Another Stab At Internet Access By Satellite

dpilgrim writes "As someone who probably won't live long enough to see DSL or cable Internet reach my rural neighborhood, I follow the 'Satellite Wars' pretty closely. Looks like Echostar is claiming once again they have a viable high-speed Internet access satellite under construction. Really. They do. According to this AP story, they have pictures and all. The big news is that based on this 'new evidence' the FCC has rescinded their revocation of Echostar's license. Yes, this submission came to you 44,000 miles over Starband's satellite link, and Starband is an Echostar partner. Wonder how long that relationship will last?"

Comments

Another stab at FP

[Fecal Troll Matter]

Slashodt bans me all the fucking time.

Cat 5

[Void_of_light]

Maybe they will have a real network connection and not usb.

Re:Cat 5

[mrjive]

I can't imagine the speeds available through this kind of service would justify the need for cat5.

And besides, you can get usbcat5 converters for relatively cheap, in the case that you can't use usb on your computer.

Re:Cat 5

[jonnythan]

I think his concern is that a USB only connection would require a driver, and hence possibly be tied to supported Windows versions.

However, a CAT 5 connection would be able to be used with just about any OS you like, or with a hardware firewall or router.

Re:Cat 5

[Anonymous Coward]

I think my new business-plan is:

1) Write free software.
2) ?
3) Get internet by satellite.
4) Profit!

Re:Cat 5

[mrjive]

So....get a usb to cat5 converter, and plug it into your network card like normal. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Re:Cat 5

[jonnythan]

What on earth is a USB to Cat 5 converter? The concept doesn't even make sense.

Re:Cat 5

[grub]

I think his concern is that a USB only connection would require a driver, and hence possibly be tied to supported Windows versions.

I've used a USB->Ethernet adapter on my OpenBSD laptop which was recognized instantly as a CUEx device. No configuration (other than the usual ifconfig stuff) was needed.

Re:Cat 5

[jonnythan]

That's great.

What do you do when the modem has a USB connection? There are no adapters that will take a USB signal and change it to an ethernet signal for your NIC.

What you're talking about is just a USB NIC.

Re:Cat 5

[mrjive]

It's a converter that goes from Cat5 (ethernet cable) to USB. They make them for people who want to plug into an ethernet network without needing a network card by using a USB port, and I'm pretty sure they work the other way as well.

Re:Cat 5

[jonnythan]

That's a NIC that attaches to your PC via USB instead of the typical PCI slot.

They don't go the other way. Period.

Re:Cat 5

[Anonymous Coward]

You fool! Phase one is *always* "gather underpants."

Re:Cat 5

[mrjive]

Well I guess it's time for someone to invent one that goes the other way then :)

1...2...3...NOT IT

Re:Cat 5

[balloonhead]

Although I'm currently typing this from my Mandrake 9.0 box, with an Alcatel speedtouch USB modem. Up and running no probs, detected on installation.

On the other hand (as always) while I've got it up and running no probs (other than DL'ing one file) on every MDK distro since 8.0 (didn't try any previous), Red Hat, SuSE and Slackware weren't interested. I know you're meant to be able to, but when I have a distro that gets it going easily, why bother? Life's too short. It was, incidentally, easier than doing it on windows as well. (XP and 98)

While this by no means disproves the common "USB won't work in Linux" problems, it does show things are happening. It would be a shame though if all the other distros lost out because they didn't provide functionality that's been present for years in MDK's line-up.

Oddly enough, after the installation, I have trouble with the OS believing there is a network connection, but that doesn't stop it accessing the internet.. just denies ther's a connection present.

Re:Cat 5

[Erbo]

I'm running right now with a Ricochet wireless modem plugged in via USB. No problems under Linux here, once I figured out how to make it appear as a serial device (/dev/ttyUSB0).

Re:Cat 5

[dubious_1]

The USB devices such as DirecPC typically are USB slave devices. You would need a USB master device to translate the USB propriatary protocol into ethernet. If you assume that everyone is using a generic rndis interface (which they are not) then you could make a device capable of doing this translation. It would be equal to running a computer to act a bridge between the two networks.
It would be far more useful to have some standard exist for this type of interface however, then you could just plug the thing into your laptop.

Better

[Anonymous Coward]

Move out of the boonies and stop whining 'cause no satelite thing aint gonna help you there... Oh, and getting off with your cousin in the barn is naughty, yes sir.

But why?

[Evil Adrian]

Why would I pay for satellite access when I can get cable access for the same price, and get much lower latency? You can't use sat access for gaming because the ping is so ridiculously high. My father had satellite access for a while, and the upstream was over a standard modem, so in addition to high ping, the upstream was a tiny little pipe.

In short: yuck.

Re:But why?

[mr_gerbik]

Why would I pay for satellite access when I can get cable access for the same price

You wouldn't. You would use satellite if you lived in a rural area with no cable/dsl access... just like the guy who submitted the article.

Re:But why?

[stevejsmith]

You fucking moron. Did you read the fucking abstract!? It clearly states that he "...probably won't live long enough to see DSL or cable Internet reach [his] rural neighborhood." You. Dumbass. Bitch.

Re:But why?

[mrjive]

The point is that not everyone can get normal broadband (my parents fall into this category). Satellite, however, is available almost everywhere if you've got the hardware to use it.

Re:But why?

[pbur]

The problem is, in the middle of nowhere, your only choice is probably satellite. I live in a fairly metropolitan area, and I can only get Cable Modem to my house. My local bell has decided they don't want to invest in putting in DSL.

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there are people who don't live in the city. I grew up in the country, didn't even have dialup available until about 7 years ago.

Now, I live in a town of about 14k (plus a university with 10k undergrads) and I'm lucky enough to have two options. Verizon DSL and wireless through a local provider. But I still remember playing Quake on a 56k from Idaho. Can you say UltraHPB?

Re:But why?

[Evil Adrian]

I thought cable was invented to give people in rural areas access to television... so why wouldn't the same apply to internet access?

Re:But why?

[mkarpinski]

He states in his submission that he lives in a rural area.

This is probably the only viable alternative.

Re:But why?

[Elwood P Dowd]

Cable internet requires more infrastructure than cable TV. A lot of folks with cable TV will never get cable internet, 'cause the cable co's aren't willing to deliver at a loss.

Re:But why?

[halftrack]

Because there is somethings called rural areas where cable and DSL providers don't find it profitable to upgrade their equipment for fast internet access (phone and cable centrals need to be improved.)

Re:But why?

[bovilexics]

Why? Because of this simple reason, this probably doesn't apply to you. Believe it or not there are many of us out there that can't get cable or dsl where we live - imagine that. Satellite access is for folks like myself (and the submitter) who have this problem -

• As someone who probably won't live long enough to see DSL or cable Internet reach my rural neighborhood...

True satellite access isn't useful for gaming and other such things due to high latency issues but it's better than dialup, IMO. Especially since they now offer 2-way satellite access at relatively good speeds so that you don't need a line for dialing up to do uploads.

Lucky for me they now offer a wireless point to point in my rural area that offers high speeds with low latency (under 5ms) but they have a monopoly in the area and are charging an arm and a leg for relatively low speeds - $60/month for 256k and $90/month for 512k (this is for residential, businesses have more options).

Again, not ideal but I'll gladly pay their unfortunately high costs because I want high speed bad enough and they're the only other game in town that meets my needs (besides dialup or satellite).

Re:But why?

[Evil Adrian]

Yeah I was thinking that right after I posted... not just signal amplifiers, need all the routing equipment etc. My bad folks.

