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Satellite Internet Service for Macs?
Untimely Ripp'd asks: "Satellite broadband has been available to PC users for half a decade, and still is not trivially available to Mac users. It can be done, but it's always an unsupported hack, or it requires buying expensive extra hardware and software. I cannot understand why Hughes and the other providers would refuse to spend the relatively few dollars necessary to develop a couple of device drivers and glue libraries. Time after time, the vendors have said, 'it's coming,' but it never does, and the promise eventually goes away. (Earthlink's FAQ page no longer says that Mac software is being developed, for example). I'm not gung-ho on conspiracy theories, but the only explanation I can figure is that they're either being paid or bullied. Does anyone know of any serious tech hurdle that would make it cost more than $100K or so to develop the necessary software?" this article mentions one-way Mac service coming online from OWC in a future expansion, along with nationwide service. A comment from that story does mention a simple solution, but why is it that Satellite service, even one way satellite service, depends on Windows-only software? What other solutions have Mac users resorted to when they wanted their Macs connected?
I'm not gung-ho on conspiracy theories, but the only explanation I can figure is that they're either being paid or bullied.
How many times can we go over this same point? It's the same for Linux and Mac, it's just not economically viable to develop software for something used by less than 5% of the computing masses. It doesn't pay, plain and simple, and companies aren't going to waste money developing with little to no returns. I await next week's Ask Slashdot with the same question.
Is your browser retarded?
I thought they were all too busy making Quicktime movies of their trip to the Volvo dealer, and ripping Yanni CDs to play on their iPod while they wait at the coffee shop for their Shitsu to get it's nails manicured, sipping latte's. You know, Thinking Differently.
Does anyone know of any serious tech hurdle that would make it cost more than $100K or so to develop the necessary software?
Regarding this hypothetical expense of $100k let us weigh the potential generated income versus investing it in something else.
Hrm, my market research indicates I can draw 10x the potential customers by spending that $100k on improving my service toward the unix/windows/other market. (This is just an sample explanation of possible reasons, I have not actually had such research done.)
For an Apple alone? No.
But with a PC, just route packets out of a Linux box -- all it requires is a cheap ($20 yardsale) PC, 2 $5 network cards, a backwards CAT5 crosslink cable, and a good reading of some Linux Howtos and possibly a couple of forum posts.
Aside from the fact that it's not worth the effort on the part of the satellite providers (not enough mac users want satellite internet), it's also not worth it for the mac user (unless no other means of broadband connectivity is available) Satellite modems, despite their large bandwidth, have huge latencies (even light takes time to travel) and just aren't worth the price (which is generally the same or more than cable/dsl.
Perhaps mac users know better than to want satellite ISPs...
They did anyway. That would seem to make a conspiracy less likely.
The main barrier to providing a service like this for the Mac, or for Linux, Solaris, BeOS, or whatever, isn't the cost to develop the software, it's the cost of supporting users on another platform.
Every time someone calls with a question, it costs the company money. The quicker you can answer their question and get them off the phone, the better. This means minimizing the number of different systems your support folks have to be trained for.
-Mark
And set up Winproxy or ICS. Used PII 233s abound for cheap.
I've set up ICS on DHCP broadband using XP two NICs. The second NIC is off to an airport base station, which feeds mac laptops.
"oohhh... I didn't know Schopenhauer was a philosopher!"
It's not the initial development of drivers and an application interface that is such the expense for the ISP. It is the ongoing support of an additional platform. By adding Mac support for your product, you've just doubled your ongoing testing and debug workload. It is also an additional platform for which they will have to provide user support. They either have to train their existing help desk staff to resolve both Windows and Mac problems, or they have to hire a special "Mac staff" and create a separate help desk to support that userbase.
In the realm of mass market computing, the majority rules. Most companies can't afford to expend the budget to gain a small fraction of a platform that only makes up 5% of the industry as a whole. Remember, it's not like EVERY Mac user will start using the product just because they support the Mac. So, why would a company spend even 2% of their R&D budget to get 1% of a 5% market (if they're lucky).
Unhhhhh?
The above post is an editorial, the poster cannot and will not be held responsible for all or in part for it's contents
I work for a dealer and we tested DirecPC through Pegasus (Pegasus Express was the offical name). It sucked. When talking to people that had satellite Net...about four out of five hated it. (I never could figure out why that one person said theirs was working so good when the other people had nothing but trouble). In the end, we never sold it because we were afraid it would make more people mad than anything else.
By all means, though, Mac usuers should be able to get pissed off just like us PC users...
Usurper_ii
Ron Paul
All of the orbiting satellites are actually owned by Microsoft. I'm endgangering myself by actually revealing this to you all, but I feel that this information yearns to be free.
The way around this is to actually buy a new PC with MS on it, plug it into the satellite and share the internet connection. Tada!!
