Mel; I've got Direcway....that or Starband are OK if you don't have any other high speed Internet. Now that BTL has DSL on the island I have relegated the satellite to a backup role at Island Internet. The BTL DSL is wonderful. I know....who would have thought that "wonderful" and "BTL" would appear in the same sentence?

I have found Direcway to be niggly and unreliable. For home use it's fine because one doesn't mind if it drops out for a few minutes. But, an impatient paying customer in an Internet bar DOES mind.

I see no reason to pony up another few thousand dollars for a Direcway upgrade to my existing system which is less than 1 year old. I think Direcway should be offering the upgrades (assuming they work properly) at cost and that people like you, Mel, should be supporting your existing customers likewise.

When I had Starband (which lasted 1 year before the modem blew up) I found the lag times between pages to be quite long. The fastest BTL DSL gives quick browsing, decently fast downloads and MUCH faster than satellite uploads. Yes, it costs quite a bit more than Satellite per month, but I doubt that over a 2 year period there will be ANY difference in price between satellite and DSL when one considers that I have had to pay over 5,000US in satellite equipment over that period.

I only hope that BTL can keep their DSL reliable.