I want to know if anyone is receiving internet via direcpc or satellite dish. I called them and they want to sell me $250 worth of dish, software and modem. Help!

Satellite dishes are crap... Maybe the download speeds are faster thahn 56k, but for uploads you still gotta use you know what Get ADSL or Cable modem, heck a lot faster

I don't know the answer to your question but I do have the dish, the pci modem and all of the documentation, never used still in the box if you want to save some money. E-mail me if interested. I have read that you should only get DPC if you have absolutely no other option broadband-wise. DSL suddenly became available in my area, I jumped on it. I suggest going to alt.satellite.direcpc newsgroup (or alt.satellite.direcpc via deja.com) before making your final decision.

I have had direcpc external usb and satellite dish for in use for the past 2 months. The set-up was a pain, took about 6 hours to get the dish properly set-up and alligned. the software is fairly stable, though only has drivers for win 98 for usb support. The tech support is a joke, actually Hughes is using a third party to provide it, so you can imagine... as far as speed, yes it is better than a phone modem for downloading, however their is a fair access policy that makes downloading more than 120 megs an hour a fantasy, so for those that think about linux and or other large file downloads in a blink of an eye, forget it. Also the Usenet server is not reliable, and you can forget getting a clear answer about it from the techs... what techs?

I hope that by posting this message I can help a fellow human being somewhere regarding the purchase of DIRECPC. #1. Do not buy this product unless you have no other options and will not for some time to come. #2. If you have to buy this product DO NOT BUY USB INTERFACE!!!!! This crap will make your system crash and freeze up consistently. Tech support even admitted as much to me especially if you have win95 w/usb supp. or original win98. Forget about trying to use a usb adapter card on an older sys without onboard usb! In all, I spent about 7 hours on the phone with tech support. Generally, these guys were truly clueless. About the only thing they could tell me was to uninstall and reinstall the software. One guy told me i needed to upgrade my system. Problem is, he had no idea what system I have and didnt even ask. Needless to say I dont need to upgrade. RECAP: USB VERY BAD, TECH SUPPORT SUCKS WORSE THAN WORDS CAN EXPRESS, VERY BUGGY. However, I have heard the PCI interface is not so bad. You can consistenly get 400k downloads from sites that support it and have the bandwidth. If your an internet junky like me in the country its the only game in town. DIRECPC is releasing ver 2.2 for the software and maybe win2000 will adress the usb issue better since DIRECPC has stopped making the PCI interface card (you know, the only one that really works!) MICROSOFT is working on 2 way sat access whch should be avaliable this year. Hang tight, satinternet will save us country folks from dial up but direcpc is not a good solution right now....

Direc pc sucks and thats the kindest words I can say about direcpc. I am using Windows ME and usb. I wish I could get my money back and go back to my 56k modem. That is what I end up using anyway. Before you consider this system read their fair access policy. If you still think you want this system shoot yourself in the foot it will be more enjoyable!!!!

I'm using directpc is Australia, I don’t mind it as there was nothing faster than expensive ISDN in my town at the time. Now there is ADSL "kewl" running the satellite system on linux was a pain to start with but with some mods to the Helius software it seems to run nice with ADSL outgoing and sat downstream. My system is still faster than just ADSL on its own, The only real reason I have continued playing with this system and running the PCI sat card is that as far as my satellite ISP goes I have never logged in. This is handy when they offer only 500 meg free download and 21c a meg when you go over, and the fact that I have never been throttled back. If your running Linux and want to add satellite to it then the only choice is Helius at the moment and there. RPM’s are never complete and their support is just not there at all. But if you install it from the command line only you can add a cron to stop it from shutting down every 20min or 2 hours like they say it does. I send an ifdown eth0 then ifup eth0 to my system every hour, this works fine. Don’t know why as only my LAN drops every now and again not the DPC system? The system in full has its good points and its bad, for me its ok but then I’m only using the DPC machine as a router, it does not have a monitor or keyboard.