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is postings like this that make me want to have a moderator option for

-1 retard

Re:But why?

[jon doh!]

i thought cable was invented so that people who couldn't get good reception could have channels piped in.

Paraphrased from Homer J Hickam's book, "Rocket Boys" (republished as "October Sky"):

"In 1954, the company even provided one of the first cable television systems in the United States as a free service."

he said in the book that they were nestled so deep in the mountains they couldn't get a decent signal, so the company mounted a huge antenna and fed it into all the houses.

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, I think the reverse is true:

give people access to good, clear TV in a city where tall buildings and other radio signals interfered. The density of city dwellers makes this feasible. For these reasons, a rural person was not likely to get cable.

Besides, with nothing but trees and flatland, a TV signal could travel quite some distance to deliver clear images.

Re:But why?

[Mika_Lindman]

You can't use sat access for gaming because the ping is so ridiculously high.

Doesn't matter, those warez games you download won't work without valid cd-key anyway.

Re:But why?

[/dev/trash]

You mean from the cable company I have that charges 25 bucks for 23 channels?

Re:But why?

[brybigs]

It was rural first. My grandfather used to sit on the Cable Co-op board for his community (the "metro" area had 4000 people) back in early 1980's. Sure, they had clear-sight with no big buildings, but when you are 200 mi away from the second-closest signal that unobstructed view didn't help much.

Re:But why?

[jd142]

I thought cable was invented to give people in rural areas access to television

Ah, the lies we are told. I remember when I was young, they used to say things like that. And they told us that because we were paying for a service, there'd be no need for commercials (seriously, they used to say that with a straight face).

Kidding aside, what they meant was that small towns that were hidden in valleys and so forth and couldn't get reception over the air would be able to use cable to get the signal to houses in the town. No one ever seriously considered running 8 miles worth of cable to get to *one* rural farm house. They were just going to run it in town only. That's why if you drive around in the country here you'll see lots of folks with satellite dishes. A lot of them even have the big 6 foot models. I looked into those, and at the time they would sell you descramblers on a per channel basis. Only want Disney? Then pay 4 bucks for the Disney channel and you won't have to get 20 home shopping networks thrown in. Nice deal, but I think those days are gone.

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they charge $40 for 123 channels where there isn't anything good on 118 channels. I used to not have cable (how did I live??) and there was as much good tv with old rabbit ears as there was on 400 channels of digital cable and 123 regular cable channels.

Re:But why?

[LinuxOnHal]

In Kansas, there are many rural places that have no cable period. I live on the edge of a small town, but Cox will not run cable the extra 6 blocks to make it to my house. If they did, I could have TV and internet. As it is, Satellite is the only option. Luckily, I have my home made wireless connection to a cable modem further into town that takes care of the internet access part.

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I live on the outskirt of a town with 30,000 people and a university. I am 2.5 miles from the university. I cannot get any cable service, neither television nor internet.

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would I pay for satellite access when I can get cable access

You're a fucking idiot. Read the FIRST LINE of the posting: "As someone who probably won't live long enough to see DSL or cable Internet reach my rural neighborhood,...".

Cable isn't available in many rural areas. We're happy you and your dad have cable. Really, we are. This is not a story about YOU. Hard to believe?

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

So move out of the sticks. Got plenty of broadband access in my midwestern suburban town. Unless you're a farmer why the fuck would you want to live in a rural area anyway? And if you are a farmer, you don't need broadband, go milk the cows and fuck your wife (or daughter depending on if you live in Kentucky).

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect you're the same kind of person who asks:
"Why are there people starving in Afrcia? Why can't they just get a job and shop at Costco like me and my dad?"

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your mobile home gets very cold at night, doesn't it? It's affecting your thinking. Tell you dad to turn up the space heater or spoon you a little tighter.

Re:But why?

[mlg1981]

quit trying to start a flame war he just pointed out he could not get any other type of access

Re:But why?

[Gorm the DBA]

Because some of us live in *such* a rural area that the cableopolies can't make a profit running their wires to us, so it's satellite or slow dial-up (where "slow" = 24,4 on a GOOD day)

Re:But why?

[LostCluster]

Where's Universal Service when we need it?

Re:But why?

[Kirsha]

This may be offtopic, but I dont receive cable tv because I live on a rural area, too far away and not worth the effort for they to deploy cable, Ive heard. I have to get a satellite dish to receive channels, so the idea of getting a satellite internet access isnt so farfetched for me either, for the same reasons.

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahem, that's "fuck your wife (or daughter, depending on whether you live in Kentucky)."

Re:But why?

[macrom]

Who knows, but all of my telecommuncations bills seem to have a "Universal Service Fee" each month. Maybe it's time we all stood up and got our money's worth!

Re:But why?

[LostCluster]

The "Univerisal Service Fee" is on your bill because your phone providers want you to know they're being taxed by a law that they don't particularly like.

The Universal Service rules requires that the incumbent telephone provider must provide the same price for a basic POTS (Plain-old telephone service) line to everybody in their service area. That means, if you live atop a mountain with a 10 mile driveway that leads to the top, they've got to get a phone line to you and when they do it costs the same as the person who lives next door to the phone company's switching center. The get the money to pay for the money-losing lines from the Universial Service Fund... that tax that all the easy-to-serve customers pay to fund the money-losing lines to the hard-to-serve customers.

But there is no USF for high-speed Internet... at least not yet....

Re:But why?

[balloonhead]

Is that a sig or a solution?

Re:But why?

[squirrelist]

I'm glad I am not alone in this matter. I live in a very rural area too. When I tell people I live in New York (state) and can't get cable, they look at me like I don't know what I'm talking about. Believe it or not, much of New York is wilderness. The big city is just crammed down in the corner. I'm sure those of you who are from Northern California know what I'm talking about. I live five miles from the closest cable connection. Our phone lines give us 28.8k on a good day, but usually 19k or 14.4k. Still the only national ISP I am able to find that give us a local number is MSN. Parts of New York are thirty or more miles from a cell phone signal, even an old analog one. I think the only place that is more wilderness than the Adirondack Mountains this side of the Mississippi is northern Maine.

But some of us choose to live in these remote locations simply because we prefer the simplicity. It has nothing to do with being usophisticated (as one other poster implied. Don't try to tell me there are less rednecks living in the cities!). But at the same time, we want a fast connection to the world. It makes living in the boonies easier.

We installed our two-way DirecWay system this sping. It is way more expensive than cable, way slower, but it's still leaps and bounds better than dialup.

Re:But why?

[JebusIsLord]

Having worked at a Cable Internet provider up here in Cananda for a time, I have some insight. The first problem is that most old cable systems are amplified unidirectionally, which means the system would have to be massively rebuilt for 2-way traffic. Second of all, modems are much more succeptible to line noise/ingress, which means a lot of extra work making sure noise is minimized and all connections are terminated (to avoid picking up off-air signals, "ghosting" images on the data stream if you will.) One solution used here to reduce noise is to replace the trunks with fiber, and only use coax in the neighbourhoods. The third infrastructure issue is of course the actual ip routers, backbones etc. which is a significant expense.

Re:But why?

[EvilBudMan]

We don't have cable either. Satellite is currently the only choice. I was thinking about how the latency would be. Would VPN even be possible?

Re:But why?

[chaotica1974]

I have starband and the latency sucks. Telnet/SSH is painful at best. VPN - Dialup speeds AT BEST, and that is only for certain VPNs.