My brother & sister's son has been using this setup for over a year now.
Actually, they're owned by Major League Baseball. Don't make Mark McGwire come down there!
I wanted a conection for my home on the country-side, Embratel has this StarOne service, but when I read the contract, it actually stated as FORBIDEN the use of Linux or Mac machines!! This shows up on the same part that talks about "stolen passwords" and "unauthorized access" .
So I called the guy that manages my company's account at Embratel and he goes on explaininng that the software needed for their "accelerated access" was only available for M$. "Can I use a Proxy server and set my Linuxes and Macs behind it?", I tried, but he made it clear that this practice would break the contract and they could have me cut off from the service legally.
After all the hard work I had O/C'g my ibook, there's no way I'm going back to a PC...
~/Joe
it requires buying expensive...hardware
Expensive hardware? You mean like the Mac you're trying to get online with?
It looks like satellite internet is one of those wonky markets that doesn't make any sense except to those people trying to pinch pennies or get ahead where there isn't broadband already available. That being said, most Mac users are used to paying for superior service and probably already have ADSL/cable internet access anyway... It's kind of like whining about a lack of USB-2 drivers on the Mac when Firewire has already been there for the past 4 years both faster and better...
I'm living in Osaka, Japan right now, and the biggest hurdle the technology-savvy Japanese have to face in the telecommunications field is geography: Japan is 70% mountains.
Their solution? Wireless internet. Give your user a wireless internet card, then connect the receiver to a fiber-optic network offering 100Mbps. Works with Windows as well as OS 9 and OS X.
Currently, ADSL alone in Japan offers 12Mbps, for a slightly cheaper price than in the states.
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
Most computers come with USB ports. Most home computers do NOT come with ethernet jacks as standard.
Most satellite Internet providers use a form of header-rewrite on the packets, routing everything back to your PC through their NOC. It makes for difficulties in setting up direct-to-router connections.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
BINGO. Being in tech support myself, I would say that Mac calls bamboozle most of the techs around here.
My local cable provider has two-way cable internet to some neighborhoods, and one-way telco-return to other neighborhoods. I'm in a one-way 'hood.
Since summer of '97, they have promised two-way access to my home "in six months from now". Needless to say, their answer is still the same, and I'm still using cruddy telco-return.
Beware any time frame claims from GS Communications in DC/MD/PA.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
It is market share plain and simple.
.1 - .3% of the total computer users in the US.
First off, you have the very small market share that Mac users represent. About 1-3% (right?)
Then you have to factor in what percentage of the Mac users live in or near major metropolitan areas. I would argue that number is probably near 90% of the total Mac users (a number I am pulling out of my ass, but I just don't think there are a ton of Mac users in the rural US, which is where the Sat. companies are focusing).
So, you have a possible market that makes up maybe
Hell, even if my numbers are a little bit off, the total market share for Mac users in rural areas can't be more than 1% of all internet users.
So, if the software costs $100k to write, and then another $5k - $10k / year (/month?) to support, plus retraining all (or many) of your support/install personel to use the Macs, is it really worth it?
I personally don't think I would do it if I ran the company.
But whatever... hmmm... the linux router seems to having problems... wonder if throwing it out the window will solve it
Casual Games/Downloads
I guess MS's monopoly has extended intto space w/o us knowing. Ah the attack of the windows!!
what happened to spell check? please decode the above comment to your best ability.
I set up a PC system (with win2k) purely as a bridge. The satellite reciever uses USB (this is from Pegasus-DirecPC-Hughes - now acquired by Earthlink). Pegasus and DirecPC provide proprietary Windows only drivers to deal with the USB network-satellite connection. That's issue #1. That means using Linux or (as suggested in the "comment" link in the oringal post) a simple router won't fly.
Issue 2: Optimizing the Window size for the ethernet connections --
The fact is, the TCP/IP conneciton to the satellite (high bandwidth - extremely high latency) needs different rwin settings to optimize the connection than the simple pc->mac LAN connection. So far as I can figure, Windows lets you choose one setting for all NICs (in this case the USB satellite connection is a NIC).
Issue 3 - you need some kind of 3rd party NAT/Bridge software like Sygate to share the connection with the Mac. The built in (to Win2k, 98) Internet connection software won't work because it can't bridge different subnets. The USB conneciton is on a different subnet vs. a regular NIC. I don't think it can be configured otherwise. WinXP might fix that.
Bottom line: You need a PC with Windows to share the satellite with the Mac and even then the Mac will have inferior service vs. the directly connected PC. So a satellite service supporting Macs would be nice :)
A beginners' guide to Portland, OR?
Due to the increasing numbers of users who choose broadband for Internet access, and the low price of an Ethernet card, many (I would guess most) home computers now DO come with Ethernet standard, or at least it's a matter of "choose one of: modem or Ethernet."
