There are many stories that come out of the Smokey Mountains and none
better than the tales of a valley named for a blue-eyed 14 year old; Maggie Mae Setzer.
At the turn of the century a post office was the only means of staying in touch with the outside world. You couldn’t just log onto your computer and catch up on things through rural satellite internet like you can today in that area.
All satellite internet providers have what they call a Fair Access Policy or FAP. This policy places a ceiling on the amount of information a user can download and upload within a given span of time. With Wildblue this amount of data will accumulate within a 30-day rolling period (each new day another day will fall off from 30 days ago). The usage limit is determined by whatever package one would choose to go with. A customer is notified via email once they reach 80% of their limit. If the given threshold is exceeded then the user’s speeds would be reduced to around twice that of dial-up until they are back to 70% of the threshold. The speeds would then be restored to the original levels by the next day.
As the title states, this article relates to Newsgroups. We very rarely hear about newsgroups anymore. There are several reasons for this. I believe that more and more people are getting information from Online Forum groups, helpful web sites and of course Googling.
I would like to make the case that there is still room for the good old fashioned Newsgroup. Using a news reader rather than a browser can make the experience faster for many, depending on the speed of their particular computer.
As we near the date of Hurricane Katrina’s destruction and the 9th anniversary of 9/11, it is a good time to see how far we have come in correcting severe communication breakdowns in both disasters. We may not be able to prevent all disasters, but we can improve our response. One of the main components of that response is communication.
Satellites are key in planning emergency responses by local, state and the federal government. Everyone seems to have learned the lesson that lack of communication will make a disaster a catastrophy for the individuals that are affected. We have all heard the tapes from 9/11 of firemen and police officers unable to communicate with each other or with other emergency responders. We repeated this scenario again in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
One of the big questions people have about Wildblue Satellite Internet is ‘How long will it take to install and get it running?” Wildblue has said from the start that time to install is a matter of a few hours for most standard installations. Folks who’ve dealt with other satellite dish installations were skeptical, but a look at the various satellite user forums bear out Wildblue’s time frame.
Most people using a standard wall or roof mount installation report that it has taken less than four hours from the time the installer pulled into the driveway till they were surfing the net happily. What can you do to make sure that your install goes that quickly and easily?
So you’ve probably read that Wildblue Satellite uses ’spot beam technology’ so they can reuse transmission frequencies. I mentioned this to a friend who’s been in the IT industry almost since it started, and he commented, “Sounds like sales talk to me.” And you know, he’s right – it DOES sound like the kind of techie sales talk that makes people nod and go ‘uh huh’ while their eyes start glazing over. When I went looking for an easy way to explain spot beam technology and why Wildblue uses it, I ran into lots of talk about ‘footprints’ and ‘wide beams’ and ‘narrow beams’ that didn’t help make it any clearer. What I wanted was an explanation that my mother would understand. So here it is.
I’m a heavy internet user. When folks send out surveys about internet usage, I’m one of the ones that usually fall into the ‘power user’ categories. For the past few years, though, I’ve felt increasingly left behind by the new internet techology because I was stuck with a dialup connection. I felt like I was only getting half of the Internet. And I was. Low bandwidth speeds meant that I couldn’t use a webcam to chat with friends. I got left behind in chatroom conversations and couldn’t use a lot of web sites that use databases to store information – even discussion forums took so long to load that I often gave up waiting and found something else to do. On Wildblue, all that is changed. Here are five things I can do on Wildblue that I couldn’t do on dialup.
Minor Interruptions with Wild Blue Satellite ConnectionA few weeks ago I was having some minor interruptions in service that would last at least 5 minutes. When I had problems in the past I could have everything back up and running after unplugging my modem and my router for 1 minute. Once the modem was synced I plugged in the router.
As far as the culprit was concerned I had many suggestions, even regarding the cabling and connectors. If you had your system installed through Wild Blue directly or your NRTC (National Rural Telecommunications Coop), chances are that you had a very well trained installer and your problem may very well lie within your home.
WildBlue Communications is continuing to move forward in the delivery of satellite broadband connections. On January 10, 2006 they closed a secured
credit facility of over $200 million. These funds will be used to continue the steady growth of its high speed Internet access business. Terms of the credit facility were not disclosed.
WildBlue will use the financing to grow its broadband business and to facilitate the launch of a satellite in the 4th quarter of 2006. The new satellite will enable WildBlue to grow its customer base of home and business users. The demand for the service has been very strong among consumers that are not served by other broadband alternatives.
Many of our friends and family are embarking on a great adventure. They have decided to place their presence on the web. They share personal things, such as pictures of the grandkids as they grow, for distant grandparents, their own interests and hobbies, and other items that they feel are either of interest to them or others. I have some friends that are building a home, and they have begun a small web site where they post pictures of the progress as it takes place. They began with pictures of the property and views and have just posted pictures of a cleared driveway and the clearing for their home. They can now stand right in the spot where their back deck will be and post a picture of the view from there. Another good use for this web space is to share your family with your friends and relatives. My nephew and his wife live across the country from my mother and he has two children. They post updated pictures regularly so that my mother can see her grandchildren grow up, regardless of the distances involved. I’m sure you can think of other good uses that you can put your web space to.
