn't compare with cable or DSL internet.
Thanks for commenting. Your LAST paragraph, first sentence is the reason WildBlue is a good choice for some people. Take my Mom for example.
ReplyDeleteShe lives out in the country. No DSL service. No cable internet. Only Dial Up. She has tried 3 different dial up services and cannot even stay connected long enough to download her email. If she's online longer than 10 minutes, they automatically disconnect her, regardless of what you set in Properties on the Control Panel. Too many subscribers and not enough servers.
She, like many people in small town and rural areas of America, want internet, not to download music and such, but just to have email access and to use the Internet the way the rest of us do. Yes, she could get wireless, but the prohibitive price just doesn't fit her fixed income budget.
If I want to find out something about a particular medicine or look something up in Wiki, it's as fast and easy as sitting in front of my PC.
For my mom and others in her situation, it might take 5-10 minutes on dial up just to get SERPs from Google. Then to access one page after another looking for the info you want is another few minutes for each page to load.
If you open a site that has animation and music, you might as well forget it with Dial Up. As an example, my mom can't even view my blog or website because it takes nearly 5 minutes to load, and they're both fast load enabled. Forget clicking any links in the content.
So satellite internet certainly has a place for communities without DSL and cable internet access, and there are a lot of those as my blog indicated.