Note: I'm not a Mac guy.
Often people feel that systems different than what they are used to are "pieces of shit". Joel On Software has a very good article regarding this.
I have both the DirecPC pci card, and the usb modem version. I'm not capable of reverse engineering these myself, but anyone that is, is welcome to mine. I could probably even spare an 18" dish+LNB.
I mean, every time we wait for these fuckers, we end up losing. Maybe you need to decide to write it yourself? It's the only way to be sure it's done right.
PS Anyone that knows the pinout for the power on the DirecPC usb modem (mini-din 8), could you send it to me? I know it's gotta have 14v for the lnb power, in addition to 5v, but last time I tried to deduce this from looking at the pcb, it took me a day and I still fried the device.
maybe its because Hughes, like most other companies, .. .. and all for what?
know better than to get in bed with mac users. they
tend to be the most pushy, clueless, demanding,
ignorant and zealous user community out there
always some screwed up issue
for the meager bucket-drop dollars from the pockets
of people for whom the concept of more than one
mouse button is overly taxing.
(mac linux users are excluded from this rant)
I know it isn't a good solution but if you HAVE to have net access in the boonies, maybe that would work for you. I have no idea if it would work, but it may be something worth trying.
The last time I checked, The Starband satelitte service was compatible with linux - if it works on linux, surely a port to OSX would be easy. (I believe it also worked with linksys routers - if not, one could simply use an ancient PC with USB and ethernet as a router)
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Checkout www.speednetllc.com, I just signed up and am getting 2 Mb per sec. Its only in parts of Michigan, but there might be other's in different addresses.
That's About It!
Every time someone calls with a question, it costs the company money. The quicker you can answer their question and get them off the phone, the better. This means minimizing the number of different systems your support folks have to be trained for.
So have the bulk of them trained for the bulk operating system, a few trained for each little one, and TRANSFER THE CALL if you get one for a little opsys. We are talking NETWORK companies, right?
Heck - I bet the little guys would put up with a half-day delay and callback - and be grateful they could buy your stuff at all. YOU get to schedule the calls, rather than fielding them when they arrive - increasing the efficiency of the little-opsys helpers.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Since we're thinking about satellite and Internet in this discussion, I've been wanting to ask what satellite usenet options are out there.
In particular, I've been interested in a feed that pumps through something like a configurable cable modem or cable box that just jams articles over ethernet via the NNTP protocol to an NNTP server you specify. Then, any old NNTP server can be dual-homed between the sat and your LAN, and you just better hope you have lots and lots of disk.
Any takers?
Intelligent Life on Earth
Setting up an ICS setup is not easy when you have to handle one-way satellite. Your up connection is a modem (yes dial up) and your down link is the satellite. ICS and its contemporaries are not really setup to handle that sort of connection. (it can be done but it is filled with headaches).
I used the service in 99 - 2000 and it was not worth the headaches.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
I worked at an ISP this summer. We were happy when MAC users called in. It meant that we could basically rule out a computer problem.
2) I think Window size is settable by device. Otherwise, there's no way you could route between say, a token ring card and an ethernet card (something that I'm certain can be done).
3) You're probably right except that home networks don't have different subnets. Or I should say, there's no good reason to have multiple subnets.
I think the primary problem with 2-way satellite service is that latency is so high that for the common things home users do (open up their home page of http://www.msn.com) its likely to be no faster than a dial-up connection.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
when we moved to our new location we had a telecom problem and had to resort to a satellite connection. it wasn't so bad for just downloads.. you can get about 1.5 megs... but when you have 40 sales people using a tcp based service where every keypress took 2-4 seconds to give results... let's just say people were bitching. not to mention the 5-6 seconds it can take outlook to connect to the exchange server and show an email message... so if you don't care about slower latency than a bad 9600 baud modem connection than go with satellite. i would recomend using it as a very last resort. try doing a wireless connection to a friend who has cable or dsl... you can get a couple of wap11s and make a nice little bridge.. btw... does anyone know how to detect a wap11 bridge without a wap11? -eek
-- sigs suck --
According to DirecWay's FAQ bot thingie, they will be selling the DW4020 to consumers "fall of 2002" (read: "any day now").
The DW4020 is pretty much the standard DW4000 satellite modem boxen they currently sell, except it includes a third boxen that eliminates the need for a USB connection and presents 4 Fast Ethernet ports. Supposedly you'll also be able to buy this box separately to upgrade your existing DW4000.
Now the only question is when EarthLink will lower their monthly satellite service fees to match DirecWay through DirecTV. I just dropped BellSouth in favor of EarthLink this past June and I'm not interested in changing ISPs yet again so soon.
I do tech support for a large ISP.
