by Jeremiah Smith

Created on: October 18, 2008

High-speed internet is now considered a "basic need" for many people, listed right along with food and shelter. That being the case, consumers are always looking for the best deal available in the highly competitive market of high-speed internet access, sometimes even using offers from potential suitors to weasel a better price out of a competitor.

Unfortunately for those who do not live in an area where cable or DSL internet service are available, their choices, and bargaining chips, are reduced significantly: dial-up, internet from a cell phone company, or satellite internet service are the available options, each one coming with advantages and drawbacks. The service that seems to be the most evenly balanced among these is satellite internet.

PRICE

The biggest factor in most consumers' happiness with any particular service will inevitably be price. For satellite internet service, that price will not be cheap. For monthly service, it begins at $59.99, which is for the recently renamed HughesNet satellite broadband. The equipment itself is not cheap, either, coming at a price of $349.99, or $50 less than the cost of HughesNet's highest monthly service.

SPEED

For the previously mentioned basic service of $59.99, HughesNet offers 1 Mbps download speed, with 128 Kbps upload speed, which are fairly respectable numbers. By comparison, dial-up will never crack the 1 Mbps mark, and cell phone WiFi internet service will stay pretty close to about 1.5 Mbps, for about the same price. DSL and cable internet service begin at around 768 Kbps, topping out at about 6 Mbps.

Satellite internet does have the advantage of upgradability in terms of speed. For $399.98 a month, HughesNet offers a service including 5 Mbps download speeds, with 300 Kbps uploads. The only disadvantage satellite internet has in the speed department are its notoriously slow upload speeds. These are due to the way the in-home modem communicates with servers.

AVAILABILITY

Clearly, satellite internet's biggest advantage comes in the fact it is available anywhere there is a clear line of sight to the southern sky, thus making it most useful for those living in rural areas. This ensures the satellite dish on the user's house is able to receive the incoming signal without interruption.

While satellite service is perfectly capable of providing most homes with a reliable, fast internet connection, the cost will scare many potential users away. However, for those with limited options, it does hold the ticket to high-speed connectivity.

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