High speed internet via satellite

[mrjive]

Maybe I'm mistaken, but isn't this still mostly a one-way solution? All the people I know that have used satellite internet get decent downstream speeds (when it's not cloudy anyways) but are still forced to rely on a regular dialup connection for their upstream.

Has the technology been developed to make this a true broadband solution like cable/dsl is now? If so, I'm sure many rural types would be interested in jumping on that bandwagon...since they really have no other option.

Re:High speed internet via satellite

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the satellite access is 2-way now with a satellite uplink.

It's not a solution for places that have cable or dsl, but for a LARGE portion of the country geographically that has no cable or dsl access, it's still better than dial-up.

Re:High speed internet via satellite

[GigsVT]

Yeah, but with Starband, your upstream bandwith is about 64Kilobits/sec over the satellite, so it's not much better than dialup.

As to the "cloudy" comment, the thing works unless it is getting ready to storm or is already storming basically. Generally during a heavy rainstorm is the only time it goes out.

Re:High speed internet via satellite

[Jucius Maximus]

"Yeah, but with Starband, your upstream bandwith is about 64Kilobits/sec over the satellite, so it's not much better than dialup."

Keep in mind that the people who are such a remote area that they can't get DSL/cable (like me) are on super-long phone loops so we can get 28.8 on a good day if we're lucky. 64K upstream is a big deal.

Re:High speed internet via satellite

[Rick the Red]

Lucky! I've never seen 28.8 on a dialup here. 24.0 is typical; the best I've ever seen is 26.0. I have no idea why AT&T Broadband included us in their fiber optic upgrade, but I'm glad they did because now we have decent (full time!) internet access. USQwest told us they'll never upgrade our service because we're too remote.

Re:High speed internet via satellite

[LostCluster]

It's a one-and-a-half-way-link.

Whole lot of bandwidth down, roughly modem speed back towards the satellite. That, combined with a massive ping makes it acceptable for website browsing or receiving media streams, but no good for 2-way videophone, reaction-based games, or serving anything.

Re:High speed internet via satellite

[Snover]

It's important to realize that at one point cable was the same way. Hopefully as the technology matures a bit more this limitation will go away.

Re:High speed internet via satellite

[Chainsaw Messiah]

upstream bandwith is about 64Kilobits/sec over the satellite, so it's not much better than dialup.

Soooo .... it's not like I'm uploading pr0n ....

Re:High speed internet via satellite

[Anonymous Coward]

So for most of the the ones that only surf websites and download an occasional file will be quite happy with 64K up.

That would suffice for probably 90% of the excuse the expression clueless users but would be a problem for even the "clued" user but people keep e-mailing me saying that my service sucks as they can't get the 1M+ download speed that they can get from XYZ service.

Too much latency 4 me

[pr0c]

Too much latency 4 me

Upstream?

[Palshife]

As I remember a while back, satellite internet basically meant getting your downstream in the dish and your upstream through a phone line. Is this still the case?

Re:Upstream?

[stevejsmith]

I think that they now offer a two-way solution, but it isn't much faster than 56k. Although it doesn't tie of your phone line.

Re:Upstream?

[tlovie]

It depends, many believe that many companies use a modem uplink, but check out:
http://www.highspeedanywhere.com
They have a bi-directional offering.

DirecWay

[DreamTheater]

I am a DirecWay user, after having moved out of the range of DSL. AT&T Broadband doesn't offer Cable Modem service in my town. I can honestly say DirecWay sucks, but its just slightly better than dialup, so I guess I can justify its ridiculous cost. The second DSL is available in my area, I'm switching back.

Re:DirecWay

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree...the latency is so unbearable. If you plan on using telnet, ssh, or ftp, think again. It doesnt support terminal services. Its horrible. Also, dont plan on downloading any iso's 'cause anything over 300 or so mb is cut at the knee.........

Re:DirecWay

[clheiny]

After I moved to the Santa Cruz mountains, I had a 2 month run-around with Pac Bell during which they said "yes, we can provide you with DSL" and "no, we can't". Turns out that my house can't get DSL, but my mailbox, which is almost 2 miles away, could. Not sure how they could confuse the two...

Anyway, StarBand was installed in August. Since then max download speeds have typically been in the 130..180KByte/sec range (for servers that can keep up). I was warned by other users that the system is "awful" during bad weather, but during gale force winds and 5"/day of rain a couple of weeks ago it still managed 30KByte/sec. Since the best the noisy land-line dialup ever managed was 1KByte/sec, that's more than acceptable. The only downtime that I noticed was for a few hours in September when a major thunderstorm blocked their NOC. YMMV.

If you're a big uploader, though, watch out. Upload speeds suck relative to the download capability, being not much faster than a 56kbit/sec modem on a clean phone line. Almost all my flow is down, though, so this isn't a biggy.

Physics

[Anonymous Coward]

I had to do a few homework assignments about satalite networks in college and the physics seem to make this a waste of time. It takes too long for the signal to get up and down and back. Customers will likely just stick with the fast and reliable land based lines.

Re:Physics

[Anonymous Coward]

unless the fast and reliable land based lines aren't fast and reliable. I lived in an area for a long time that didn't have access to cable modem or DSL, and the phone lines could only handle up to 26.4kbps. That's by no means fast. Also, there was lots of noice on the lines I think, and the connection would randomly cut out every now and then. That sucks.

Re:Physics

[Anonymous Coward]

In my experience, 56K is nowhere near fast.

What's your experience?

[WhaDaYaKnow]

While on the subject, can anyone comment on what their experience is with satellite based internet connections? How fast, what sort of latencies, downtime, weather impact etc.

I'm interested to get a DirecWay system, but one of the things that worries me is that it requires special software (supposedly).

Re:What's your experience?

[GigsVT]

but one of the things that worries me is that it requires special software (supposedly).

It does, at least with Starband and the 360 model modems. I'm assuming the DirecWay are the same type of setup. It needs to munge up your whole TCP/IP stack, or else you get really shitty throughput. Not going to work on an unsupported OS.

Of course, you can use a pentium 166 as a Win2k router running tiny personal firewall, and then at least you don't have to use Windows on a real computer.

Re:What's your experience?

[afidel]

Have a couple coworker using direcway. They just setup a pc using win2k running ICS to do the connection and then share it into a proper setup. They get pretty good speed, fast enough that they don't complain about large attachments like some of the people on slow dsl lines (608kbps), latencies are a bitch, over 500ms to our corporate lan. Downtime, none so far. Weather hasn't been a problem and one guy lives in the snowbelt here in Northern Ohio, average anual snowfall over 120". One's even run VoIP but the latencies were high enough to be annoying.

Re:What's your experience?

[mao che minh]

I am planning on getting a DirecWay connection as well, but I am not concerned with the influece that inclinent weather or faulty physics might have on my latency. For I intend on using Debian, which will solve all of these potential problems before they ever get the chance to make themselves known. I have been assurred repeatedly by people with numbers in their Slashdot monikers that Debian's "apt-get" will solve every computing problem in any reference frame. Rumor has it that apt-get may even unify general relativity and quantum mechanics one day soon.

Re:What's your experience?

[fobbman]

I comment on satellite Internet. I was on Soviet space station Mir 7 month, and Internet connection was horrible. It was still far better than home Internet connection back in Russia.

Re:What's your experience?

[dnadig]

It sucks, but it's better than dialup. It's unlike any other form of web experience. I often get quite high burst speeds for downloads and the like, but the latency makes surfing kind of a "click - wait - whooosh" experience.

Games are impossible of course, except low latency gaming like chess, magic, or some RTS games. I use dialup for twitch gaming still - sigh...