Every minute I spend talking to a customer costs my company at LEAST $0.90 US.
So those hour PLUS dialup calls take us at LEAST 6 months to make back up from that subscriber in revenue...
Fucked up eh?
Admittedly, if you can get DSL/Cable... I DON'T recommend satellite, but if it's your only option and $59.99 isn't a barrier, then (and only then) will I offer satellite as an option. I WILL NOT sell satellite to someone who qualifies for DSL or Cable, or someone who does online gaming or VPN. Other than that, I highly recommend it and use it myself.
Slashdot: rejecting tech news in favor of rubber band guns since 1997.
How many times can we go over this same point? It's the same for Linux and Mac, it's just not economically viable to develop software for something used by less than 5% of the computing masses.
...
Let's phrase this another way:
How much would a company pay for ADVERTISING to get a 5% increase in sales? (And thus a MUCH greater than 5% improvement in profits, since the development is already amortized.)
Now if that same amount bought you the development of an incremental feature (i.e. a Linux or Mac driver) that enables another 5% of the market to use your product, it's the same case. (Actually, if you're currently addressing 90% of the potential market and the new segment is an incremental 5% you're adding 5%/90% or about 5.6%).
But wait, it's better
Suppose that you're currently splitting the market evenly with one other competitor. If YOU do it and HE doesn't, that 5.55% about doubles to 11.1%. With an even split among three competitors the first mover gets about a 16.7% bump in potential sales (and more in profit), and so on.
With something like networking you have a small number of competitors but MAJOR lock-in. First mover gets the prize and KEEPS it. With something (like a device) with more competitors and less lock-in you may not keep it, but you get a BIG boost until your competition wises up.
But WAIT! You don't HAVE to develop it yourself! Publish enough of the interoperability specs and - at least for Linux - SOMEONE ELSE will do it FOR you! You get the benefits and do only a tiny fraction of the work.
Your work consists mostly editing your internal documents into an externally-releasable one that will enable a developer without giving away your trade-secret farm. But don't get too paranoid: Your competitors are ALREADY reverse-engineering you. You should have your critrical IP already locked up in patent-pending, which will keep your competition at bay if you publish more than you intended. Meanwhile, better specs mean better and sooner community software to enable your sales.
Network operators might have some issues with security - but that's already been addressed elsewhere. (Bottom line is that the black hats will get you anyhow if you're already BADLY broken, regardless of whether you publish, while if you're reasonably secure (i.e. only a little flakey) the exposure will get the white hats on your side and you'll probably increase your lead in the arms race.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Laziness and lack of research. Same reason why stuff isn't ported to other platforms (Linux mainly)... because the marketers don't understand there IS a market across user platforms (Windows, Linux, Macintosh) for most software and hardware.
It likely boils down to a small group of Mac non-users legislating that "there is not enough of a market to compensate for its expenditure".
For starters the Mac market worldwide commands less than a 3% slice of the market--many of the Macs in use today are older Macs (witness the extremes Apple's going to to entice, and then eventually force, its user base to go OSX or else move to another platform.)
On top of that you've all the attendant support and software issues that go with supplying support for this kind of service. When you have better than 90% of the market buying your products from a basically standardized Windows market, it's not worth it for these companies to gear up for Mac support with its attendant issues for a very small slice of an already very small segment of market share.
It's amusing to hear Mac users talk about "conspiracy" lurking behind every door when the fact is they just haven't faced the facts of what comes with being a member of a very small market. You often have to wait months or years to get software and services provided the much larger Windows market, and sometimes you don't get them at all. This situation is by no means unique or unprecedented. It would be nice if some of these erstwhile critics undertook the expense of doing something like this for the Mac themselves for a change. Easy it is to crticize, much more difficult to actually do something.
um.... fucking mods. just because i stated something, its not flamebait. if i was like "FUCK MAC!! IT DOESN'T DESERVE SATALITE ANYWAYS!!" then its flame bait. Its based on fact, and not neccessarily aimed at anyone, or to piss anyone off.
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
I'm not gung-ho on conspiracy theories, but the only explanation I can figure is that they're either being paid or bullied.
Yeah, just like all the other people who don't do mac ports of their software. All bullied, yup.
Seriously though, the market for satilite internet isn't really all that big, you think they figure that maybe most mac users are urban and don't need it?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I have broadband with my mac. A simple DSL modem hooked up with my router allows me full access to what-ever I might want.
Just because my boxen does not allow for direct T1 via a CSU/DSU nor a DS3 via an inserted card, does not mean that I need the previous to do what I need.
I find this box to do what I need, and I need no specific Linux or Windows or Mac box to do the same, for Internet usage. If I find something that I cannot do with my current tools, and someone hasn't already started one that I can work with, I do my own and make all good to all.
