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Linux and Satellite Internet Services
jd142 asks: "I'm considering getting a satellite dish, DirectPC, for high speed Internet access. Has anyone had experience setting one of these up with Linux, and if so, does one distribution do a markedly better job out of the box? I'm not interested in the DirectPC push content; I already pay for a decent news feed, so all I want is highspeed download from the Web, ftp, and news. This will go in a PC I haven't bought yet, probably a CyberMax AMD 700 or 800 Athalon dual booting some flavor of Linux and some flavor of Windows. Thanks!"
Satellite Internet service? Now this is interesting. Where can one find more information on this?
I was thinking about some kind of satellite service, but that route doesn't sound very promising.
Guess I'm still dialing up for a while. :-(
Maybe Cisco's wireless thing will be my salvation...
New XFMail home page
I would definitely recommend cable. It's cheaper, more reliable, easier to set up, and Linux friendly. (At least, mine was. I just did dhcpcd eth1, and it was hot.)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
suggest DirectPC to anyone. A friend of mine decided to get it since he was already getting DirectTV and could't get cable access. First of all you're paying for two ISPs, the upstream provider and then DirectPC's downstream service. Not only are you paying out the bum for the service but you are also charged for bandwidth usage in the same fashion as ISDN. He also had serious trouble gaming since his ping was always >800ms. I don't recall if he ever got it working on his Linux box because of the funky network setup (him and I aren't gurus). I have a similar problem with my cable modem, I use my modem for upstream traffic and the cable for downstream. I had trouble configuring Linux to work right with it so I left it on my Windows machine. The service is a little Windows centric in my opinion because they require you to use two different network protocols at the same time which Macs can't do without third party software and it takes some wrestling (for me at least) to do it with Linux. Thats just my experience I could be wrong.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
The service I have seen advestised in the UK and Ireland connects to what I believe are call the Hotbird Satellites. The cards that come with this service use the small "horn" at the centre of your dish. This requires power and must be drawn from the actual card supplied. In windows you have to click a button to power up the dish from your satellite card. It wasnt a box that sat between a NIC and your dish but actually a dedicated card. Unless someones written a driver then I'm afraid these satellite services won't be much use under linux
Way back in the olden days ('94ish), we used to
:) I still remember...
have a satellite system setup to receive
our Fidonet mail (remember Fidonet?)
We had one guy who had a dish on his roof receive the entire feed (wow!) and then distribute it to the rest of us using regular landlines. Pennsylvania Online (www.paonline.com) used to send him the feed for ~$30/month via satellite. Our whole net group chipped in about $10/each per year and that bought us access to all the feeds we could possibly want.
I remember how AMAZING our local net was (1:2630) because we could get the Fido echoes quicker than anyone else in the area.
Thanks, Jeff.
See Linuxtv for the drivers and more information about the PCI card
Before y'all get your hopes up, Speedchoice is only available in two metro areas: Detroit and Phoenix, but I really liked the technology as well as the performance.
:-( And so was my service. It's been a struggle to get a high-speed access since.
The idea is the same as DirectPC. Your downstream connection is 'radio wave' (I hesitate to use the term 'microwave', 'cuz I'm not sure if it was...). Your upstream connection is a WAN line (mine was an analog modem (28.8, I think). You're interface to all the equipment (analog modem, radio modem, antenna) is a 10baseT drop.
The 'radio modem' controls the whole works. It dials the analog modem when needed, and routes all your packets for you (up and down). There is Windows software that you can use to control the modem (no auto-dial, Am I connected?, that type of stuff).
The most impressive part was the speed. The best I ever got on an FTP download was 160Kb/s. As a matter of fact, Speedchoice was stating the following 'estimated' throughputs:
analog Modem up = 1Mb down
dual ISDN up = 4-5Mb down
T1 up = 10Mb down
The analog up was only $49.99/month unlimited access (rented equipment), and a $99 install.
So, why, you may ask, did I get rid of it? Well, it is a line-of-sight technology, and when they installed it, the line-of-sight was through a hole in some trees. Well, appearently, after a big storm blew through, that hole was gone...
But, if you're in Detroit or Phoenix, I highly recommend it! You won't be hosting a web site, but it ROCKS! for surfing!
