Satellite Internet is not ideal if you have access to a broadband-class DSL connection of at least 15 Mbps. However, as many of us who have lived in the country know, DSL connections are often much, much slower — even when advertised at higher speeds. This is largely due to the copper cables DSL is delivered on, which tend to be less well maintained than in more densely populated urban areas.

Overall, Viasat currently offers the best pricing for the amount of data you get. HughesNet has better speeds on cheaper plans, but the low data caps (as low as 10 GB…) cancel out the value of faster speeds in our opinion, since you’ll quickly eat through them doing anything intensive like Skype or streaming Netflix. Viasat also has “unlimited” plans in some areas. These plans aren’t technically unlimited since they throttle after 100 GB or so, but they’re far and above the competition in terms of data allowance.