The company has been easy to deal with, it's the technology that's a bore. Damn speed of light and all that.

Note - speed and experience are VERY dependant on group usage - about 9PM evenings your speeds go down to dialup, 9AM in the morning is awesome.

Grot

Re:What's your experience?

[StormReaver]

"I'm interested to get a DirecWay [direcway.com] system, but one of the things that worries me is that it requires special software (supposedly)."

I've had both the DirecWay 1-way system and the 2-way system. In both cases, the hardware and software are both proprietary and work only with Windows (which is by far its biggest failing). The satellite modem is USB, and will not work with standard networking hardware. This means that there is absolutely no way to connect it to Linux. It must run through a Windows computer. You can use Windows' truly pathetic Internet Connection Sharing to share the connection with any other machine through standard networking hardware, but it is quite painful in its unreliability.

Its saving graces are (in no particular order):

1) It's always on if Windows hasn't crashed.

2) Downloads are much faster than dialup (at least 400kbs -- kbs, not KBs).

3) If you would otherwise have to purchase multiple dialup accounts for your household to allow multiple users decent Internet speeds (sharing a dialup modem among three people is not decent speed), then the long term costs can be substantially less (after the initial hardware purchase has been amortized).

4) If you can use satellite TV, then you can use satellite Internet.

It's primary losing fuckups:

1) It is proprietary from head to toe, and they (so far) refuse to support anything but Windows.

2) Upload speeds (despite the satellite transmitter) are no better than dialup.

3) DirecWay's business admins are complete incompetent clusterfucks. If you MUST go with 2-way satellite, try Earthlink BEFORE you buy any equipment. Earthlink currently will not allow DirecWay hardware to transfer to Earthlink's service, despite the hardware being identical. I had very good experiences with Earthlink when I was on dialup, though, and would switch away from DirecWay in an instant if I could transfer my hardware.

4) Getting started is damned expensive. The initial hardware is roughly $700, and you must agree to a 1-year commitment (which is about $70 a month, and is in addition to the hardware). Only after that first year can you go month to month.

5) Since you have to use Windows as the "server", and Windows drops packets like rabbits breed, it can be a painful experience. It's better than sharing a dialup modem, but it's still painful.

Re:What's your experience?

[DavittJPotter]

I installed a Starband system at a very remote location in Wyoming for a former employer - dialup was only capable of 33.6 at best, and the phone service itself was spotty.

Snow, heavy rain, fog, and sunspots (!) all affect the reception of this piece.

I've done a couple more since then, and have been able to plug directly into a Linux box. Take the little plate off next to the USB port on the satellite modem - and boom, there's the Ethernet jack. Do DHCP on that interface, and you're in good shape.

Re:What's your experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

In Russia, the Internet browses you!

Re:What's your experience?

[armyoftherepublic]

I'm using Starband out of the Northwest Cascades. Downloads are a reliable 70kBps while uploads drag at a crawling 3-4 KBps. Ping times range from 0.5 to 2 seconds most days. Due to my isolated situation I'm forced to use VoiP for a quality sounding phone calls. It works well, if you and the person you are talking to don't mind the 5 second lag! Overall, this two way satellite connection has been stable and reliable, as long as you keep the snow off the dish! Rain (we get a lot) hasn't affected us at all.

Re:What's your experience?

[statichead]

you got to be shitin me!

Why the fsck are these guys pushin only usb if the tech is already there to do ether?

Do I dare call it a microsoft conspiracy?

I just don't get it. Why would any company spend $s in development money for usb drivers when they could deploy a known technology that is widly deployed and supported by everything. It just does not make sense.

thanks for that ether tidbit;-)

Re:What's your experience?

[DavittJPotter]

Glad to help out, guys. ;) Have fun.

D

Re:What's your experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

We have StarBand here. It's fine for web surfing and e-mail, but upstream speed is slow as dialup, and you can forget about downloading anything large, it will be corrupt every time. And the system can only be installed on a Windows PC due to the proprietary protocols used with the satellite modem. To sum it up: If it's NOT for business use, and you're running Windows, and you don't upload or download large (>10Mb) files, it's ok.

Re:What's your experience?

[duffbeer703]

Just use any proxy server rather than ICS.

The only really obnoxious thing is the bandwidth caps.

If you are dropping that many packets in NT, you have an admin problem, not an OS problem.

Re:What's your experience?

[SonicBurst]

Note that I've never had direct experience with this, but I've heard in several different places that yes, you can just connect the ethernet port to your nic in any given OS and it'll work; however, these same people also said that without running the special software that your transfer rates suffer tremendously.

Just what I've heard.

Re:What's your experience?

[stm555]

I've installed one of these and the software does help with the speed tremendously, but the 'special software' is just a caching/bursting hack that makes it save up content to transmit in bursts. I think the bursting is where satellite gets all it's speed, as the latency from earth to sat has to be ridiculous.

Re:What's your experience?

[thgreatoz]

If you play any type of online game, don't bother...the latency was horrible for me, and I was recieving pings upwards of 800ms. It's great for web browsing and net radio and stuff like that, but if you want to run a server or anything like that, it's no better than a dialup, and more expensive to boot. Thank God for DSL!

Re:What's your experience?

[tommck]

4) If you can use satellite TV, then you can use satellite Internet

Not true.
It uses different satellites. So, potentially, you could hit the satellite for DirecTV and not be able to hit the second satellite needed for Internet access, like me.

T

Shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Fucking rednecks are infesting slashdot. Go back to fucking your sister.

Re:Shit

[Anonymous Coward]

I would, except yours is just giving it away.

Satellite Systems Hacked

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a good link to an article on Yahoo.Click this
link

Speed of light

[Anonymous Coward]

You will have to wait until they eiter find a way to increase the speed of light, or launch a system of many low-orbiting satellites that provides affordable Internet access.

A system with geostatonary satellites and light travelling at the speed it does now will not work. Never. Not even when Echostar, New Skies, Eutelsat or Astra announce it.

Re:Speed of light

[pyrrho]

this makes no sense whatever.

Re:Speed of light

[Anonymous Coward]

Insightful?
If satellite internet doesn't work, how am I posting this?

You might be surprised how well satellite internet works with proper equipment and a proper installation. Granted, for home use, stuff tends to suck, but for commercial use, with proper gear, satellite internet works great. The only difference between the satellite T1 equivalent service here and the T1 service you have in the states is the latency; an extra 400ms. No other difference.

Re:Speed of light

[LostCluster]

The fact is, it works as a high-bandwidth high-delay connection.

It's not as good as cable modem, not as good as DSL, but certainly better than nothing when neither of those are availalbe.

Re:Speed of light

[Anonymous Coward]

Not even that, unless you pay a very high price.
The overbooking on these links must be *terrible*.
Just check what they can get over one transponder (about 40 Mbits/sec max) and what it costs to lease one.

Both the latency and the transfer rate suck.
Conclusion: it does not work (in practice)

Re:Speed of light

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact is, it works as a high-bandwidth high-delay connection.

So does a 747.

Re:Speed of light

[Anonymous Coward]

If they had lasers beaming a signal from ground to 60,000 miles up in geo. orbit, it might take 1/2 a second for a round trip. I think they could find some way for this to work.

Re:Speed of light

[Anonymous Coward]

"No. No. No. Light speed is too slow. .... We're going to have to go right to .. LUDICROUS speed."

Re:Speed of light

[thgreatoz]

"Ludacrous speed?! We've never gone that fast before....I don't know if the ship can take it!" "What's the matter, Colonel Sanders...are you CHICKEN????!!!"

Questions, questions....