So if one is without broadband, make it work for you and not worry about others, unless you want to help with it.
and the Irishman took the fly in his hands and yelled, "spit it out!"
It is as simple as the riovolt to Iriver firmware hack. Go in, change the first line, install, and pray.
.noitacidem deen uoy siht daer nac uoy fI
I've worked with an ISP that had this very policy. If you ran Win9x and IE, the help desk would assist you. If you ran anything else---you are on your own. Anything else included Win/NT, Win2k etc.. Just the lowest common denominator 'consumer' systems were supported. BUT, all the documentation on what you needed was available. If you ran *nix/Mac you were assumed to be clueful enough to deal.
Do this, and the only cost is the drivers. Maybe not trivial, maybe. So open source them. Let someone else write them for you. Your profit is not in the IP held in these drivers---which are just a means to an end---namely getting more customers online.
Not only that, maybe the drivers will be better than the in-house ones. Being open source, you can benefit from that, roll them back into your Win drivers, provide better service, equals happier customers, equals more---and more profitable---customers.
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
Can the Apple service be called.... *opens the envelope*...
"i in the Sky"
ah-hahahaha! *this is the sound of one man laughing*
BTW I only own a flat panel iMac so don't be too mad at me...
Or whatever the hell you really call it.
The satelite drivers are written to keep the high-bandwidth pipe full (i.e. you can put a lot of data in the air before it gets to the satalite and back.) Since various networks that carry TCP/IP (Etehrnet, ATM, etc) are based on different optimal packet sizes, so oyu generally probe your connection to figure out the what link is going to split your packets into the smallest size and then just send packets of that size.
I'd suspect that's why the Mac on a PC performs a lot worse than the PC in general - the ethernet packets that get sent to the PC probably get passed on as-is instead of reassembled into larger packets for the satalite link.
One huge packet with one header is obviously more efficient than one huge packet made up of lotsa smaller packets each with their own header.
paintball
....I got hit with a twenty-two pound block of ice from the sky.
A couple of people have posted saying a custom TCP/IP stack is needed. Well, then, do it in the sattelite receiver, in the hardware and firmware! Proprietary secrets would be safe within the box, and the damned thing would actually work! Plug and play- no drivers, no tech support calls. Give us our ethernet, dammit!
Betcha this would be cheaper than creating and supporting software, too. They have to make the receiver/modem box anyway- so stick a router chip in there, and be done with it.
I thought the latest story said "Satellite Internet Service for MARS" and was all prepared to read about some hair-brained scheme to put a nuclear powered transmitter at some bizarre location on Earth.
Instead I got something about doing an odd piece of networkig for rarely-used computers. I guess both stories involve things that aren't likely to be very commonn. </rimshot>
So maybe they thought it would "just work" like all those cameras, MP3 players and DV camcorders!
"Cries and screams are music to my ears." - Soundwave
The company I work for, Spacenet, is the second-largest business satellite ISP out there. We serve *business* customers who have large and small multiple (5-5000+) locations (retailers, food service, energy, financial, services, etc.).
If you have a *business* meeting these criteria and are looking for satellite connectivity that supports Macs, send e-mail to me and I can push for Mac compatibility if there is significant demand.
Don't just say there is no corporate satellite ISP support for Macs and do nothing about it ... if you can genuinely justify large multi-site Mac satellite network support, I can help make it happen.
As a BSD guru-turned-Mac-guru myself, I would love to help this but I do need the numbers to prove it. Right now, we have almost zero requests for this, but an influx of REAL potential customers asking for this could make it happen. I would really, really like to make this available, but I can't do it by telling our MS-oriented development guys to do it without visible justification.
This isn't some random spam for business, this is a real request from a company's senior marketing staff to help build demand and make this happen. In your e-mail, please describe your multi-site business and its needs, and I can use this info to get Mac support for Spacenet's services.
"95% of all Slashdot
Buy an old x86 box, install windows 98 SE or better and use internet connection shareing. Shouldn't cost more than $50 for a crap box with windows still on it.
Power consumption will become a cost issue so you might try a mini-itx box, which will only suck about 25 watts, but up front cost will be higher, on the order of $200 for a complete system.
You paid $2500 for your mac and around $500 for the satellite install what is another 200 bucks?
If you want the service, you have to solve the problem yourself. The bonus is, you can have as many computers using the connection as you want without paying the satellite company's per seat fee.
The only problem with satellite besides the cost is latency worse than a phone modem. your signal has to travel at least 46,000 miles round trip to a geosynch bird over the equator from the southernmost parts of the US. That's a 500ms ping time minimum.
So, running a mac on satellite is no problem technically if you consider an extra 200 bucks for installation fees independent of what your provider is charging.
