WildBlue Passes 400,000 Customers - From 0 to 400,000 in four years...
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WildBlue Passes 400,000 Customers
From 0 to 400,000 in four years...
09:15AM Monday Aug 24 2009 by Karl Bode
tags: business · bandwidth · stats · consumers · WildBlue
For a few years, satellite broadband provider WildBlue was limited in the number of new customers they could add, because they lacked the capacity to actually serve them. This has generally been reflected in mediocre reviews (fairly common among satellite broadband carriers) and very low usage caps (pdf) that throttle user connections back to 28kbps downstream and 28kbps upstream. Earlier this month the carrier at least opened the door to more customers, adding a chunk of new capacity courtesy of Echostar. The company now says they've officially passed the 400,000 subscriber mark.

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ShellMMG @ 24th Aug 09:01AM:
What it is

I had WB for two plus years and it's fine for what it is -- faster than dialup by a lot. If you're coming from dialup it's great but there are two inherent problems called latency and FAP. The latency causes some applications not to work (which is extremely annoying) and monitoring your FAP-o-meter is a full time job if you have teenagers. 7.5G and $70 a month is a steep incline.

When Alltel came through I tested their aircard...and jumped. I hope something takes up the slack after my contract expires and Verizon chokes me with a 5G cap. I will probably cancel it and haunt free wifi spots if it comes to that.
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DataRiker @ 24th Aug 09:58AM:
FAP

Its sad this is advertised as broadband, but in reality you have less capacity than dial up.
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JesusInside @ 24th Aug 09:58AM:
Re: What it is

said by ShellMMG :

I had WB for two plus years and it's fine for what it is -- faster than dialup by a lot. If you're coming from dialup it's great but there are two inherent problems called latency and FAP. The latency causes some applications not to work (which is extremely annoying) and monitoring your FAP-o-meter is a full time job if you have teenagers. 7.5G and $70 a month is a steep incline.

When Alltel came through I tested their aircard...and jumped. I hope something takes up the slack after my contract expires and Verizon chokes me with a 5G cap. I will probably cancel it and haunt free wifi spots if it comes to that.
My parents had them, nothing but problems! Constant outages, slow speeds, disconnects, I really hope their service improves soon. Even though Charter is not the best ISP they are much better then Wild Blue which is what they have now.
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Hpower @ 24th Aug 11:35AM:
Horrible

Man i'd rather use damn dialup than use their crappy 1000ms latency satellite dialup speeds.

28kbps up and down throttling = wow. Their fair access policy is crazy. Too many limitations and control for dialup speed satellite.

"If, however, you do not decrease your Usage Total to 70% or less of the Usage Threshold within the next 30 days, this failure will constitute a second FAP violation. If you violate the FAP in each of four consecutive months or in each of five calendar months within any twelve month period – whether by exceeding the monthly Usage Threshold or by remaining in a reduced-speed status -- your use of the service will be limited to Reduced Access and restricted to Web browsing activities and to sending and receiving e-mail. Again, once you reduce your Usage Total to 70% of your Monthly Usage Threshold, your speeds and access will return to normal."

I feel your pain Wildsukblue customers.
--
The Internet is about to go down....it is actually.
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anon @ 24th Aug 11:45AM:
It is what it is.

It is what it is. If you live in the sticks with no other options it is better than nothing at all.
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JesusInside @ 24th Aug 12:54PM:
Re: It is what it is.

said by phoneboy3 :

It is what it is. If you live in the sticks with no other options it is better than nothing at all.
It is much better then dailup but not I don't consider real broadband due to the caps, latency, and speed.
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BF69 @ 24th Aug 01:22PM:
Re: It is what it is.

said by phoneboy3 :

It is what it is. If you live in the sticks with no other options it is better than nothing at all.
actually it's not hence why despite having tens of MILLONS of potential customers WB only has 400K. I have a friend that lives a few miles out of town. He'd like to have broadband but he's not going to overpay for satellite internet hence he has NO internet. So like I said it's NOT better than nothing. Nothing is actually better. At least you have $600-$1000 more in your pocket every year and none of the bullshit.
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dsl4ever @ 24th Aug 01:43PM:
I don't see how

they are growing in subscribers instead of declining. I had a horrible experience with WB a few years back. My only internet options at the time was dialup or satellite...so I gave it a shot. To make a long story short, I went back to dialup....I will never try or suggest to others satellite internet in it's current state.
1) horrible latency (i knew about this beforehand)
2) FAP too stringent
3)The main reason...relialibility (the lack thereof). I had to have a dialup account as a backup..and I used it a LOT.
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bridgeman @ 24th Aug 05:18PM:
Never Ever Ever Ever Again!!!