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder how long that relationship will last?

Only as long as it takes for someone to start a fight and the first china dish gets thrown.

CALLING ALL TROLLS

[Anonymous Coward]

From: Troll Ceo

A recent ASCII art post, of very poor quality, has revived my interest in good old ASCII art. It has been a long time since the Slashdot community enjoyed a thorough crapflood of quality ASCII art. I'm sure that Cmdr Taco misses the good old days too.

I am therefore, calling on all Trolls to put forth their best effort. I want to see articles flooded with good quallity ASCII art.

Remember, the key word here is, good quallity. I do NOT want to see any pathetic teenie weenie penis birds or worn out Goatse. I want art!!

For now, good posting. That is all.

Re:CALLING ALL TROLLS

[Anonymous Coward]

Heil....HeilHitlerHe.. #In Memory of Adolf Hitler# ..Heil....HeilHitlerHe
Heil....ilHitlerHeil.... We will always remember ....Heil....ilHitlerHeil
Heil....Heil............. and cherish you. Your .....Heil....Heil........
Heil....Heil............. acts of selflessness ......Heil....Heil........
Heil....Heil........... will be passed down from ....Heil....Heil........
HeilHitlerHeilHitler... generation to generation. ...HeilHitlerHeilHitler
HeilHitlerHeilHitler... The lies that dishonor your .HeilHitlerHeilHitler
........Heil....Heil..... name will be vanquished. ..........Heil....Heil
........Heil....Heil.... You were a true patriot ............Heil....Heil
........Heil....Heil.... and a lover of all men, ............Heil....Heil
HeilHitlerHe....Heil... all races, all religions. ...HeilHitlerHe....Heil
ilHitlerHeil....Heil.. #In Memory of Adolf Hitler# ..ilHitlerHeil....Heil

-klerck (Not by me, but damn good nonetheless!)

Re:CALLING ALL TROLLS

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition to this. You can lure un-suspecting slashdotters to a goatse or related website by following this example Here
Thankyou
--
You have been lied to.

Re:CALLING ALL TROLLS

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, the yahoo front-page what a troll you are...

2-way does exist

[Anonymous Coward]

2-way service does exist. The latency is approx. 800ms minimum, and the download is around 400kbps (for most connections you don't pay thousands for)

Sure modem access has lower latency, but some of the people who use sattellite use it because they have no phone lines in the area. Yes, places like this exist in the US.

Re:2-way does exist

[Anonymous Coward]

I am on DirectWay now... latency is around 600-800ms but download goes from 300-2200kbps, I usually see about 1100kbps. If servers are on a big pipe, and the weather is right 2000-2200kbps is not unheard of.

Re:2-way does exist

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have direcway. I do support for 2 large resellers of direcway.

The minimum guaranteed download speed is 400kbps, most people I speak to see 600-800. As for upload, 128kbps is the max they will see, as it is capped this way.

This is DirecWay Business edition. Higher packages can be bought, however most people stick with the base one.

Re:2-way does exist

[sully67]

ja.net (The UK organisation for education networking) is currently trialing 2 way satellite and I'd have to say I was impressed at the network access conference I went to recently.
The guy was brave enough to do a live demo (The dish having been rigged up only a couple of hours earlier). ping times were a consistant 600ms and bandwidth was a symmetric 2M.
It seems like a very good solution for the rural, the only barriers are the latency (which isn't as bad as I thought it would be) and the high cost.
dc-sat.net are the company involved in the trial.

Common in Nigeria

[Anonymous Coward]

You wonder why there are so few hits from African countries? Because the only reliable link is over satellite, which usually connects to a European ISP. Yes indeed, this message is brought to you over PanAmSat connect to the Irish Web-Sat ISP from the oil-rich country of Nigeria.

My upstream is 64kbytes/sec, downstream is 2Mbits. Unless it rains a tropical storm, in which case the connection ceases to exist.

For the interested, check out http://www.directonpc.com.

Re:Common in Nigeria

[fobbman]

Might you know a Doctor Auoi? I sent him some money and my bank account info awhile ago for help in freeing up a financial transaction and I haven't heard back from him.

Thanks.

Re:Common in Nigeria

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you stop sending us those scam letters then and save bandwidth ?

Re:Common in Nigeria

[Echnin]

Only 64k up? Damn, I bet a whole lot of you have to share your internet connections to send out all that spam. Er... I guess that comes off as kinda prejudice, but I'm just joking around.

Re:Common in Nigeria

[Anonymous Coward]

68. It may be objected that primitive man is physically less secure than modern man, as is shown by his shorter life expectancy; hence modern man suffers from less, not more than the amount of insecurity that is normal for human beings. but psychological security does not closely correspond with physical security. What makes us FEEL secure is not so much objective security as a sense of confidence in our ability to take care of ourselves. Primitive man, threatened by a fierce animal or by hunger, can fight in self-defense or travel in search of food. He has no certainty of success in these efforts, but he is by no means helpless against the things that threaten him. The modern individual on the other hand is threatened by many things against which he is helpless; nuclear accidents, carcinogens in food, environmental pollution, war, increasing taxes, invasion of his privacy by large organizations, nation-wide social or economic phenomena that may disrupt his way of life.

69. It is true that primitive man is powerless against some of the things that threaten him; disease for example. But he can accept the risk of disease stoically. It is part of the nature of things, it is no one's fault, unless is the fault of some imaginary, impersonal demon. But threats to the modern individual tend to be MAN-MADE. They are not the results of chance but are IMPOSED on him by other persons whose decisions he, as an individual, is unable to influence. Consequently he feels frustrated, humiliated and angry.

70. Thus primitive man for the most part has his security in his own hands (either as an individual or as a member of a SMALL group) whereas the security of modern man is in the hands of persons or organizations that are too remote or too large for him to be able personally to influence them. So modern man's drive for security tends to fall into groups 1 and 3; in some areas (food, shelter, etc.) his security is assured at the cost of only trivial effort, whereas in other areas he CANNOT attain security. (The foregoing greatly simplifies the real situation, but it does indicate in a rough, general way how the condition of modern man differs from that of primitive man.)

71. People have many transitory drives or impulses that are necessary frustrated in modern life, hence fall into group 3. One may become angry, but modern society cannot permit fighting. In many situations it does not even permit verbal aggression. When going somewhere one may be in a hurry, or one may be in a mood to travel slowly, but one generally has no choice but to move with the flow of traffic and obey the traffic signals. One may want to do one's work in a different way, but usually one can work only according to the rules laid down by one's employer. In many other ways as well, modern man is strapped down by a network of rules and regulations (explicit or implicit) that frustrate many of his impulses and thus interfere with the power process. Most of these regulations cannot be disposed with, because the are necessary for the functioning of industrial society.

Re:Common in Nigeria

[zonker]

you know him too? what a nice guy too! he sends me mail all the time and keeps me up to date on his troubles. i hope all is well with his situation. :p

Re:Common in Nigeria

[dubious_1]

You may be interrested in a new service that just launched. Inmarsat has a new service called Regional BGAN. It is a 144 kbps portable sattelite terminal with ethernet, USB or bluetooth connectivity. I believe that the coverage area is northern Africa, europe, and asia, but am not sure. A google search should provide more info.
I have seen this product demonstrated, and it is pretty nice. I do not know the cost of the hardware or service though.

ID:4

[The_Rippa]

But what about the alien threat that was presented in the Hollywood blockbusted Independence Day? Since alien's run MacOS-compatible systems and communicate using a protocol extactly similiar to our TCP/IP, this system, if put into place, would give them the last piece of the puzzle needed to blow up the White House! I urge Echostar to think of the children for Christ's sake!

