BajaNomad

Another Starband question

DanO - 1-3-2008 at 02:20 PM

Max, I'm sure you'll respond first.

I need to be able to download fairly sizeable attachments, principally pdfs, tifs and excel files, with some txt and word files. I had a horrible experience trying to do this over the holdidays in BCN (with a good signal, mind you) using my Cingular 3g wireless broadband modem and laptop. I think my wife delivered my first son faster than I was able to download a 30-page pdf (through a VPN, granted). In fact, it took so long my battery died after two docs.

How is Starband in terms of down and uploading such files?

Aside from that, anyone have any ideas about how to speed up wireless broadband down and uploads?

bajabound2005 - 1-3-2008 at 05:32 PM

If you do your downloading in the "off-peak" hours with Starband you'll have pretty good luck. It's by no means fast but better than the alternative, which in our case until 3 weeks ago, has been nothing! I think the Starband website will give you the average speeds for uploading and downloading - as well as your maximum allowed amount per 7 day period.

Roberto - 1-3-2008 at 06:15 PM

If you were in Baja California, I'm guessing you were using GPRS, not 3G. That would explain the slowness. Full HSDPA (3g) is 3.6 Mbits/sec download (that's bits, not bytes), while Starband is less than half that - 1.5Mbits. GPRS, which you were almost certainly on, is 56 to a MAX of 114Kbps (1/30) of 3g.

Bajabus - 1-3-2008 at 09:25 PM

Starband has a FAP free period from 12 midnight to 6 AM EST.

If for some reason you are not up during those hours you can use the free download manager from www.freedownloadmanager.org to set up your download. HN service user can do the same thing but their FAP free period is only from 3AM to 6AM EST.

The download manager also allows you to resume the download during the next period if the total download is not completed during the initial try.

Bajabus - 1-3-2008 at 09:28 PM

I forgot to add that during those evening hours you should see about 800Kbps to 1024 Kbps on the download with the 1000 plan. With the 1500 plan you will see about 1200Kbps to 1600Kbps down