Am I correct that there is something 'wrong' there?

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ArtDent - 26 Oct 2007 18:29 GMT

When you are in the Join / Create screen, there are advertisements that
appear at the top of the screen and one of them is for Direct-TV offering a
free year of WoW play with sign-up.
Err.... isn't it almost impossible to play WoW over a satellite hook-up
because of the inherent lag?
Is this just another case of the corporate 'suits' that don't know what the
heck they are doing?

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Gumby - 26 Oct 2007 20:34 GMT

> When you are in the Join / Create screen, there are advertisements that
> appear at the top of the screen and one of them is for Direct-TV offering a
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> Is this just another case of the corporate 'suits' that don't know what the
> heck they are doing?

They're not a 'Net company and you're not getting 'Net access when you
sign up with them - just television. Unless something's changed
recently and it's not reflected in their Web site, anyways.

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"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They
never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our
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Dave Ryan - 26 Oct 2007 21:28 GMT

In alt.games.diablo Gumby <gumbyjd@eastlink.spammersmustdie.ca> wrote:

:> When you are in the Join / Create screen, there are advertisements that
:> appear at the top of the screen and one of them is for Direct-TV offering a
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
: sign up with them - just television. Unless something's changed
: recently and it's not reflected in their Web site, anyways.

Not correct.

DirectTV has a high speed internet package.
http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/discover/broadbandBundle.jsp

In the past you would download highspeed content from the dish with fairly
brutal latency and have a dial up connection for uploads. It appears
now that they combine that with DSL packages. I suspect they still use
the dish for downloads, however I am not sure.

-dave

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Don Bruder - 26 Oct 2007 23:06 GMT

> > When you are in the Join / Create screen, there are advertisements that
> > appear at the top of the screen and one of them is for Direct-TV offering a
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> sign up with them - just television. Unless something's changed
> recently and it's not reflected in their Web site, anyways.

You *CAN* get 'Net access though DirecTV - Depending on which month it
is, which direction you're facing when you dial the phone, and how you
hold your mouth during the call to start the install process, you'll end
up connecting through "DirecWay", "DirecPC", or "HughesNet" - three
names for the same service.

But, as mentioned, once the install is done, it's almost impossible to
play any realtime game through them, due to the fact that you're looking
at an *ABSOLUTE MINIMUM* latency of 1.5 seconds each way. Not that
they're deliberately slowing you down or anything like that (although
FAP is another issue that can come into play) but your packets have to
travel something pretty close to 50K miles total just to get from your
desk to their op-center in Colorado. Which totally ignores any latency
on the 'net between there and the machine you're actually trying to talk
to.

When I tried playing D2 via HughesNet, I had a consistent minimum ping
of 2.3 seconds to battle.net, and it wasn't at all unusual for me to try
to toss a Hydra, ferinstance, and not have it "happen" for anywhere from
4-6 seconds after clicking to fire it. Ditto Frozen Orbs and similar -
"click... wait... wait... wait... wait some more... Aha! There goes my
Orb! But it's a little late... Here comes the "you have died" screen"

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Gumby - 27 Oct 2007 02:27 GMT

> You *CAN* get 'Net access though DirecTV - Depending on which month it
> is, which direction you're facing when you dial the phone, and how you
> hold your mouth during the call to start the install process, you'll end
> up connecting through "DirecWay", "DirecPC", or "HughesNet" - three
> names for the same service.

Heh. Well, like I said, their web site doesn't mention it at all.

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"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They
never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our
people, and neither do we." - George W. Bush [August 5th, 2004]

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Don Bruder - 27 Oct 2007 02:44 GMT

> > You *CAN* get 'Net access though DirecTV - Depending on which month it
> > is, which direction you're facing when you dial the phone, and how you
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>
> Heh. Well, like I said, their web site doesn't mention it at all.

SUPPOSEDLY it was spun off into it's own separate entity. It started
life as "DirecPC", just about the same time that DirecTV showed up.
Since then, it's been bouncing around among the three names at various
times. Last time I paid attention (prolly about 8 months ago now) it was
HughesNet.

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Bob I - 27 Oct 2007 15:14 GMT

>> You *CAN* get 'Net access though DirecTV - Depending on which month it
>> is, which direction you're facing when you dial the phone, and how you
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>
> Heh. Well, like I said, their web site doesn't mention it at all.

Not to mention when the weather is really bad at either the uplink
location OR the downlink location you loose the signal.

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