Hughes Directway Internet Satellite

[mimosa]

I'm considering purchasing the Directway Satellite for high-speed internet access. DSL, ISDN and cable modems are not option for me at this time.

I've searched the web looking for positive feedback about the satellite technology and find that a lot of people are very dissatisfied with both the speed of the service and more importantly, the support.

Most of these people are using DirecPC or Starband. Does anyone have any experience with the new Directway satellite offered through Earthlink?

 

[revbush]

All of the 2 way satellite systems are Hughes Network Systems with the exception of Starband. All of the HNS providers are basically a VPN running through Hughes Network Operations Center. The software and the tech support are provided by Earthlink, Direcway or others but the backbone is Hughes.

 

Directway is the best option right now it is a entry into what coming erly this year (2002)
A new company is coming called Wild Blue

http://www.wildblue.com

it will offer Full Duplex broabad with speeds of 4 Mbit/sec both ways Unlimited

Get Directway now if you cant stand another day of Dial-up access
but when wild blue is launched get that

 

I have Direcway for my broadband access and have not been able to connect to my corporate VPN, does anyone have any suggestions that would allow me to successfully connect using VPN.

 

I had DirecWay (purchased through Earthlink) installed in April and it worked with my corporate VPN with no problems whatsoever until the end of May. Since then I cannot connect through DirecWay to my VPN...at this point, having talked to Earthlink support, my corporate support helpdesk, and the helpdesk for the client software trying to establish the VPN. Log files indicate that of all the steps my client sw does, where it fails is when the it tries to establish the IPSEC tunnel. My current suspicion: Hughes has closed one or both of these ports :

internet protocol port 50
udp port 500

Earthlink support says (1) they do not support VPNs ( which I kind of expect to hear but I can't let that stop me...) (2) they have no way to tell me if these ports are open (!).

Apparently the business deal between Earthlink and Hughes is that Earthlink does all the support and they won't or can't get Hughes involved in the problem determination.

So I am stuck too at this point. Since this connection worked for a month and now doesn't.. .I'm especially stubborn about believing there should be a way to get it working again.

Anyone have insight or info on how to break through this blockade?

 

Yes I do.

I had the Direc PC one way until late last year and then upgraded to the two way DirecWay.

I have had nothing but problems with the speed and support both. The support is the worst, these people are idiots and to get a second or third tier support person will take about a week of waiting.
If I could get DSL where I live I would Dump DirecWay in a second.

Even when the support department sends me surveys everytine I call them, I tell them how unhappy I am with their service and hardware. I have never received an email or pohone call asking for more information or haw they can help.

SCREW DIRECWAY and HUGHES!!!

 

I just got the DirecWay two-way system.
I had StarBand, and I'm sorry I switched.
Even though the support for Starband was terrible,
and the speed not much better than a good dial-up,
at least I had a live, routable IP address.
DirecWay systems are all privately-subnetted, NAT'ed VPN connections. I can't stand it- I can't register a domain, or even SSH or RDP to my home workstations anymore.
Sure, if I wanted to pay $90.00 per month for internet, they'll lend me a live IP I can use to RDP in, but still no domain registration, no domain hosting, completely USELESS)
Say... Wasn't someone working on a way to inject IP via laser onto the electromagnetic field surrounding power lines?? Someone should light a fire under that guy!

 

I work for a company that sells and installs direcway, all i can say is... We get it for free and we are in the process of switching because it SUCKS!

 

FREE!?!?!?! I'd be happy if it was FREE! But I'm paying $70/month for service!

I'd be curious as to what service you go to and how it compares.

 

Does anyone have a network setting behind this DirectWay system? I'm looking to get this service, but! I can't get their support to tell me if I can get a network setup on my side. I asked if they run DHCP, assign Statics, or what. The rep said plug in the USB port, turn on the PC, and run the CD-ROM. WTF I asked about networking they said it had to run through the PC (no mention of duel NICs). I asked if a could use a router, NO PC ONLY. Does anyone know what I can get away with?

 

[Kenneth]

Have you taken a look at thread24-17589?