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
First off, if you are thinking of going with DirecPC ... don't. Speaking as a *VERY* former customer of DirecPC/TV, I can tell you that: 1) The customer service is bottom of the line, horrible, we-won't-help-you-because-you-have-no-alternative style. 2) Their new pricing plans are a joke. 200 hours for 50 bucks a month. 200 hours? get real. 3) This is a biggie - They have what is called a FAP. Fair Access Policy. This means that if you download large quantities of data, your bandwidth is throttled to less than dial-up modem speeds. I went 'round and 'round with them for months over this travesty. After some light testing, after you download ~ 90 - 180MB at full speed, it throttles you back for an indeterminate amount of time. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the point of having a high bandwidth connection to download large quantities of data really fast? This totally negates any reasonable use you might use this for. 4) The DirecPC software is WINDOWS only. They have stated, time and again, they have no plans on developing for another platform. 5) Latency is horrid. This is to be expected, and I do not fault them for this, due to the limits of technology, but none the less, the latency is way to much to be playing time senstive games (Quake, etc...) 6) The ISA/PCI 'sattelite modems' get HOT ... REAL hot. They will increase your case temperature dramatically. They are indeed Ethernet cards with a coax interface. They even show up in your network config in windows as a network card. 7) Your return path is via modem... so best upload speeds are 33.6kb/set. Not server material in any way, shape or form. Forget ratio MP3 sites :) On the plus side, you get a dedicated IP. If you are downloading small files in small squirts, the speed is nice, but not worth the price. Did I mention that customer service is abysmal? I have cancled my DireccPC account and am using a noisy noisy, slow dial-up connection. But I feel better about myself that I am not supporting that company... between the FAP and thier new pricing plans, they are amoung the worst deal you could possibly get. Even if you had unlimited usage (Like I had, as I signed up before they changed the pricing plans), the FAP limits your usage anyway, making it functionally useless. One thing that I do miss is the news push service. W/O being online, I was able to get the newsgroups I wanted automatically, and connect to a news server on my local LAN. That was very handy, without a doubt. But that is the only thing I miss.
I first had this service 4 years ago. Living in a city with no high speed access of any type. At first the service was great, I could download at speeds close to 300Kps. It was not good for anything that required a low latency, I.E. games, telnet. But eventually they got greedy like every company. Hughes implemented the FAP (Fair Access Policy). This basically restricted download speeds after a certain amount of time or amount downloaded. That was the problem that they never explained what they were basing there rules on. It would just slow down to modem speed after a while. I could download 3 gig a month no problem before the FAP but after I could never download anything over 30 meg. It would slow down the download and then never resume the max speed. It was the most frustrating thing ever. There tech support is the worst, responding to every problem with "reload the software". I would not recommend it to anyone except for the newsgroups software. They have a newsgroups feed streaming 24/7, and you don't have to be online to get it. Just setup your win9x box and it will capture the groups and save it. Then you can connect to your local box with a news reader and browse the groups all off-line. That was a cool feature, but not work the other headaches.....
Your results may vary......
Here's the skinny... Don't mess with the current generation of satellite systems that deliver internet service. DirecPc is a nightmare. Installers fumble with windows installs of the stock software. Hughes, the DPC manufacturer has very little knowledgable tech support concerning the matter. Aside from that, the price is outrageous considering the return. Asyncronus Cable modems are better. I have worked for one of the hughes authorized installers of this for the last five years and have seen the nightmares from simple customer problems all the way to corporate deployments. Several other systems are out that deliver a much better product on the high end. There is a system from Tachyon.net that delivers from low 100kbs all the way to I believe 2mbs in ATM with a send via satellite limited to around 300kbs. I heard one of their executives at a conference in july and they sound very promising to the high end consumer. Another company to check into is Harmonic Data Systems. They provide a satellite based software that is specifically for Linux or FreeBSD. Again more of a high end solution. Hughes is going to, in the next duration, release what they call personal VSAT which should be a contender with the higher end satellite delivery internet providers. Probably won't support Linux though unless hughes sees it as profitable. Take this as you will, but DPC is a dead technology and there's much better on the horizon.
"Draw them in with the prospect of gain, take them by confusion." Sun Tzu
Currently, it's being tested in Toronto, but they expect it to roll out through southern Ontario ASAP. LookTV is a Cable/Satellite replacement (http://www.look.ca/), that currently offers Antenna download, but modem upload, same as the Satellite companies. They are trying to get approval from the CRTC (Canadian Radio and Television Commission, I believe) to allow Antenna uploading. I spoke to one of the techs, and they have permission to perform tests, and they are doing that now (wouldn't tell me where).
