Hi Matt,
    Monterey(and Pacific Grove), California, where I live still doesn't have
DSL in many areas. I'm apparently 4k feet to far(I was told the max is 17.5k
feet) from Pac Bell's demarc. I have ISDN installed and its been alright,
but I still dream of 512kb download and 128kb upload. I investigated DirecTV
a few weeks ago, but the initial set up cost was approx. $800 with a monthly
fee of $60, a little more than I want to spend right now. I talked with
several people who have the service and they say it performs as advertised,
but the latency can be several seconds in each direction with the
satellites, meaning it will be practically worthless if people expect to
play games over it. My only consideration at the moment is the cost and as
it becomes more popular, that too may come down.

                  Good Luck

                           Eric Sand
                           [log in to unmask]


> It's been over a year since I moved up to "the boonies" and left my DSL
> behind where I lived downtown (Atlanta). When I moved, BellSouth told me
> "1st quarter 2001" DSL would be available in my neighborhood. Mediaone
> (AT&T) told me the same thing for broadband cable. Well, I'm coming up on
> a year past those dates, and I'm still using dialup which gives me AT BEST
> 28.8kbps speeds. I decided to go the only available route - satellite
> internet. I called Earthlink this week and have an installer coming out
> next Thursday. I just couldn't bear the speed (or lack of) anymore, and a
> year and a half is patience enough.
>
> Is anyone else using (or has anyone else used) DirectPC? Is there anything
> I should know or do beforehand? Does anyone have any experiences (good or
> bad) they want to share? I have been going to dslreports.com fairly
> regularly for the last year or so, and there's a lot of mixed feelings,
> but I rarely see any opinions of DirectPC && Earthlink.
>
> matt shade
> www.threekay.com
>
> P.S. I've tried the Ricochet/Metrocom wireless modem thing....not much
> better speed and lousy tech support. And I'm about 50,000+ ft from my CO,
> so even ADSL is not an option, though I wouldnt' go for it even if it
> were.
>

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