My wife and I moved into a new home last September and I ordered Exede (now Viasat, as we all know) internet. For a while I was getting good upload and download speeds. After a while, they dropped significantly. I called customer service and they told me to troubleshoot it, I would have to have a computer connected directly to the Viasat router. Sometimes that's far easier said than done. I've tested the CAT5e cable here (which I ran myself - planned all the networking for computers, video and sound before we built the house) and it's far faster than Viasat's fastest offered speed, but - well, you know.
(And, yes, I've looked at speeds and tested - upload speed is almost non-existent in tests and download is under 10 MB when it should be 25.)
I've dealt with reps at Viasat a few times now and find they try to help, but have a very limited technical background. I figured if I connected directly to the router, in the long run, they're going to find a way to blame the connections or anything they can as the source of the problems. It's not worth the time to pull a computer off my LAN, change the DNS so it's not working on my network range (I don't use 192.168.x.x for my LAN), lug it into the "tech closet" where the router and stuff is, and connect it directly to the internet, without my firewall, and spend an hour or more with the Viasat reps finding something they can blame.
At first I did get good speed (well, good, by satellite connections), but then it went down and never went up. I've tried to work out what I did and what could have made such a drastic change, but I couldn't find a correlation between, "I did this and then the speed dropped." Then, while doing some landscaping work, I realized the speed dropped within a week or two after I started burying the cable. (Not right when I did it, but later. Maybe it was after rain or something, I don't know, that was over 6 months ago.)
I remember when it was installed, the installer did an excellent job of finding a spot where he could put the dish so it could easily target Viasat-1. The problem is that was over 100' from the crawlspace door and it was on the other side of a spur on our driveway - one that's not been used over the winter but is soon to see a lot of use. I do remember the installer was particularly sensitive to the amount of cable required and commented about saving costs because he paid for his own cable.
A week or two later I got on the tractor and used the backhoe to dig about 20-30' of trench coming out from the house at the crawlspace. I buried both the Viasat cable and my DISH-TV cable in there. They came up to the surface at the end, where they had to separate and go in different directions. (Ultimately I'll rent and use a horizontal bore to run the Viasat cable under the driveway spur.)
While planning the boring and finishing getting the DISH and Viasat cables underground, it occurred to me that I'm not sure if the cable the installer used is suitable for direct bury.
So, with that background, here's what I'm asking:
1) What happens if you bury coax that's not direct bury? How can it mess up the signal and how soon would I see the effects?
2) What is the best cable I can use for approximately a 150' run from the Viasat dish to my house, assuming I'll be burying it?
3) I'm sure I'm not the only person here with speed issues with Viasat - not getting near the promised speed. Does Viasat mess with customers by limiting bandwidth even when you haven't reached your data cap for the month?
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