LookTV is Microwave based, so you need unobstructed line-of-site to the broadcast tower (it can be minorly ubstructed with trees, but not with buildings), and they don't have full covereage everywhere, but this may be a viable option too, at least for folks in Toronto. Also, if you live in an apartment building, you have to fax them a signed permission form from your owner (that's why I don't have it yet. 8-( ). Perhaps if you look for similar things in your area, it may soon ease your modem woes.
HTH.This is my
This is my
--An Oldie, but a Goodie!
I have DirecPC, and I've been so unhappy with it I could scream. A "friend" sold me his dish (to get rid of it I'm sure) and I even got to keep his "old" account ($19.95 for 200K/s 6pm-6am unlimited). It has never really worked at all. From about 3pm until 12 midnight, don't even think of using it, their network is apparently so overtaxed, you don't even get MODEM speeds out of it, usually around 1 AM it clears up, but then... FAP kicks in, 2 or 3 MP3s or one Microsoft Windows 98 Update later and you're throttled, a bit more, and you get throttled again, so basically you're good for roughly, 30 megs a day and that's that, else you get FAPped. I GLADLY cancelled my account to get on $59 a month cable modem, it's expensive but at least I can DOWNLOAD at a reasonable rate now (the cable is one way just like DirecPC is, but 2 way cable is just days away now). My advice, FORGET DIRECPC, maybe some of the other Internet over satellite companies don't suck, but believe me, you will be sorely disappointed in DirecPC. Grimster
--- www.f-theocean.com
If you can stand to wait until 2004, a copany called TeleDesic will be providing high speed, 2 way satellite Inet access at an affordable price. They are using a network of low earth orbitting (LEO) satellites that they say will serve several simulatenous users, also giving speeds of up to 64mbit. Anyway, check out their website, www.teledesic.com
I have also been looking for a satelite based internet service for my Linux machine so my small network can get better than modem speeds. So far what everone has said is true. There is one company that I have talked to that will have linux drivers by the end of this month (real soon). Goto http://www.axxess.net/. They also mentioned that they are currently planning to have two-way satellite service by the end of the year. That sounds consistant with rumers from around the net that two-way satellite technology is currently in development.
"Your having a bad day when the voices in your head put you on hold"
So maybe they're the people to ask and the website to check first. My guess is that because you have the satellite receiver inside your computer, you should get a pretty high transfer rate to the HD or memory or whatever talks to the bus.
Whether such a data bandwidth is already available on some sats and/or from ISPs is another question.
---
"Hasta la victoria siempre!" El Comandante
Linux is not an option for most of these.
The reason is that especially the new kernels are quite stubborned on the topic of receive only interfaces. You do have problems making those work and most vendors do not bother.
Amidst the few noteable exemptions are satellite news feeds and stuff but you hardly need such a staellite service. The only reason these use linux is that it is a platform of choice for combining encryption (these services cost money), hardware access and a working news server.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Hello. We have been using Direcpc for about three years in isolated locations across Canada. To use Linux with direcpc we use a product called Helius. http://www.helius.com , This allows other computers on the network to access the internet. Then we use the NAT software on the linux software. We have taken the Helius software and the Linux OS and created an embedded version for deployment in the field http://www.knet.on.ca/knetrouter .
I imagine that someone out there is looking at making an open source driver for the direcpc card. One of the uses of the direcpc we are experimenting with is in the use of remote kiosks. Because in Canada we use Express Vu we can set it up anywhere that there is a TV dish. The Kiosk mode would get material on a regular basis. Museums, catalogues, training videos etc. Lots of uses. . Now I just need to take sleep and personal time out of my life to work on these ideas..
We've been doing a spot of research into good connections for an "out back/bush" project we're working on. Here in Australia, the ISP service provided by BigPond (the ones we all love to hate :) have a satellite downlink with an ISP return feed.