The only time you will really notice the 500ms lag is in a game and, well, you are using a mac so that shouldn't be a problem either.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Well, I just found out some more. I guess they're doing it already. Here's the new unit:
http://www.skycasters.com/4020.htm
I bet this is a shot in the arm for sattelite services. Too bad it took them so long to figure this out.
It more of a commercial service than a residential one, but we do exactly what you describe: the custom TCP acceleration is in the embedded box itself. (Although the real heavy lifting is done by a linux box on the ISP side)
We test with mostly Linux and Win2k, but apples should work fine over regular ethernet. Ne special software is needed to run a client site. Just plug and play (It also does DHCP and DNS-caching)
Look at http://idirect.net/
Its a pretty good programming gig, I get to work with gcc/cvs/all my favorites.
jmaiorana at idirect.net
I don't know about you, but I always daisy chain my macs with adb printer cables when I want reliable connectivity!
"Satelite internet services on MARS"...and I was wondering what the silver Apple logo has to do with it. But then I figure Aple is expanding lately..so who knows.
But it worked all right on the Dell running Win 98 SE? Just plug and play?
Honestly, 80% of problems with Macs running classic OSes are due to skankware being flung all over the system. Put some memory in that machine, and install OS X. Trust me... it's a world of difference, especially with modern devices like Digital Cameras...
When encryption is outlawed, ?o'AZ-,++o+i++##4AoA+-/-C++bI+/.+~
Spend $200 on a new PC (or even less for a used one), and set it up to share its connection.
Easy as pie, and not all that expensive.
What I recommend that you do, instead of trying to hook up with satellite, is get like 5,000 miles of fiber optic cabling at your local Radio Shack and run your own trunk across the desert or whatnot. You don't even have to put it underground. Just remember to duct tape it down when crossing sidewalks and roads and railroad tracks and whatnot, so pedestrians don't trip over your wire and rip the jack out of the wall or whatever.
Just my 3 cents. (Inflation.)
All you need to do is put a windows or linux box (if you can get drivers for linux - I'm assuming you can as some kind soul normally hacks them together) and make it into a gateway - there's something called a network you see, which is what what the funny plug on the back of your Mac is for - yes - the one you hooked up to the phone that didn't do anything.
Duh.
Expense? Well if you can spring for the Satellite gear you can easily afford a cheap box to be your gateway. I've recently designed the network systems for a bus that gets it Internet connectivity via satellite and it works fine - Windows 2000 as a gateway, and any client you like. I'm putting 802.11b on it soon and going to put some warchalking symbols on it and let anyone who knows how use it. Yes it would work with Macintosh.
What they need to do is hire seperate tech-support people for each platform and offer a different 800 number. Just like they would do for English/Spanish.
Sunlit World Scheme. Weird and different.
Why do they not make a platform independent satalite connection system? Instead of forcing it to be plugged into a primary usb slot on a windows machine, have the satalite plug into a little black box that sits on the floor with a cat5 jack in it?
Having something that is limited to the os like this does not seem like a good marketing move. Most cable and dsl internets are not platform specific, so why make satalite this way?
This would make installation easier. It would also hit 100% of the market.
Any reasons not to develop this?
Apple should launch their own satellite from the mothership. Apple has a mothership, you ask? Of course they do. Do you honestly believe the story that the $400 million that Steve Jobs spent buying out next NeXT really went towards million dollar NeXT Cubes and $50,000 toilet seats?
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Satellite broadband is a *network* issue - who cares whether people attach Mac, Windows or Linux clients to their networks? All the Mac needs is IP and say - ethernet - which last time I looked, it had. Buy a satellite receiver/switch/router device or a cheap PC and use that as your gateway - and stick as many Macs as you like on your LAN - ta-daaa! If you're one of those who won't have a non-Mac on your network for "religous" reasons - then you deserve to sit in unconnected misery :)
I really hope you arent' a creative troll and that you will actually read your responses.
first off, why doesnt the sattelite boxes have their connection to the consumer equipment be ethernet like everyone else (cable/DSL)? your commercial equiupment does.. this eliminates 99.997% of all compatability issues and I can even use my Cromemco Model II Miniframe computer with it! you no longer have to support the computer/os just your equipment and a simple TCP/IP config of the box that YOU CAN CONTROL.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
5000 subs x 12 months x $70 = $4.2 million
That's $1.2 million profit, 40% return on investment. So yes, I would.
If you really want to (at least with Starband), then get yourself an old PC with a Windows98 license from your local dumpster or pennysaver; install the Starband software; install Apache from http://www.apache.org, configure it as a 'cacheing proxy'; install XMail from http://xmailserver.org and configure it as MTA. Be careful with XMail, you do not want to make an 'open relay'.
Starband will connect via USB or Ethernet, but will not share an Ethernet, so you may need to pay $2 for another Ethernet adapter to connect to your domestic area network.