 

I have starband and have been using check point secure remote to my corp VPN since Oct 2001. It wasn't that fast but at least I had a stable connection. I recently got an email from starband and upgraded to their latest software version. NOW everytime I kick the VPN software on it takes the satillite conection down. Mission control says the modem is disconnected. As soon as I turn the VPN off the satillite goes back up. I've uninstalled the VPN software and re-installed it. The first time it worked! The next time I reboot the same thing happens. Anyone out there have any suggestions?

 

[woodnot]

I have just installed a 2 way Direc PC system at my house, 1st I set up the main pc that I wanted to use as a server with the Direc PC software and got that working.
Next I set up a hub connecting 4 more comupters, here comes the fun part if you have never networked computers.
You may want to go to

http://duxcw.com/digest/howto/network/win98se/client.htm

This will show you how to network and share an internet connection (ICS).
The connection for the satellite (Local Area Connection)
under network and dail up connections will be the one to share, thie connection will be installed when you install the sat software.
The connection for the network will be setup with new IP Address under TCP/IP, 192.168.0.1, you can leave this or change, but the other clients will need to be set for this address to be their Gateway, DNS and WINS numbers.

When all is done, go to

http://www.copperhead.cc/

(DirecPC Uncensored !) for more tips and speed up help. Also from here you can run test to find out what your IP address realy is.
More info on ICS:

http://www.direcpc.com/customer/windows2.html

 

[deepdisc]

Hi Mimosa,

I am in the same position you were in Nov. I'm considering Directway. Did you get it and how does it work for you?

Thanks

 

[emauss]

I just got off the phone with Earthlink in re NAT and ICS for DirecWay. I have been trying to enable NAT or ICS on my Win2K Server box for this connection for about a year. NAT gets blown away (*really* strange info gets pushed into IPCONFIG!) and ICS hangs the machine totally with no log entries to see! (I have a 35port ethernet network on another card on the machine along with the USB Satellite modem).
Anway, I was told that neither NAT nor ICS will work well in this case because of the spoofing that is going on. Basically, the way I have it set up, with SYGATE OFFICE NETWORK as a front end is one of the only ways it will work at this point.
Also, the ethernet modem will be available sometime AFTER hughs has it (and why not switch to HUGHS at that point, since my contract is up??), and then one can use a hardware router and all will be right with the world.

Yeah, right!

Eric Mauss

 

[ReelyStrugglin]

I have direcway running on win2k server and using NAT to connect to the rest of the workstations. This will work for a while until the lights on the transmitter go out and then the service will report that the USB device has been unplugged. This happens whether I have NAT running on not. I say this to show that NAT will work as a shring technology but something with DW kills the whole process. If I could find out what that is I would be in great shape!

 

[emauss]

The only problems I had with the DW4000 was a need to reboot a hung win2K server every two or three days. I assumed this was do to a memory leak from either the directway software or Sygate Office Network. NAT would not run at all. It pushed some very weird stuff into the routing tables. I tried playing with a manual routing, but that didn't work well, either (I an not *that* fluent with forcing ipconfig through ROUTE, but I gave it a try anyway).

 

[ReelyStrugglin]

Haven't had that problem. I'm surprised since every other problem seems to surround this junk. My NAT work great as long as the sat connection holds, but once that goes down things happens that shouldn't. I mean "USB Unplugged" messages from bad isolation?? who wrote THAT driver!?
Hey, arent you the same guy with the string and two cans in the other thread??

 

[emauss]

Yeah yeah yeah. (Super String and Inflation and all that stuff)

The USB unplugged kinda makes sense...if anything does in this scenario. The interfacing of hardware and software and firmware is, to use a technical term, phunckie. There are so many variables, and no one seems to really understand entirely what is going on...leaving it to people like you and me, and once our individual situation is resolved (by getting DSL or using pixie dust) we drop it, leaving it to the next IT person to pull out his or her hair about.
If you are big enough, you through money at it and make it go away. If not, you go bald!

(e)

 

[tembhare]

The only advantage of DW 4010 and Brighton Direc Pc is it does protocol spoofing which leads in increase in through put of the system. As a result satellite bandwidth is utilized properly