:)
:) Additionally, the lag due to Earth->GEO->Earth routing makes it pretty much a consumption operation. As has been noted, gaming would suck :)
:)
Bigpond supplies a relatively good/cheap "rural" service that works all around the country (if you can get the phone lines to where you are). Given the quality & distance of country lines, you're lucky to get 28.8 or 33.6 - many consider 14.4 wonderful
Thus, satellite could be pretty good for bringing down standard surfing, news feeds, etc. I too am concerned about emails being broadcast to anyone looking at the satellite (just what encryption do they use again?
Other issues are, as noted, getting the things working on Linux. Not many drivers/etc for these systems, unfortunately.
If you're in the middle of nowhere and 14.4 in both directions is killing you then yes, satellite is a good idea. If you're in an urban or regional center area, get ISDN/DSL/Cable and get a real connection.
Personally, I'm hanging for good, competitive LEO systems like Teledesic and/or Iridium. Mmmmmm - solar powered laptop, satellite 128kbps link, total planetary coverage - "People who don't need people are the happiest people!"
I left my body to science, but I'm afraid they've turned it down...
Ultimate Satellite Internet gets its dishes from Harmonic Data Systems & they have what is called an E-1 Router, and it runs Linux. The drivers are there, but due to the large difference in the various Linux Distros, they do not want to support it until there is a larger demand.
I just thought I would leave that opinion.
-- Never get into an argument with a stupid person, they will just bring you down to their level. And beat you with exp
I live in Wisconsin and whenever we get heavy snowfall or thunderstorms, the clouds in the sky block the satellite signal.
The military spy satellites do not work well in bad weather either.
So while you may get exceptional sped and everything from satellite, you cannot stop mother nature from blocking your feeds from time to time.
I was able to set up IP masquerading so that other machines could get high-speed downloads, too.
Some caveats -
1. you still need some kind of regular ISP for your outgoing packets
2. I had to "commission" my DirecPC card under Windows, then take the config file this generated and move it to Linux.
3. Hughes (who operate DirecPC) are infamous for their FAP (Fair Access Policy) under which they throttle you down to regular modem speeds if they decide you've transfered too much in too little time. In the past they haven't published how much is too much, so it was difficult to know when you were about to get into trouble. A recent class action suit against them might have changed that.
4. Until recently, Helius didn't even have 2.2 kernel support, though they seem to now (2.2.5).
5. Helius has a 30 day eval you can download for free.
6. Helius' licensing policy restricted the number of connections that you could have at once (ie: more connections == more money). This only worked eratically with me, I was usually able to do more simultaneous connections through ipmasq.
Here's a site in Australia that has some more detailed information. Everything the Anonymous Coward first poster said sounds pretty accurate (!).
The card they're using here is the Telsat Turbo, from SatNet. It's a PCI card, and it says in their FAQ that they're working on drivers for MacOS and Linux. It should already work under Windows NT. And yeah, you need a modem too.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Two things worry me about this: one is that I don't know the protocol, and whether it is open (and therefore supportable in Linux). The second is that I'm concerned that mail might be being broadcast from a sattelite in plaintext.
I think I'll investigate these things now, and follow myself up if I unearth anything...
--
anyone considering using DirecPC should probably read the following article.
2 .html
http://www.hamradio-online.com/1999/nov/direcpc
"The things we wizards have to put up with."--Jethro Bodine
Like said above because you'll need an ordinary modem connection for upload, it won't push the telephone costs. And if you want a satelite uplink it will cost you money, a huge lot of money.
We've been asking for such an option for an outdoor lan-party here in Europe, the total cost of rent for one year would be around 400,000 dollars (800,000 dutch guilders). Besides, the ISP which with you're connecting (here in West-Europe) is mostly relying on cached stuff. As soon as you try to obtain stuff which is not cached (newsfeed, slashdot, freshmeat etc.), the connection is very slow.
Therefor, I think a satelite link has too much disadvantages to be ever cost-effective in the near future, however I don't know how the situation in the States is.
This is a replacement signature.
Please check out alt.satellite.direcpc before making any purchase decisions. There is a whole lot of bad mojo associated with this outfit, and most people never receive the advertised performance.
Buyer Beware.
I had DirecPC for a while and bailed out of it. In addition to the disadvantages I see others listing here, they had what they called a "Fair Use" policy that choked down your personal data flow per day once you hit a certain limit - around 1 or 2 MP3 files worth, roughly. Sure, you get 400 Kbs, but only for the fraction of a second required to download a static web page. Sustained high speed downloads? Forget it.