Then you will be on a level playing field with the rest of us PC satellite users; at least as far as HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, SMTP, and POP3 go.
You might want to look at http://www.dslreports.com before putting any money down. Different people view satellite Internet as "wonderful" or "bottomless pit", you need to make your own mind up before committing.
For me ? Well, I would have designed the satellite modem to be vendor-neutral --- I have a http://www.dlink.com/products/broadband/di713p/ and I think it's a good piece of domestic networking equipment. Come to think of it, Starband could still get it right by supplying new firmware for their modem, if they wanted to.
I don't think "conspiracy" is the word; more like "failure to conform with standards, which eventually has unfortunate commercial consequences".
Apple seems to have a problem in developing strategic partnerships in a number of areas. Jobs wants Apple to be driving force in the CG world but there isn't a significant accelerated 3D graphic card for the Mac. He's the frickin CEO over at Pixar and if you watch the extras on the Monsters, Inc DVD all you see is SGI! Sitting around talking about "fur," for cripes sake do something!
PegQuin--I've got a sneakin' suspicion
It's bi-directional these days. Before you go "HA"-ing people, do your research.
"oohhh... I didn't know Schopenhauer was a philosopher!"
Developing for Mac is not the complete issue either, it's supporting Mac users. Cross platform software shops know that the support costs for a unit of Mac is THREE TIMES the support cost for a PC unit. Whine elsewhere, please
Although I don't use this at home (got DSL... shibby!), my CEO lives in the boonies and got a satellite connection in order to connect to the Internet. Anyway, although he didn't have a Mac, the same solution applies;
Basically, I set up a Windows 2000 PC using scrap parts I had lying around... a basic USB-capable mobo (PII-350 actually), 128MB of RAM, a modem and so forth. I then set up Internet sharing and Dial on Demand, so the satellite starts working when access is required to an IP address not on the local network.
The only caveat is that you need to be careful to tune the DoD so that broadcasts won't trip it... takes a little trial-and-error but it works.
Anyway, he's happy because he's got a connection that "just works" from his perspective whether he's using his laptop or his wife's PC... and the DoD server itself just runs headless in the basement where we ran the satellite cable to. Piece of cake. I know it's not a perfect workaround, but it does work and I've proved it.
I use Macs at home myself, as well as my PC's and Linux boxen... so I know this solution will work with them too so long as you've got an Ethernet card. Since most Macs since the original PowerMacs have Ethernet on-board, you probably DO have that capability.
Yeah, but looking at the original question, most Macs and Mac clones built in the last 5-7 years have Ethernet ports on the mobo. Yeah, many of them require a transceiver in order to go to an RJ-45, but even my 5-year-old PowerCenter 120 has an RJ-45 in it... and hell, even my Mac 6116CD has an Ethernet port, and that damned thing's slower than a P-100.
I'm not a Mac zealot... I just happen to like using them because I find the OS a lot less fiddly than either Micro$oft or Linux, so I find I get a lot more work done and spend less time fiddling. However, in many ways the PC has been playing catch-up on the hardware for a LONG time.
Frankly, the logic here is not bad, at least in my experience, except the conclusion is badly worded.
Please note that you only have statistics on people who CALLED. Your statements blanketly label all Mac users.
I would say of the Mac users that called, if they were idiots, its because nothing could help them. There's always a percentage of the population that would never get anything electronic if they tried for years.
However, on the PC side, you'd probably get more PC users who have some knowledge because the problems are weird, esoteric, obnoxious bug that was difficult to troubleshoot.
The mac users who know enough about their computer, never called, because the problem was easier to troubleshoot on a mac.
Mac users are far more likelier to know their systems, troubleshoot their own system, buy software, etc etc, than PC users. You have to be careful not to ignore the statistics you aren't directly exposed to.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Poor wittle Mac user... got an itch you can't scratch? USE OPEN SOURCE!
Yeah, yeah, BSD is open source blah blah blah. Exactly how much of OS X is open source? I can tell you how much of Linux is: 100%
I'm betting you have to pay $1500 for some developer kit to write drivers for that OS.
So just switch to Linux, go to tldp.org and download the driver writing howto and go to town. Enough whining already.
It's simple: a little box, with as many blinking lights as we might need to give us connection information, with ethernet ports for accessing it; a simple OS on the box, running connectivity software and a basic firewall; and a Modem Admin utility, much like that of an Airport Base Station or other device, that can be accessed via browser from the internal network only.
Why is this difficult for the marketplace to produce? How many versions of M$ operating systems do they truly want to support?
Make it easy to integrate with everything that wants a connection, regardless of OS, by putting it on the local network.
