Hi. I have a few questions about the Dish Network internet service.

On their website Dish Network says that the internet is provided by Wild Blue. Who is Wild Blue? Is my internet service going to be with them or with Dish Network?

Also do you know how fast Dish Network's internet service is? Is it worth getting or should I keep my cable internet connection?

Hi Sarah, and welcome to Disheez!

Dish Network does indeed offer high-speed satellite internet - sort of.

In mid 2006, Dish Network partnered with a company called Wild Blue, a relatively new satellite Internet company. So, your actual Internet service would be provided by Wild Blue. However, the service would appear on your Dish Network bill.

The speed of Dish Network's satellite Internet service (or Wild Blue's, if you prefer) can vary but Wild Blue claims "top speeds" of up to 1.5 Mbps for downloads and up to 256Kbps for uploads (roughly comparable to DSL).

Bear in mind that an additional satellite antenna is required for Dish Network Internet service.

An alternative to satellite Internet is DSL. Dish Network has partnered with many local phone companies to offer DSL Internet service packaged with Dish Network satellite TV. Often in these cases you are billed separately by each company but receive a discount on one or both of your bills.

As far as whether it's worth getting Internet with Dish Network, only you can decide. Certainly there are advantages to having your Internet service bundled together with your satellite TV service; pay one bill instead of two, possible discounts, etc. At this point in time, at least here in the U.S., cable broadband is quite a bit faster than both satellite Internet and DSL. However, satellite Internet and DSL are both more than fast enough for the average user, and unless you're a mega high-powered Internet user downloading or uploading enormous files, you probably wouldn't notice much of a difference between cable, satellite or DSL.