Re:ID:4

[Lord of the Fries]

Mod Parent UP!

Re:ID:4

[fobbman]

"... this system, if put into place, would give them the last piece of the puzzle needed to blow up the White House!

And this is a problem...WHY?

Re:ID:4

[rleibman]

Which is why we should not go to IP6, it would make us incompatible with aliens and thus leave us totally unprotected.

Re:ID:4

[Phroggy]

But what about the alien threat that was presented in the Hollywood blockbusted Independence Day? Since alien's run MacOS-compatible systems and communicate using a protocol extactly similiar to our TCP/IP, this system, if put into place, would give them the last piece of the puzzle needed to blow up the White House! I urge Echostar to think of the children for Christ's sake!

Since nobody uses Macs anyway, we have nothing to worry about.

Re:ID:4

[frodo from middle ea]

IP6 is downward compatible with IP4 NO ?

Satellite = bad idea

[SexyKellyOsbourne]

Down in Antarctica, the only internet access available is by satellite -- and it's so impossibly slow that when that woman down there got breast cancer, they barely could get the doctor's recommendations and instructions for a biopsy over the satellite, since it only worked every few hours at best and the transfer rate was something akin (no exaggeration!) to 300Bps.

In fact, it's so bad that some groups are actually considering running a digital fiber line all the way to the south pole.

Re:Satellite = bad idea

[jm91509]

Down in Antarctica, the only internet access available is by satellite -- and it's so impossibly slow ...

This as far as I'm aware is because they cannot see the geosynchronous satellites that we in the normal parts of the world can. So only at certain times of the day or night do the satellites become visable and then they are very low in the sky so reception is not the best.

As far as I know anyway...

Re:Satellite = bad idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Any idea what groups are considering this? I'm curious. Thanks.

-TUAC

Re:Satellite = bad idea

[swfranklin]

Down in Antarctica, the only internet access available is by satellite -- and it's so impossibly slow...

I'm reminded of Sam Kinnison's advice to the Ethiopians - "See this? This is SAND. Nothing grows here. Nothing with ever grow here. Move where the food is!

"Satellite = bad idea" may be true in Antarctica, but for people within, say, 60 degrees latitude of the equator it's a viable option.

Re:Satellite = bad idea

[blindbat]

That is because their angle to the sattelites is so extreme. Wired had an article on Antartica a few months back.

Re:Satellite = bad idea

[Anonymous Coward]

What's 300Bps??? It's 300bps as in bits per second. Not 300Bps!!!!

Re:Satellite = bad idea

[dave_mcmillen]

Oh, come now . . . The fact that it doesn't work well in Antarctica is hardly a damning revelation! If you insist on living at one of the poles, you're probably going to have trouble with your utilities. :) Satellite coverage is tricky for regions beyond the sightlines of geosynchrous satellites, as Canada, Russia, and (apparently) Antarctica know all too well.

I don't think the satellite access providers are going to be swayed by their inability to reach Antarctica's, what, 5000 inhabitants? It's like saying that phone lines are a bad idea because they won't reach the Space Station.

Re:Satellite = bad idea

[morcheeba]

You're 99% correct - satellites are put over the greatest population densities. But since these satellites are geosynchronous and don't move with respect to the earth, the time of day or the season doesn't matter (or else customers would have to move their satellite dishs).

Even if you could get past line-of-sight problems and have a really big antenna on the ground, the satellites typically have a narrow beam that usually doesn't cover the poles, making it much harder (if not impossible) to talk to them.

We actually did some low-speed (50 bytes/sec one-way) satellite comms near the poles for weather-sensing bouys. We used a piggy-back transponder on a weather satellite. This weather satellite (unlike most, which are geosync), was polar-orbiting, so it was dependent on the time of day. This transponder also served to relay emergency signals from ships - we were allowed to use it near the poles because they figured there wouldn't be too many ships in distress there.

Re:Satellite = bad idea

[Xtraneous]

Especially when 4950 of them are penguins.

What will `Tux do without his internet access? Actually, I thought that Antarctica was uninhabited except for scientists and researchers.

Re:Satellite = bad idea

[truesaer]

That just means that the weather or equipment is the problem. You'll notice that the networks can run live video over satellite. Ford and probably the other auto companies have Satellite networks for distance learning, internet access, etc. to all their dealerships. It has decent speeds, but the latency is really bad if you're trying to do something like surf the web. If you can just start up a long stream (like video or large file downloads), then the latency is significantly mitigated.

Re:Satellite = bad idea

[thogard]

Geostationary sats are over the equator. At the equator you point the dish directly up. At 30 degrees north or south you point the dishes at 60 degrees. At the poles you point the dishes at the horizon. The lower you point the dish, the more air it has to go through and there are more things that can be in the way and there will be more local weather effects.

If you go look at the sat tv dishes, you will see they are all pointed at 90 degrees - your latitude except the focalpoint isn't in the middle of most of the dishes so they look like they are pointed at the wrong angle.

Re:Satellite = bad idea

[Guppy06]

"Down in Antarctica, the only internet access available is by satellite -- and it's so impossibly slow that"

A rocket scientist, I see...

IDIOT! They're in ANTARCTICA! As in "south of the Antarctic Circle!" As in "they're damned lucky the geostationary satellite was above the horizon to begin with!" You can't get much further away from the equator or try to transmit through more atmosphere than that!

Hell, most of Canada and Alaska need a bigger-than-average dish to get DSS TV service, and they're not even above the Arctic Circle. Hawaii is only about 60 degrees west of the satellites and they have the same problem. And you think that a bunch of people 90 degrees away from the satellite will get the same kind of service as those of us who live within 30?

I can't stress this enough: IDIOT! You and the morons that modded you up.

Re:Satellite = bad idea

[Guppy06]

"xcept the focalpoint isn't in the middle of most of the dishes so they look like they are pointed at the wrong angle."

It could be that, or it could be that the satellite is over a different line of longitude and the dish is pointed towards the east or west as well...

Re:Satellite = bad idea

[Guppy06]

"or else customers would have to move their satellite dishs"

Geosynchronus satellites are 45,000 km over the equator and typically move in a figure-8 pattern relative to the surface of the earth (the ones in which the figure-8 is so small as to be non-existant are called "geostationary"). When the satellite is more than 45,000 km away, it can do quite a bit of moving without the need to adjust the dish (think "relative motion").

If dish-pointing needed pinpoint accuracy like you describe, nobody would ever be able to set up a DSS system without some really expensive equipment and a very steady hand.

YOU ARE TEH SUCK!

[Anonymous Coward]

what about some hardcore 802.11b?

[mr_gerbik]

How about some hardcore 802.11b. All you need is a coffee can and an old satellite dish.

Hardcore 802.11b

Re:what about some hardcore 802.11b?

[4of12]

I live in an exurb area just beyond cable providers and where DSL hasn't arrived either.

I was interested in the recent Slashdot story about the 72 mile link obtained under excruciating circumstances (unlikely to be replicated in my neighborhood).

I've wondered whether it would be possible to use 802.11b for a neighborhood LAN cooperative where enough people could kick in subscriptions so that somewhere on the edge of civilization we could just buy a dedicated T1.

Has anyone else done this already?

Re:what about some hardcore 802.11b?

[mr_gerbik]

Have you checked out http://www.seattlewireless.net? This might be a good starting place for researching such a project.

Right off the bat you will have to address two important issues.