As noted on Starbands "who we are" site Starband and Echostar have made an agreement with Microsoft. In this agreement Microsoft gave a large investment to get the 2-way satelite system up and going. As part of the agreement, Starband was to make sure the hardware only supports Win98 and up.
isn't this exactly the type of situation where costs could be reduced by supporting some sort of standard as opposed to os specific stack requirements (http://developer.apple.com/macosx/rendezvous/). sure ms grabbed the bsd stack, but there are likely so many interdependencies now that it is irrelevant. but, at some point common protocols have to be adhered to. fyi, i use a mac, so it is in my interest. but, my enemy's enemy is my friend, and i just want stuff to work. also, is it possible to develop a windows translation mechanism for something like rendevouz should ms decide that standards are not in their best interest?
What I really don't understand is why people even buy a Mac. It is not as though Mac's used to be supported and now aren't, they never have been supported. Mac's are more expensive than other computers and they do a lot less. If you are really stuck with a Mac I have heard that Linux will install on their architecture.
Many people who call in for help have a concern that the ISP cannot address.
The one thing that a customer must never hear from a technical support person is, "I can't help you with that." This is practically the textbook definition of customer service.
I'd kind of like to know how you managed to 'fire' them, though.
See, AT&T worked (at that time) for me. I was paying them every month to provide me with a service. No euphemisms are necessary here; I didn't "cancel my service," I didn't "opt out of my contract." I fucking fired them, right there on the spot. I told them, in essence, to clean out their office (i.e., to get their CPE out of my wiring closet) and get out.
This, also, is a fundamental tenet of customer service: the vendor (them) is employed by and works for the customer (me). The customer is the boss, and the vendor-- and all the vendor's staff, including and especially front-line customer support-- are employees of the customer. When they forget this, and say things like "I can't help you with that," I fire them and hire somebody else.
Please, by ALL means, do NOT buy Mac. That way you'll be non-competitive... {:^D> Mac users aren't gay, our wrists are just tired.
It's available in Europe, Japan, India, etc._ satellit e_services.html>
The Israeli company, Gilat Satellite has written the software and has the hardware, a 4 port ethernet router/modem. They are also the software provider for Starband.
Here's the links:
<http://www.btopenworld.com/satellite/our
and:
<http://www.gilat.com/>
MM
You are basing your argument on an invalid assumption: That all 5% of Mac users would get this service, if it were made available. This is totally false.
No, I'm not assuming that. In the sole-provider case I'm assuming you get the same percentage of adopters among Mac (or whatever) users as you got among Windoze users.
In the multiple provider case I'm assuming that you end up with the same fraction of Mac users adopting the TYPE OF SERVICE/DEVICE as Windows users.
For instance - if the product is satellite networking I'm assuming the same fraction of Mac users as Windows users would buy it - IF the Mac users could get it at all.
That's a MUCH easer case than your strawman.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Most of the other charges I don't see really. Anyway, Hughes is a multi-billion dollar corp, $3 million isn't a "huge gamble", it's pocket change. And similarly, $1.2 million profit is also peanuts. That's the real reason, I think, none of those in the company with the power to do this would get much kudos even if it brought in a profit.
Somehow most of the broadband and DSL providers manage to connect to Linux without having anybody in tech support able to answer questions, so this is NOT a reason.
Simply hanging up on someone is a wonderful way to injure a service-oriented business's standings in public opinion. One offended customer invariably complains to several of his or her peers, causing them to become more and more aggressive in their dealings with your products.
I don't doubt that a majority of Linux users are capable of connecting to dialup, DSL, cable, &etc. But it is the minority who are having a problem and unwilling to RTFM who become nightmares for support personnel.
Weapons of Mass Analysis
I realize there are other very legitimate reasons for not offering the Linux version (ie it takes work to implement it) but this tech-support excuse does not make sense. There are plenty of compainies that do exactly what I suggest and the Linux crowds are not after them, in fact they often praise them for offering anything at all!
I'm not advocating blocking a customer from a service simply because of their platform.. I'm advocating a company make sure they clearly state their limits of support to the customer.
This entire conversation started with someone asking why software and hardware for satellite networking is win32/intel specific, not why Your-Local-DSL provider is skittish about your Redhat box.. If you had been paying attention, you would have noticed that I was advocating that customers vote with their feet for those vendors that provide solutions that are based on open standards and provide coherent API specifications to developers.
Weapons of Mass Analysis
then why deos Microsoft have an entire division dedicated to it? why did they buy 100 million dollars of non-voting stock just to be able to develop software for it?
it's tens of millions of dollars towards their bottom line. it would be less for satellite isps obviously, but i don't know of any Satellite companies that couldn't use a boost in revenue. and all they would have to do is leverage technology they already have on another platform, and take on minimal support costs.
come on, how hard is it to tell someone how to set up an internet connection no matter how it's being done?
Evil is the money of all root....
DirecWay DW4020:
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)