🚀 go-pugleaf

Beartooth <karhunhammas@lserv.com> wrote:

: 	Looking for a house in western Virginia to buy and move
: into to once my wife joins me in retirement, I've been counting
: on getting bradband Internet access, out in the country far from
: DSL lines, by subscribing to a satellite service.

: 	It could even pay, despite the upfront costs, inasmuch as
: houses twenty or thirty miles from Blacksburg (which we want to
: be reasonably near) are a whole different market: you can get a
: lot more and nicer house for the same money. (People down there
: don't even think of the kind of commute times that're normal
: here, apparently, so retirees get a break.)

: 	But the one provider I know of for that area is Starband;
: and Starband filed for bankruptcy yesterday!

Last time I looked at this they were strictly Wintel and USB which was one 
reason I stopped looking at them. The other was the cost.

: 	Can anyone see the shape of things to come clearly enough
: to guess whether satellite broadband is going to go the way of
: the recent bubble, or become what telephone & radio did a century
: ago?

Don't know if this is actually Starband in disguise, but check out:

<http://www.blastsurf.com/satellitepc.htm>


: 	If we buy a house in -- say -- Pearisburg, VA, will we
: most likely have affordable broadband in a year or three? Or
: never?

Have you checked into it? I local DC paper did an article recently on how 
rural ISPs were providing broadband at rock-bottom rates. Also a friend 
who just moved to WVA says that he can get it cheaply.

: -- 
: RR 'Beartooth' Neuswanger <karhunhammas (at) lserv.com>
: retiree & linux greenhorn w/RH 7.2
: Keep in mind that I have no idea what I am talking about.