Direcway

Why satellite connections will never be mainstream

Published on December 4, 2003 By KarmaGirl In Internet

I will try to be as polite as possible with this article, but I must say, I'm a bit ticked off at this point. Please also keep in mind that I work at a software development company and do customer service and tech support. Our products are distributed mainly electronically and we offer subscription services. So, I am not exactly an impatient newbie to this type of stuff. And, going into this, I knew that satellite service was far from perfect......I just didn't realize how far......

I have Direcway satellite as my internet connection. Why? Because they are the only "broadband" that I can get. I can either have dial-up, or pay the big bucks to have satellite. There is no cable or DSL available at my house.

So, we got Direcway, which was a total pain to actually get somebody out to install, and we had to do a lot of the work ourselves, but not having to use dial-up was something that I was looking forward to.

In the first 3 months, I had to contact tech support 3 times for various reasons (always something on their side. Once they even claimed that the center that I am served by was hit by lightening). So, that was about 4 days that I did not have service (no credit given) and about 8 hours that I was on the phone with them getting it fixed.

Fast forward 3 months later. Day before yesterday, at about 9pm I noticed that the lights on my modem weren't blinking the way that they should be. I assumed it was just something that would fix itself (like it was too overcast and I just didn't know it). Last night, when I got home from work, it was still wrong. So, I called support. The first person that I spoke with didn't speak English very well, and ended up saying that I needed "advanced" support. When she "transferred" me, she hung up on me. (This is 1/2 hour into this ordeal). I call back. Speak to another person that doesn't speak English well and I have a hard time understanding what numbers he is saying. 116 and 160 sound identical when he says them, and I have to ask him to break down the number each time he says one so that I can understand it. He can't help and transfers me to advanced support. I sit on hold for half an hour (We are now 1 hour and 15 minutes into this).

Advanced support says that I need to update my software. I guess they updated their drivers to "improve" performance, but in reality, it made a whole lot of people lose signal strength due to the signals changing to work with the new driver. This is a wonderful thing since I don't have internet connection. So, it takes him a bunch of time to set up a dial-up account for me. Luckily, I have two phone lines in my house, so I could use the other one. I get dialed up on their service and try to get the file that he said that I needed (which is setting on an ftp site). I can't get it through their site. It can't find the source. I try to ftp through a command line- it times out. I try to grab it from the ftp site directly. It times out. He asks: "Do you usually have problems with dial-up? Do you have any idea what might be wrong?" Now, I have been on the phone with support for over two hours at this time. I wasn't in the mood. What I really wanted to say was: "Think about that, Jack-ass. This is *your* dial-up which is trying to connect to *your* ftp site! How the hell am I supposed to know what's wrong?" Instead I said: "I have no idea since I have never used this dial-up account, since it's through your providers...."

So, to make a long story even longer, my satellite is still not working, but I now have dial-up. I had to download the file that I need for home through work. I still don't know if it will fix my problem. I wasted *all* my free time yesterday on it. (well, 2/3 of it, anyway) and I really don't want to waste any more time on it. I was on the phone so long that my dog was getting mad at me.

So, while I was on dial-up yesterday, I checked my email (which I usually don't do from my DirecWay account because it has a hard time finding the mail server). It has an email notice from 11/23 that says that they have a new "update" out and you could enter some drawing if you updated before sometime in January. What it really should have said is: "Update within the next 10 days or forget being able to connect, sucker!" If their drivers are so important, don't you think that they should have some "auto-update" reminder for them? Like MS, Norton, Stardock, etc. do? (and, their updates are not typically "critical"). Can you imagine ATI emailing you a notice that says to update your video driver, then within two weeks you can no longer use your computer because your video card wouldn't work?

So, I can only assume that, by the time they get their act together, and quit having a totally flaky system, DSL and cable will be available in the areas that typically are using satellite. Either that, or people like me, will get so frustrated that they will go back to dial-up when their term is up. Who wants to spend so much money on a flaky, poorly supported product?

For the reasons above, Direcway gets a two coffee cup rating. They *really* need to get their act together!

Comments (Page 1)

Dark-Star

on Dec 05, 2003

Wow, DirecWay really sucks! Thanks for the heads-up Angie. I *hate* calling technical support and dealing with people who can't even speak English. I think that has got to be THE WORST idea ever. Why, oh why, would you hire people who can barely speak the language to do your technical support? I guess DirecWay wants their customers to be even more pissed about the service. Or maybe it's because they don't want more business? Perhaps it's a secrete corporate down-sizing ploy you've stumbled upon? Hummm, I wonder?

