Hughesnet up north

I've just installed Hughesnet Satellite internet service at the place we are renting in Canada while I'm working up here for a client.

The house already had a 0.74m dish on it the previous renters had installed. They were deadbeats and skipped out on rent and took the modem from the system with them. I found a used HN7000S on ebay got it activated via Montana Satellite. I had to repoint the dish since I was commissioned on a Satellite normally used for US subscribers. The repointing and commisioning process took awhile since Hughes thought I was using a different modem, and the ranging took some time.

I was getting fine signals on receive and cross-pol, but no ranging. Finally I came home from work one day checked the modem status, it was still red (No service), re-booted the modem and then we were up and running.

If you have no other choice hughesnet is ok. If you have anything else available that is terrestrial I would go with that... DSL, Cable, WiMAX, EVDO, etc. Even if a landline has speeds as slow as 128up and down it is still preferable to Satellites latency and unreliability. For now we are so in BFE satellite is our only choice.

-NJT