1) Security -- 802.11b isn't the most secure technology on the block. Having a neighborhood wide network can lead to a lot of people sniffing packets you might not want them to sniff.

2) Dealing with your ISP. They won't be to happy about your plans to say the least. ;)

-gerbik

Re:what about some hardcore 802.11b?

[op00to]

You realize that's illegal, right? If you have something like that on your roof, you can be arrested and FINED and have all your related radio stuff confiscated if/when the FCC finds you -- and they DO drive around. There is a legal limit of the strength of the signal leaving an 802.11 device. By putting a very directional antenna (dish/pringles can), you effectively increase the radiated energy to what may be unsafe (and definately illegal) levels. They don't measure at the input to the antenna, but the radiated signal from the antenna. Anyhow, making your own antennas to radiate RF energy can be illegal to begin with. If you REALLY want to play with stuff like this, look into licensing yourself somehow with the FCC. The easiest way to start is a Technician class Amateur Radio license. It's a simple electronics theory and basic rules test which takes no less than 15 minutes (I did mine in 5). You get full privledges above 6 meters. That means that you can use many times more power to play with. You can move on from there to doing intercontinental datacomms using the HF bands which is a lot more fun and challenging than 802.11 will ever be.

Re:what about some hardcore 802.11b?

[mr_gerbik]

If you have something like that on your roof, you can be arrested and FINED

Shouldn't you have put "arrested" in all caps instead of "fined"? I certainly would fear getting arrested over getting a fine...

Anyway.. its not my dish so I am not too worried about it. I just didn't want to slashdot a guys site from out of the blue. I am just mirroring the photo.

Re:what about some hardcore 802.11b?

[op00to]

That's just what you WOULD have wanted me to do, WOULDN'T YOU? I just use RANDOM capitilization in posts to throw PEOPLE off. Or maybe I have NO CLUE over what I'm posting. Anyhow, the FCC usually doesn't arrest people, so I probably just subconciously did that. Get your license, do it! It's fun. Women won't like you, but let's not kid ourselves here, it's not like slashdot is a turnon for anyone who we'd really want. http://www.arrl.org is the website for the organization that does the testing. They're nice guys.

Re:what about some hardcore 802.11b?

[4of12]

Dealing with your ISP

I was thinking of the cooperative just becoming an ISP through purchasing one dedicated T1 land line link, rather than have each user becoming a gateway into their ISP piggybacking traffic from others.

Security is tough, though. I don't know enough about it except for rumours of how bad it is...

Re:what about some hardcore 802.11b?

[LordHunter317]

Changing the attenna won't change the power output one bit. It will change the distance hte signal travels, due to gain increases, but not measured power. Its most likely, the power would be far less unless you're good at this stuff, due to SWR and the like. Good, directive dishes are easy to come by if you are in the know, but if not, forget. Besdies, since its class B, as long as it doesn't cause any interference, the FCC won't care much.

BTW, microwaves are 1000x more fun than HF. My dad does lots of high-end (10GHz+) micro wwork, and enjoys it far more than any HF stuff he does. Besides, its far easier to care a 20" dish than a 20' dipole any day.

Re:what about some hardcore 802.11b?

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't say anything about adding an amplifier. Considering the FCC allows 24 dB gain antennas and the most powerful commonly available 802.11b cards you can buy are 0.1 Watts, you're still in spec. I wonder why the mods moderated that post upward...z

Re:what about some hardcore 802.11b?

[Anonymous Coward]

Done? No. Tried? Yes. We spent about $3K on antennas, cabling, and poles to go about 0.6 miles with 802.11b. We only got about 10 dB worth of SNR. It wasn't good enough to use. Another wireless scam. Have you ever seen something wireless work as well as it should? I haven't! Between my cell phone dropping-out, my cordless phone that you can't get more than 5' from the base, and money wasted on 802.11 equipment, I'm fed-up with marketing lies.

Re:what about some hardcore 802.11b?

[hitchhiker]

We have done 3 802.11b networks each consisting of a minimum radious of 5.5 miles to cover the facilities. Each uses one 12db Omni antennae as the central point, then a mix of directional antennae at the client points. We have the main antennae at 40' above ground on fairly flat terrain. I have actually gotten a working signal as far away as 25 miles using a very short cable and a 25db antennae but that was just a test.

Re:what about some hardcore 802.11b?

[op00to]

Have you ever taken high school physics? Let
's look at the definition of "Gain". http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=gain
4. Electronics. An increase in signal power, voltage, or current by an amplifier, expressed as the ratio of output to input. Also called amplification.
Obviously, gain is an increase in SIGNAL POWER. How would you think that a LOS signal could travel further (eliminating atmospheric anomalies, of course) unless you increased the power? Magic? Maximum power for 802.11 can be anywhere from 50mW to 250mW to 1W.

Re:what about some hardcore 802.11b?

[bogie]

"If you have something like that on your roof, you can be arrested and FINED and have all your related radio stuff confiscated if/when the FCC finds you -- and they DO drive around"

Yea like that's really likely. Whoever put that up has more chance of lightening hitting his dish than some FCC guy strolling through his neighborhood and thinking "hmmmm that dish lots funny, I wonder if its in spec?"

The FCC is too busy carting money to the bank from all the kickbacks they get to spend time driving around every residential neighborhood in America. I'd be shocked if there was even 1 FCC employee whose job it is to just drive around randomly looking for antennas. That would be a colossal waste of taxpayer money.

Re:what about some hardcore 802.11b?

[Skuld-Chan]

I don't know - there's something about talking to stations all over the world instantly from almost anywhere (like my car or apartment).

Re:what about some hardcore 802.11b?

[erc]

Your whole post is complete nonsense from beginning to end. First, the FCC doesn't care about ERP from 802.11b, just power output. There is absolutely no way you're going to get hurt pushing 100 mw out an antenna, even a parabolic dish. Second, making your own antennas to radiate RF can be illegal, or not, depending on the service. Third, digital ham radio is so far behind the times it's a joke. 1200 baud packet is still all the rage in most places - it's like people still think it's some sort of miracle that digital signals go over RF. And don't even get me started on HF packet - the fastest is 2400 baud, and that's only with Pactor III - everyone else is passing traffic at 300 baud. Fourth, you forgot about the "no encryption" and "no business" restrictions on ham radio, which makes it useless for most people in these sorts of circumstances.

Re:what about some hardcore 802.11b?

[flappinbooger]

I'll admit that 1200 baud isn't much, however don't forget the RANGE you can get on HF. Even 2400 baud can be impressive at a couple thousand miles... And also don't forget the price. This gear can be picked up for $5 at a hamfest.

Pricing.

[halftrack]

I live in rural Norway and have looked at the possibility for satellite and found TiscaliSat (should be avaiable in most countries), but the prices are high. Setting up the sat costs $2000+ and the monthly fee is $200+. I don't forsee satellite as a viable artenative for private consumers, maybe for small corporations (with need for fast connection in rural areas?)

Re:Pricing.

[DAldredge]

But's that unpossible! I keep hearing how much more advanced the whole of Europe is compared to the US... :->

Re:Pricing.

[Dionysus]

But's that unpossible! I keep hearing how much more advanced the whole of Europe is compared to the US...

Only when it comes to cell phone... and banking. Then again, this is Norway. There are people who have to pay for a TV license for channels they don't receive.

Pros and Cons

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

Pros:

You live in an area where satellite is your only option for high speed internet connectivity

Certain amount of uber-geek coolness

Uh... can't think of any others.