I was a Wildblue customer a couple of years ago.. WORST SERVICE IN MY LIFE.. not to mention i cancelled my service because i moved, I payed the ridiculous early termination fee (since the apartment i moved to wouldn't allow satellites) They've called me ATLEAST 10 times since then saying they're going to charge my card on file if i don't send the equipment. They actually did charge my card one time EXTRA!!! i have fought, complained with everyone who works for WB and they swear it won't happen again.. They've sworn this each of the times it happens over and over again.... It's been 4 or 5 months now since I've gotten the voice message and I'm praying that they won't call again..

So yeah this is not better than dial up.. I had rather use snail mail than use WB. I will never live in another house that can't have Cable Internet. That was the first question I asked my realtor before I bought my 1st house a month ago.. I feel sorry for all those people that live out in the rural areas that only have the option of satellite dial up or dial up.. Just go with dial up though. It's WAY more reliable. I mean what good is Satellite Internet? You can't download music/movies or you go over your FAP, you can't do online gaming, no VOIP, no internet in Rain, or if a mosquitoe farts on your dish, YOU WILL NEVER GET Advertised Speeds (And they will tell you in the contract that speeds are NOT GUaranteed and Neither is Service) But you still have to pay EACH MONTH..

WIldblue's ethics are the closest to a criminal organization that i've ever seen, and I can't believe they are allowed to get away with overcharging the good citizens of this country while providing them Substandard Service.
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anon @ 24th Aug 11:04PM:
WB

I had WB and it was a nightmare. I canceled and had to pay outrageous fee to end the contract. If you plan to get this service make sure you read the contract in detail and know what your getting into. They will get you!!!
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sonicmerlin @ 24th Aug 11:46PM:
Wait a Second

They add more capacity...and so instead of increasing the quality of service to their existing customers they just add new ones? Brilliant strategy there.
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equivocal @ 25th Aug 01:01AM:
WB vs. Dialup

That's like arguing about which end of the turd smells worse.

My two year old WB install has been one of the better behaved. I often get my rated 512kbps and the modem doesn't go offline very often. It costs about twice as much as the dedicated POTS line I had when I was full time dialup.

It's the FAP that kills. It is what brings WB down to where dialup is a competitive alternative. And it's why I'm dialed in now, so I can save my FAP for something important instead of blowing it on casual surfing.

400K doesn't sound impressive when considering the size of the market.
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dvd536 @ 25th Aug 01:24AM:
FAP

More capacity but the fap is unchanged.
meh
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iansltx @ 25th Aug 02:40AM:
Re: Horrible

Have you used WB? If not, you haven't felt the pain. I use it on a semi-regular basis (some areas just can't get DSL/cable/3G) and for regular web surfing I'd rather be on dialup many times. Yech.
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iansltx @ 25th Aug 02:43AM:
Re: Never Ever Ever Ever Again!!!

Odd. The WB installs around my area get advertised speeds (still dog slow but as advertised). Latency is just horrible. Then again, all WB stuff around here goes through the electric co-op, including support, so I guess that helps things a bit.
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iansltx @ 25th Aug 02:44AM:
Re: Wait a Second

Actually, it's more brilliant than you'd like to think. Each additional customer adds more dllars to income. If you can add more (contract-bound) customers than go away due to lousy service, you win...
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tim_k @ 25th Aug 07:07AM:
Re: Wait a Second

said by sonicmerlin :

They add more capacity...and so instead of increasing the quality of service to their existing customers they just add new ones? Brilliant strategy there.
Exactly. You can add tons of customers, getting proper service to them is another story.

When I had them my download speeds were pretty close to advertised speeds, so I had no complaints there. Watching webpages load around dialup speeds was a PITA though.
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RIP my babys Buttons 1/15/94-2/9/07 & Beamer 7/24/08, Buttons, Buttons video, Beamer

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Spice300 @ 27th Aug 04:50PM:
WB Capacity and Speed

quote:
... WildBlue was limited in the number of new customers they could add, because they lacked the capacity to actually serve them.
Anik-F2 and WB-1 can support between 750,000 and 1 million customers. However, the demand is not spread out evenly leaving some spot beams overloaded and others lightly loaded. The new capacity added using EchoStar's AMC-15 satellite covers a popular region in the southern states. AMC-15 is in a different orbital location than the other satellites preventing it from being used to lessen the load on existing spot beams without expensive truck rolls to repoint satellite dishes. The new spot beams could make speeds worse for existing customers because the bottleneck is in the gateways, not the satellites. More data flowing through the gateways may mean more prime time slowdown for those on overloaded spot beams.
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Value Pack, beam 31, Riverside gateway
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micwa @ 4th Sep 08:00PM:
Re: It is what it is.

Obviously your expectations are not in sync with how satellite internet operates.
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micwa @ 4th Sep 08:03PM:
Re: WB

No shit. You get you ask for when you don't READ a contract.
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micwa @ 4th Sep 08:11PM:
Must be doing something right.

A user on the official WB forums said it best:

According to Sky Report, the 'other guys' reported they have ~470,000 subscribers

Took them ~9 years to reach that point

Took WB about half that time to get over 400,000...
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