Whats With The Starband 360 Free Upgrade? (1 Viewer)

[Gregg Loewen]

Can somebody give me some informed information about this?
Free upgrade, only catch is making a one year commitment??
Thanks
Gregg
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[Gregg Loewen]

anybody??
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[Jeff Hoak]

My guess is that they want the 180's back. It looked to be a pretty expensive piece of hardware.
I've been a "Pilot" user with StarBand for just over a year now. I started out with the Dell system and they later upgraded me to the 360. I've also worked with a 180 here at the office (not pilot) so I can say I've played with everything StarBand has put out there.
There's a lot of good to be said about the 360 and a bit of bad. In particular the software (NetGain 2000).
I'd be happy to get into a more detailed discussion if you want. Perhaps by email or here on the forum... your call

 

[Gregg Loewen]

Go Jeff Go!!
The website says the 360 is fan free which I like because teh 180 makes a hell of a lot of noise. Also the 360 is supposed to use a different compression alogorithm so downloads are supposed to be faster. Any thoughts??
Gregg
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The Sonodome
The Newest Sonotube
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The Family Units

 

[Quincy]

I have a model 360, I get way better performance than I did with my 180. On the 180 I was getting downloads of around 300kbps and uploads of 25kbps. With the 360 i've gotten around 90kbps up and like 600-700kbps down.
I've also heard that if you call Customer Service you can ask for a waiver on the 1 year commitment.

 

[Bob McElfresh]

Jeff: what's with that software issue?
I just got notice that my 360 unit has shipped so I am going to try and install this weekend.
Do you need to install NetGain?
I was hoping you would just configure it with an IP address and no-additional software.

 

[Jeff Hoak]

Item #1 I really didn't expect much of a response so I haven't been monitorint this forum much... Sorry...
Item #2 As a 360 "pilot" user I am (was?) under a NDA with reguards to the hardware. In that the 360 is now a "public" product I am assuming that the NDA is now "null & void". If I'm wrong about this and if I lose my StarBand connection over this you guys are going to hear from me!
Item #3 The 360 has no fan. It's about the size of a large hard cover book. Kind of a funky curved design with a good bit of purple on silver. Perhaps Prince (or whatever he calls himself these days) was a member of the design team...
Item #4 Software issues... Netgain 1000 was router friendly. Netgain 2000 is NOT! Using NG1K you could connect the modem to just about anyone's router (I used a NetGear RT311) and distribute the broadband glory throughout the house. Once NG2K is installed you might as well trash the router. It will no longer work. I'm a net admin and a reasonably bright guy and my best efforts (as well as the efforts of a great many other "reasnoably bright guys") have yeilded absolutely zero results. I won't get into the various install - uninstall issues related to NG2k. Let's just say if you want to remove any of it you'd better get used to the idea of reformatting and re-building from scratch.
Item #4 (for Bob) Yes you MUST install NetGain. Without it the system will either not work at all or be so slow that you'll be thrilled to go back to dial up... Which by the way is a B!TCH to get working again once the various NetGain components have been installed. It can be done but be preparred to futz with protocol assignments and the like.
Lastly... This all sounds VERY negative. I don't want it to be that way. I still STRONGLY recommend the StarBand system to those who have no other broadband option. If I had DSL or cable available to me this dissertation would not be taking place. Fact is I don't, so StarBand is my best option. All in all I'm very happy with my StarBand. Yes there are issues. Most if not all are minor. I've had the service now for just over a year. In that time I've seen continual improvement. I'm hoping that the best is yet to come.
As always... If you have any more questions... Just ask...

 

[Jeff Hoak]

Moments after finishing the last distribe and cringing at the spelling errors I had a couple of more thoughts on the subject.
Networking the StarBand: At the present time the best bet is to have a dedicated machine running WIN98 or Win2K and set up with Internet Connection Sharing (ICS). This is the "gateway" box. Doesn't need to be much of a system but DO install a decent firewall. I use ZoneAlarm Pro and it seems to work pretty well. I tried Norton Personal Firewall and it just plain killed the NetGain... Yet another re-format and re-install. I've used WinProxy and even though it's the "reccomended" sharing solution, I never had much luck with it. I haven't tried BlackIce Defender so I can't speak for it. In this house there are 3 other computers connected to the gateway box. Everybody gets their internet at native StarBand speeds except the linux box (haven't figured that one out yet???) Under NG1K (with the router) you had to install NG1K to all of the client systems. That method doesn't seem to make any difference under NG2K. Actually it makes the client speed worse... I think... Internet speed is pretty subjective. Odds are that if your getting a 360 system you'll be getting NG2K so all of this talk about NG1k is probably moot... Oh Yea... Anyone want to buy a NetGear RT311 router... I've got one... Barely used...
Reliability... Overall pretty good. Rain fade CAN be an issue. I'm in Central Florida and we get our share of storms so my system goes down fairly reguarly. I have noticed though that the E* feed (which is on the same dish) goes out well before the StarBand and comes back well after the StarBand. Looks to me as though the dish is optimized for StarBand at the expense of E*.
If and when I think of anything else (I will) I'll post it.
As always... You have questions... We do too...

 

[Gregg Loewen]

Kewl,
Im not very computer literate and I recently bought a second computer for my wife. I was hoping to network them together so we could both access the WWW at the same time. Will I be able to do this with the 360? (without adding a 3rd computer to act as a server).
Gregg

 

[Jeff Hoak]

Yes you can. You'll have to use the ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) that's built into Win98 SE, WinME or Win2K. Of the 3 the Win2K version is the most stable. It's also the easiest to set up (some will argue that point). Well it was for me anyway. The other option would be to use WinProxy. This is the method that StarBand reccomends. I tried it and it works pretty well. The only catch is the cost. Last time I looked it was running around $70.00. I figured I'd just get a router for $100.oo and be ahead of the game even though it wasn't supported by SterBand. Life was good until NG2K came along. For what it's worth... I'm running ICS under Win2K.
Step one is getting the two computers talking to each other. That's fairly easy and there are lots of online tutorials on the subject. Next is getting the host machine talking to StarBand. That will be handled by your installer. OH... B.T.W. Starband MUST be unstalled by one of their installers. There's none of this do-it-yourself stuff when it comes to StarBand. If you're really ambitious you can take the StarBand online training, then the test and get certified but who has that kind of time? I sure didn't. Most folks pay the $199.00 and get it over with.
Once you have one system talking to the satellite and the 2 (or more) talking to each other the rest is pretty much down hill. Starband has a number of online info pages that cover pretty much everything you would need to know about the setup. Over and above that there are a fair number of forums out there in web-land and the folks there will be able to answer just about anything you can think of
As alway... Ask and ye shall receive...