| Perhaps you've noticed a funny thing taking place | | | | anything and everything). That's what the |
| in many neighborhoods across the nation and in | | | | paradigm was for many a long year, and that's |
| many parts of the world for that matter: satellite | | | | the way it was supposed to be forever-right? |
| receiver dishes are popping up all over the place, | | | | Wrong! Satellite television and then more recently |
| in home after home, as if we were dealing with | | | | satellite internet have been undermining their cable |
| some sort of architectural acne. Many people that | | | | rivals (that term hardly seemed applicable back |
| have yet to experience (much less subscribe to) | | | | then, and soon that will be the case again but for |
| any sort of a satellite service probably find this | | | | the total opposite and inverse reasons) at a |
| development to be quite perplexing; on the other | | | | steady pace that has risen to near-frenzy over |
| hand, the people that have experienced (and likely | | | | the last five or more years. |
| have also subscribed to) such services are quite | | | | Satellite internet in particular was seen as a long |
| clear on exactly what is going on. It's nothing | | | | shot kind of service, one that would never be |
| more than a clear manifestation of consumers' | | | | able to compete with the "big boys" in the |
| preference, at the national as well as the global | | | | internet provider field. Internet applications by |
| level, for a superior quality of service in all regards: | | | | nature require that signal latency be as brief as |
| from the connection itself to the support that | | | | possible and that service interruptions be as |
| backs it up. In this case, it would appear to be a | | | | infrequent as possible, which were precisely the |
| simple and straightforward case of satellite | | | | two problems with satellite internet posed for the |
| internet and satellite television services dealing a | | | | average user. Yet the engineers and technicians in |
| major blow to cable and other service means | | | | the field proved not to be quitters, and they toiled |
| operating in the same market. | | | | away at what seemed to be the ultimate "mission |
| Now, to somebody that took their eyes off the | | | | impossible" until the impossible actually came to be! |
| satellite industry in general many years ago, this | | | | And the result is what you see today on rooftops |
| may all seem to be sheer madness. After all, | | | | from Maine to California and from Alaska to |
| back when satellite communications made their | | | | Florida: namely, the most insane profusion of |
| debut on the home-based consumer market a | | | | satellite receivers imaginable. And the fact that |
| few decades back the industry in general was | | | | satellite internet as well as television services have |
| seen as unreliable and nothing more than the | | | | been commanding better and better positions |
| resort of people who had no other choices (i.e., | | | | within customer satisfaction surveys has only |
| the people living way out in the middle of | | | | spurred this trend on even more. |
| nowhere, hundreds if not thousands of miles from | | | | |