KarmaGirl

on Dec 05, 2003

So, I went home yesterday and installed the driver that I downloaded from work. First it failed and instantly rebooted my machine (my, how I love that feature). Then, I finally got it installed and...it didn't help. So, I called support again and waited on hold again for about 20 minutes. The person that I got was *very* short with me (which is great, since they are the ones who you contact when first level *and* advanced support failed). They basically had no suggestions and said that they would send somebody out and I can expect a call from this "somebody" in 3 to 5 working days to set up a time to come out. Working hours for these guys are always like 8am to 4pm, which always works great if you, well, work. I was also told that less than 2 degrees of change will make the dish be out of alignment. Now, 2 degrees is not very much. I asked what could cause it to not be aligned, the support didn't know anything and said that the site tech would have to figure it out.

At this point, I was frustrated. My husband and I took the matters into our own hands and fixed it ourselves. I uninstalled, rebooted, then reinstalled the drivers (which brought back some signal strength). We then assumed, if the dish is that touchy, that even something as small as, say, shingles on your roof contracting due to extreme cold, could cause it to be out of alignment. Sure enough, an *extremely* slight adjustment to the dish brought it back to 95%.

I want those 3+ hours of my life back...... A little info to the customer about what could cause the problem is always helpful.....

And, now you know another reason why they won't be mainstream- the dish alignment will change with the weather

It's a great feature for us who live in climates that get hot and humid in the summer and cold and dry in the winter.....blech.......

Dark-Star

on Dec 05, 2003

I feel for ya Angie... That's so not cool. I've never liked Dish service for the mere fact that you have to physically do the service and support yourself if you want it to work. You can't beat the cable company for offer fast solutions and straight foreword advice. That makes me kind of mad that you had to go through all that. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR DirecWay sucks! *waves pitchfork and torch around*

Lunaticus Minimus

on Dec 05, 2003

Satellites only exist because not everyone can obtain cable/DSL. As they progress and connections grow through the globe, satellite will die. Yay!

bjwbell

on Dec 05, 2003

We've had almost the exact opposite experience with direcway it's never discoconnected and we've alway gotten good connection speeds although on large files it always slows down to 10 kilobytes a second but that only on 400 or 600 megabyte files. We haven't had any other problems of course the true test is when you have to call tech support like KarmaGirl did.
At any rate I couldn't go back to dialup. Spending an hour dowloading a 10 mbyte file is too long.

Abe cubbage

on Dec 07, 2003

Dish internet service is still in its infancy. I think it's too early to say whether or not it will survive. Dish cable tv is doing very well, so it is not unrealistic to think that given a few more years, dish internet service will prosper.

Brian Murphy

on Dec 09, 2003

I've used DIRECWAY since April of 2003. I use a two-way system that is supposed to be their "top of the line" system. My dish receives and sends the signal to the Satellite so no phone line is needed for the connection. Prior to using DIRECWAY I used a 56K modem connection. Immediately after I got the service I was not happy with it. To pay $60 per month for it was not thrilling either. I think I was in severe denial about the speed of the system. My wife would complain to me almost daily because it would sometimes take up to 5 minutes (NO LIE) to get connected to EBay. If you are thinking about using DIRECWAY please consider this. You will be paying $60 a month for service that is slightly better than what you get using a 56K modem. If you ever have problems with the service and need to talk to a customer service representative you will be connected to a person that does not speak English well. It seems to take at least 15 minutes to be connected to their help and hour-long ordeals are not uncommon because it is an absolute struggle to communicate with them because their English comprehension is so bad. You will not be able to play ANY games over the Internet using DIRECWAY. I also tried to send digital pictures to Snapfish and the connection got interrupted so many times I just gave up. Everything changed for me the day I saw my friend’s cable modem. It was amazing to see. The speed difference was striking. After that I called my Cable Company to have them install a cable modem in my house. I have been using the cable modem and the difference in speed is amazing. I have since cancelled DIRECWAY and was forced to pay the early cancellation fee of $300 (read the fine print of their agreement for that!).

weddy

on Dec 10, 2003

When we got DirecPC, they only had the one-way available, but they were expecting the two-way to come out shortly. Thank GOD we got out of that horrid connection with the cheaper hardware *S* My husband setup the dish, and we spoke over the walkie talkies while he made adjustments to it based on what I told him the software said the signal strength was. All in all, it wasn't that difficult, just time-consuming.

The speed was amazing, at first. Like someone else has commented, the speeds would drop on large files. It would also drop if we'd been online a long time...down to almost dialup speeds. And we'd get booted just like with dialup. Back then, tech-support was better than what it seems to be now, and they told us how to slow down the disconnects. They did slow down, but still happened on a regular basis.

Living in an area that has frequent rain (I'd guess any coastal area would be similiar) often made us have to use our backup dialup. So even if your area does NOT have any other alternative to broadband, if you're overcast frequently, you're just throwing $$$ away while not being able to get online unless you kept a dialup as backup.

Direcway sold too many units, which apparently was taxing the system, and/or slowing down broadband, so they sent up another satellite, and reassigned a lot of people to different transponders, WITHOUT telling us in advance in any way, shape, or form!!

