In respect to price and performance you simply can not compare a satellite connection to any ground based service.
The cost basis is entirely different as well as the fact that there are capacity limits to a machine in orbit.
Dollar-wise terrestrial based systems in your local have already made their decision to not serve your area despite a much lower infrastructure cost plus the ability to use that infrastructure decade after decade.
As a comparison consider that Echostar17 is said to have had a price tag of about $500 million dollars plus launch and insurance costs. To that add the costs of building and maintaining the 17 Gateway facilities and 2 NOC's.
Add to that, that the satellite has a mission life of about 15 years and then requires replacement.
There is no way to repeal the speed of light (read latency here) and there is no way to expand or repair a satellite once it is designed, built and placed into orbit 22,300 miles up.
They can add another satellite ... and they just did on December 18th. It is still undergoing testing.
This isn't Cable, FIOS, DSL or a WISP or cellular connection and it can't be made to perform like them.
There are a lot of things that can done to improve performance on your end such as ad and video auto-start and video pre-fetch blocking.
Being mindful of the number of concurrent connections that are established within your network can make a difference.
As to the "system being down" have you looked at the modems internal SCC (System Control Center) at 192.168.0.1 to see if you have any current "conditions" or errors?
(Click on pictures for larger images)
Sometimes the answer is as simple as toggling Web Acceleration or doing an MBX Reset:
If you have another option, take it.
If not, learn the products strengths and weaknesses and how to get the most from it.
