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Old 27th January 2001 | 14:41
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ExSimGuy
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A service I have used, and it works, is "DirecPC". It's done by Hughes and uses their "HotBird" satellites.

The home page is
http://www.direcpc.com/
but this is for their N.American market. However, they do cover Europe (hopefully their agent in UK, who used to be a media company in Brighton and were very little use, has changed) but the system works very well in the Mid-East, so they appear to have relatively global coverage.

I suggest doing a search in your local area (eg, search "DirecPC Spain" or Hotbird Spain) and you should find a source

Remember that you do need a telephone line (or a "wireless local loop" telephone connection (like JJFlyer appears to have), but the downlink works well. I have used ZoneAlarm with it - no probs.

And yes, it works in conjunction with HotBird's TV channels - same dish (if you use hotbird for your TV)

The pricing varies in different regions; here it's about a dollar a download-megabyte (minimum) or less (if you commit to a reasonable download in 12 months) Prices are lower in UK.

Update It looks like they now have a 2-way service, which means you don't need a local telephone line for the uplink. However, I suspect this is going to be much more expensive in capital costs, as you will have to buy a VSAT transmitter instead of just a receiver.

[This message has been edited by ExSimGuy (edited 27 January 2001).]