Deciding on an internet provider

[ThrowingShapes]

Having just been relocated I set out to find what providers there are in the area.  It seems to two most prevalent providers are jet broadband and a hughes satellite internet. 

My son does a large amount of gaming so what I need to know is how fast of internet should I be looking at?  Hughes satellite internet seems to go up to 5 mbp/s for a rather hefty fee of around $350.  Jet broadband tops out at 8 mbp/s(download) and 640kbp/s (upload) for a more reasonable price.

Another question I have would be what kind of bottlenecks would he encounter, if any, purchasing the highest end packages from either company.  Would the upload/download speeds be affected significantly by his hardware? 

Are there any specific pros/cons to satellite internet that should be considered before looking at it is a viable medium for gaming?

Thanks in advance for the help, and I'm sorry for the amount of questions in this single topic

Any other information you may find helpful to me is welcome to, thanks again.

[DA8686]

One thing, for gaming, is to find out what kind of ping you can get from the different providers.  Usually broadband will pretty good pings from my experience. 

I don't see the bandwidth becoming an issue.  Are you going to be doing anything besides gaming that you would need more bandwidth?  The only thing I can see is if you are running a website from your house in which you will need a lot of upload bandwidth.

Overall, assuming the gaming is the only thing you are worrying about besides normal downloading/browsing, I would recommend broadband for the more reasonable price.

[mroilfield]

Unless things have changed in the past two years I wouldn't even consider getting a connection thru a satellite if you are going to be gaming. I called Hughes about using their service for gaming and they straight up told me that I would be better off sticking with my dial up I had at the time.

[ThrowingShapes]

Thank both of you for your help.

After a little bit more research (and learning hughes clearly isn't the best option) I've learned that verizon also offers dsl in the area. The speed seems to go as far as 3mbps for the verizon service which brings up the question again.  Would that speed be suitable for gaming?  I'd rather not have to deal with an angry teenager in the new home, so I'm hoping you can shed some light on the issue.

Thanks again for all the help and dealing with my clear lack of knowledge in the field. 

Edit: Sorry, I forgot to answer da8686's questions.  The internet would be used primarily for my son's gaming and the occasional surfing (and asking for help here) as far as it goes for me.

[soybean]

Hughes satellite internet seems to go up to 5 mbp/s for a rather hefty fee of around $350.

Is that per month? 

[DA8686]

I don't think the bandwidth at 3mbps will be an issue.  Gaming is much more dependent on lag and ping.  I used DSL in my area and it was great for gaming.  I think either the verizon or the Jet service will be sufficient for gaming.  This is assuming the services that are provided are good services that live up to the specs they specify.  I agree with a few of the earlier posters that the satelite is not worth the money and may actually be worse for what you are looking to do.