[Eratosthenes]

My brother has direcway satellite internet service. I have used it for about a total of 3 months while visiting him. I use a cable modem connection at home.

here's some comments on my experience:

There is noticable latentcy in the connection due to the round trip to geosynchronous orbit. This is noticable in web browsing when you click a link and nothing happens for a little while. After the web page starts loading, it loads at about DSL or cable modem speed. It is also noticable when playing poker--I try to make sure that I don't come close to timing out when using direcway.

I can use direcway with party/skins with no problem. Pokerroom.com will not work at all over the direcway connection. (I have not spent a lot of time working to get pokerroom fixed, so it may be possible.)

Your volume of downloaded stuff is capped at a fairly low level. When you exceed that level your service speed is slowed waaaaay down for a couple of hours or so. This will be a problem if you download a lot of software, music, pr0n, or whatever. I think you can get more info on this at direcway.com. I don't thing you will hit the cap just playing poker and browsing the web.

I prefer DSL/cable, but would use direcway if that was all I could get.

I have heard that heavy rain will disrupt the connection. I have never actually observed this. I did witness a mysterious interuption of service, but I see have that with cable modem, too. The connection quality is also sensitive to how well the dish is aimed.

VOIP things like skype don't work with direcway.

There are people who absolutely hate direcway. My experience is that it is OK (not great, just OK).