Jim Boyd in Grand Marais wasn’t the first person to ask me about Exede – but he was the smartest one in that he sent me a link for more info. (Thanks Jim!) Jim is located in Cook County. He has written eloquently about the need for better broadband in the area. I’ve heard his tales of working from satellite – and they aren’t pretty. Apparently Exede is creating quite a buzz in the area with their super-fast satellite service. The question is – is it worth trying?
So I went to my panel of experts – Facebook. Although in this case, Facebook did lead me to current and past broadband provider IT directors (and friends of mine). I sent the link and simply asked – what do you think, especially for rural areas? I want to be clear in saying that these guys haven’t used the service and are only commenting on the service described in the article.
The greatest concerns were latency and data caps. A couple pointed out that this is clearly better than dialup – and perhaps better than other existing options but that latency and data caps would be major issues. One who had used satellite in the past said that once another option was made available he opted out of a 3 year contact for the new service and saved enough in overage charges in 7 month to make up for the early cancellation costs.
