Satellite Internet Forum

[Leighton]

HI:

I recently bought a home on one of the Pearl Islands off of the coast of Panama.
There is no internet service there. Can someone give my information regarding
the availabliity of satellite internet services offered to residents in Panama?

[kim fioriglio]

As of June of this year there was no sat internet service in Panama.
You can get Directv however just call information.

[panamadan]

I recently got a one way satellite service working great in the highland region of Volcan, Panama. It uses any dial up or cellular based connection for the outbound connection. If you have no land based telephone service in your location, you will need the Bellsouth wireless Internet service for your outbound connection. It doubles the monthly cost, but is immensely better than the land based telephone service. Download speeds via satellite average 400 Kbps, and the upload speeds via cellular are 144 Kbps. The satellite service costs $40.00 per month, with a US billing address, or $50.00 per month with a non-US billing address. It is DVB-IP based, and the service is on Satmex-5, which I easily receive on a 1.2 meter dish. The satellite equipment is inexpensive, around $300, but just the CDMA wireless PCMCIA card from Bellsouth costs $300 alone.

Since a two way satellite system would be immensely better than this, I am trying a two way Direcway system here next. After I test it here, I will post the results. If I can get it to work, I will eliminate my land telephone line, and just use cell phones for voice calls.

[Paulus]

Panamadan, thanks for your posting and I'm very interested to learn about your latest experiences with the two-way satellite. I'm in Chiriqui also and have to find a good solution for phone and internet in several areas that have no phone lines.

I have no experience/knowledge at all about this subject so any advise and help is highly appreciated.

[jose morales]

Hughes direcway can give that 2 way service.
You will have to check the antenna size

[Paulus]

I contacted Mr. Morales about the two way satellite system in Panama and unfortunately this was his reply:

I have been informed by Direcway that signal rich only to Guatemala and Honduras. I thought that also Panama , since this signal also give service to Colombia, Peru and Chile, but unfortunately no to Panama. Sorry. As soon I knew signal is available there I will inform you. You can get Tv satellite signal.

My question remains: do we have to wait or are there other solutions?  

[SATCONXION - Xavier Ribas]

You can buy services and VSAT in SatConxion.
We have cover under Hispasat or AB1 satellite.
contact: ctoruno@satconxion.org

[Inetcon_Sat]

If interested, we can provide Satellite Internet powered by Direcway on all Latin America. We do have one distributor in Panama that can provide you with a 1.2m dish and DW6000 modems for this service, with local installation and support. Cost for bandwidth is higher than Direcway, but it works. We can also activate your actual Direcway hardware if it is decommissioned from the Direcway network. We do have signal with the 0.74m dish but it is not recommended. If interested, you can contact me at sales@inetconsa.com.

[Susan Guberman-Garcia]

I have to question this because I have the Bellsouth card and the upload is very VERY slow. The slow upload seems to be a vagary of this generation cellphone 1XRTT protocol that Bellsouth uses for the Aircard based wireless access (A faster new generation 1XRTT is being used by Verizon in the USA but Bellsouth here in Panama doesn't have it yet). So if you are using a one way (download only) satellite and combining it with the Bellsouth wireless LAN card for your uploads, how can you possibly be getting 144 kbps for your upload if what you are relying on for upload is the Bellsouth card modem?  It doesn't make sense. Please explain.

I recently got a one way satellite service working great in the highland region of Volcan, Panama.  It uses any dial up or cellular based connection for the outbound connection.  If you have no land based telephone service in your location, you will need the Bellsouth wireless Internet service for your outbound connection.  It doubles the monthly cost, but is immensely better than the land based telephone service.  Download speeds via satellite average 400 Kbps, and the upload speeds via cellular are 144 Kbps.  The satellite service costs $40.00 per month, with a US billing address, or $50.00 per month with a non-US billing address.  It is DVB-IP based, and the service is on Satmex-5, which I easily receive on a 1.2 meter dish.  The satellite equipment is inexpensive, around $300, but just the CDMA wireless PCMCIA card from Bellsouth costs $300 alone.   Since a two way satellite system would be immensely better than this, I am trying a two way Direcway system here next. After I test it here, I will post the results.  If I can get it to work, I will eliminate my land telephone line, and just use cell phones for voice calls.

[kocca]

I have to question this because I have the Bellsouth card and the upload is very VERY slow.

Upload speeds delivered by consumer grade broadband satellite connections are - by design - very slow. When compared to their download speeds, that is.

But the operative word is broadband Susan. I believe what you're describing comes under the category of narrow band. Apples and oranges.

kocca

[RWolf]

If this is in your price range, then we have it, keep in mind it does Voice over internet Phone as well, so you can get rid of your telephone line.

758 Kbps X 256 Kbps (1:10 Ratio) (This means the bandwidth is shared much less, the average is 80:1)
1.5 Mbps X 768 Kbps(1:10 Ratio)
Equipment: (This includes Antenna, Modem, BUC, and everything else you need for satellite)

Contact me (rwolf@sw-communications.com) if you have any questions.

[inasol]

We are a Costarican Satellite Internet service provider. We have some two way systems installations in Panama working very well.

Soon, we will be opening a new office in Panama, but in the meantime, we can install a system over there.  We have 60+ systems installed in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama, and customer are very satisfied.

We use different satellites, depending on your location, but for sure we can provide you a quality service.

Contact us at inasol@gmail.com for more details. Thanks.