It took me almost an hour to have my call picked up; that's how jammed the support lines were with that major act of stupidity! I had to call back a few more times to find out when their system was stable again so I could find out which transponder we'd been re-assigned to. When I finally got it, hubby had to go back on the roof, and we had to do the walkie talkie thing again. It didn't work, repeatedly

I call back again, they walked me through setting up the software with their system, which I had done a zillion times, and told them so. It didn't work. They gave me a few other transponder frequencies, and we finally got one to work. It wasn't the original one they'd given.

Then my new pc refused to accept their driver from the disk. I'd never seen a Windows error message that stated that Windows would NEVER accept that driver. We installed the hardware/software on hubby's older pc, despite it not being current enough per the requirements. That worked for a while.

We continued getting fed up with not being able to connect due to clouds. Then they installed the moronic spam filtering system on their mail server. I'd setup another email account with direcway's server as a spam receptacle, and had numerous filters on my real address. Plus I'd been checking my mail on the server since before MailWasher became a big hit, so I did NOT want them filtering for me. I found out they were blocking many of my friends, yet I continued recieving spam in massive amounts of my 2nd account, proof their filtering system didn't work for beans. But did they offer an opt-out for those capable of filtering their own mail...NO!

I am back on dialup, and while I'd rather be on a faster connection, I'd NEVER go back to Direcway. I'd consider another satellite company after they'd been in business long enough for me to hear what their users said about them, and how overcast areas were affected, but Direcway...NoWay!

KarmaGirl

on Dec 10, 2003

Why the download speed decrease when downloading large files is due to their FAP policies. If you look in your account, it will tell you when you were effected by FAP (which is Fair Access Policy). Since they can't really handle all the connections that they have, they have FAP to keep the "normal" use fast.

When it works, it works well. When it doesn't.....well...i rather go to the dentist then deal with their tech support. I have wasted *days* resolving issues that were due to their changes. And, they never credit me for the time I'm down (at $60.00 a month, that's $2.00 a day that I lose when it's down.....)

I really wish cable or DSL was available where I live........

jim

on Dec 21, 2003

The just suck!!!!!

There service started out good.Just i never could get them to mail me a bill so many times i had to call them and give them money over the phone to turn my services back on, After 4 times i had anuff.all this was in a time fram of 8-9 months & 2-4 hours each time trying to tell them My dam correct mailing address.But the worst thing about direcway is Now i have there Wonderful stuff that i cant use!!!!
If there is a wagon to get on, to get them back let me on it!!!!

jim

on Dec 21, 2003

The just suck!!!!!

Just filled out the complant form. To the better business bureau..... Wait and see what happens

James

on Dec 26, 2003

They Suck does anyone know if the federal goverment has a department to go after them. Besides i hate the girl on the TV commercial.

GemCityJoe

on Dec 29, 2003

I don't know about sattelite but I do know that the prices for cable are going through the roof. This month, my cable bill was more than my electric bill and I have basic service. Stop the madness! GCJ

faith

on Jan 02, 2004

We have not experienced the severe disatisfaction that others have gone through. Again, for us satellite is our only option living in a somewhat rural area. The first 3 months or so of service was fine. We had no problems. The past 4-6 weeks has been a trial, so similar to what many of you describe. No signal, weak signal, transponder errors etc....... My husband did email tech support only to receive the responce back: mailbox to full!!! Lately the speed is extremely slow. We have not upgraded our software to the latest version. Only the past week or so has things imporved and become reliable. If I was asked 2 months ago how I liked satelite service I would have given them a 5-star rating. Now however it is closer to 2 stars. My only hope is things stabilize. As a side note after we installed the software my modem no longer works. I have not taken the time to troubleshoot except for checking the physical connection and reinstalled the drivers. No difference. Any ideas?

KarmaGirl

on Jan 07, 2004

You have to call them. They will run you through some trouble shooting and get it working again. The same thing happened to me. Just be prepared to be on hold a long time and then go through a bunch of BS before they finally get it fixed for you. Typically, they will have you do this routine of unplugging the cable and discharging the electricity. Unplugging the modem completely and rebooting. Then they will have you look for signal strength (in the diagnostics screen), if that is good, then it is probably something on there end (like the data-center caught on fire....that may sound funny, but that was an excuse that I got once). It's absolutely amazing that this stuff works at all with how flaky it is. Forget trying to use their website. It's *so* slow on Satellite. Oh! Here is a funny thing! Ask them how they connect to the web! I dare you! When I asked, they paused and tried to change the subject. The two most common answers were: "I have no idea" or "I think we have a T1 or something". It sounds like they don't even use their own product. But, I did get an email that said that I could upgrade to their new modem for only $400. I assume that, even though mine is only a few months old, that my service will go to hell since I don't have the newest hardware. Blech! I hope DSL makes it out to my house soon........

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