Cons:

Round trip ping times are extreme and completely unusable for online gaming

Capped and throttled bandwidth - sure, they promise you X bits per second, but that's assuming that not all of the other customers are currently using the system - and if you use too much bandwidth, they'll either cut your speed, charge you more money, or just drop you for lower bandwidth customers

Initial setup costs and fees. I had DirecPC for a while, and it cost me $300 for the initial equipment and that did not include installation. I had to buy a dish installation kit ($30) a hammer-drill to drill holes in a brick chimney ($50, probably not needed by most people), silicone sealant, coaxial cable, drilling holes into the house to run cable, etc.

Service was $50 per month for "unlimited" usage between 6:00 pm and 6:00 am on weekdays and 24 hrs on weekends. But only as long as I stayed under some arbitrary (and classified) download limits, if I exceeded what they thought was an appropriate amount they would cut my speed in half until my average daily throughput fell back into their range. How exactly can you sell something as unlimited and then start setting limits without revealing what those limits are? The short answer is, you can't. That would explain why they (DirecPC) were the target of a class action lawsuit that forced them to reveal their arbitrary limits and to reword all their marketing materials to no longer promise unlimited access. The $50 per month did not include a dial-up account which was necessary to be able to use the service, so I had to continue paying $18 per month for my local ISP so I could dial up and be able to access the internet and, if I wanted to be able to talk on the phone while on the net, I had to pay for a second phone line.

I now have DSL with a set speed, there is no slow down to other users, there are no arbitrary limits or thresholds (except on their crummy news servers which I don't use anyways), I have 24/7 access without the loss of a phone line and I only pay $49.99 per month. It's hard to beat that.

Re:Pros and Cons

[enjo13]

Uhm, you could not pay $49.99??

That's a pretty high premium if you think about it. I realize that cable costs and what-not have risen sharply over the last 5 years... but something tells me that $49.99 is a pretty comfortable margin for your local telco.

Re:Pros and Cons

[debrain]

Round trip ping times are extreme and completely unusable for online gaming

I was under the impression, by calculating the distances using the speed of light in a vacuum, that LEO (low earth orbit, eg. iridium) satellites had ping times in the 20 ms range, whereas GEO (geosynchronous earth orbit) satellites were in the 500 ms range.

Which is fine and dandy for LEO, but is this solution a GEO one? If GEO, then the ping time is a problem. But if it is a LEO solution, not so much. In fact, I get longer ping times to my cable provider from my telco.

The LEO 20 ms would be round trip airwave; presumably the sat. provider would put the hubs on the backbones. Or be backbones themselves.

Re:Pros and Cons

[FaRuvius]

Yes, they are geo-sync satellites. At least for the current crop of offerings (direcway from directv and starband).

They broadcast the data from the same satellites they broadcast TV from, which are all in geosync orbit.

Low pingtimes are not only crappy for games, but for downloading image + ad heavy web pages. Each image results in a seperate request. So it basically like a 56k modem for surfing. But downloads fly, with burst speeds that are really high(i don't remember the number, but its like 2000K/sec)

Re:Pros and Cons

[Anonymous Coward]

But the major problem is when does the satelite go beyond the "event horizon" and you have to find another satelite to bounce your signal off of.
Unless we can have a system that at any time find 2 or maybe 3 satelites to choose from then this idea sucks the big one.

Posted from a "lowly wireless user that has to spend 70$ a month for 11Mbs"

Re:Pros and Cons

[whereiswaldo]

I'm sure that some web-accelerator software would do you a lot of good.
It could prefetch web images and pages to make your surfing a lot quicker.

Re:Pros and Cons

[xercist]

But the major problem is when does the satelite go beyond the "event horizon" and you have to find another satelite to bounce your signal off of.

Our low-earth-orbit satellites are being sucked into black holes? I think we might have a bigger problem than just finding another one to use for internet access.

Re:Pros and Cons

[debrain]

LEO satellites act in groups; for Iridium, as an example, there are always 2, and usually 3 satelites in LOS (line of sight) of any position on the surface.

The Russians have an interesting assymmetrical orbit, but I cannot recall the name of it offhand; it requires fewer satellites than dense coverage of the whole world, but only applies to hemispheres, North or South, of certain degree (in their case, North).

One does not launch a LEO satellite by itself, I would imagine; I think it circles the globe in 90 minutes, so it crosses the event horizon (passes out of LOS) every 45 of those in the least.

MEO satellites are potential options, but they have higher latency issues as well. See everything2.com for reasonable definitions of these.

Re:Pros and Cons

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

The way the system works is this:

Your browser/system sends a packet requesting information.

Software on your PC modifies the return IP address on each outgoing packet, replacing it with the IP of your satellite system.

The packet navigates it's way through the internet via your dial-up modem.

The returning packets navigate via the internet to the satellite uplink facility (Washington state, IIRC).

The packets are then sent into space and back down to your house at the speed of light

On average, my ping times were seldom under 500 ms and were quite often in the 1500-1750 ms times.

This made it impossible to do voice over IP, play any sort of online game (except things like Chess where ping times aren't important) and just about anything that required high speed. When I would try to browse to a new page, it could take 2 - 3 seconds before the page would start to fill in, especially if it was graphics intensive. Once it started, it did fill in quickly, but it was like having a really fast car that was dragging an anchor behind it. The potential for speed was there, but it just never really took off like you would have hoped for...

Re:Pros and Cons

[debrain]

You are referring to a geosynchronous (GEO) satellite with unidirectional satellite broadcast data transfer.

LEO is bidirectional; it typically has ping times in under 20 ms, requires no cable, cellular, or other ground connections. It has stateful transfer between satellites, so you swap sats when one goes out of your Line of Sight (LOS), whereas with GEO you have one satellite that broadcasts all signals.

There are literally thousands of uplinks all over the world. Only a few of them have access codes to the IP data providers.

Satellite Internet Access

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer: I work for a satellite tv & internet access installation company (which is why I'm posting anonymously). We don't do one-way systems anymore; they're all two-way.

If you're in the boonies without DSL (first choice), cable (second choice), then access via satellite makes sense. I've seen upstream between 30kbps and 100kbps and downstream averages >1Mbps. If you play games then latency will be an issue. It takes a while to send data to and fro orbit.

I'm glad to see competition; it keeps us sharp and it's good for the end user. With the merger dead, EchoStar is going to have some serious hurdles to overcome. When Ka band service comes online, SpaceWay is going to up the ante considerably with its "switch in the sky" broadband. I doubt that EchoStar will be able to compete significantly in this arena for some time. Hughes is going to be a difficult nut for those folks to crack.

While not great for gaming, most folks are very happy with two-way satellite internet access.

Even if you do have cable, DSL, or a frac-T1 satellite internet access provides a great backup in the event your primary access goes down.

Re:Satellite Internet Access

[vsync64]

1. How does the latency compare to an analog modem over POTS?
2. Is there any kind of satellite service I can use with Linux/BSD?

Re:Satellite Internet Access

[Anonymous Coward]

1. How does the latency compare to an analog modem over POTS?
2. Is there any kind of satellite service I can use with Linux/BSD?

1. Latency is about 800ms. I haven't benchmarked dialup latency in so long that I don't remember what it's like.

2. No. It's Windows only. :(

Re:Satellite Internet Access

[beavis88]

Depends where you're going, of course, but latency on dial up in general is pretty good, all things considered. I knew gamers with 100ms pings from east to west coast, vs. my ~250-300ms typical ping on cable.

Re:Satellite Internet Access

[Anonymous Coward]

As one of many engineers toiling day and night to bring Spaceway to reality, I appreciate your vote of confidence.
Of course, the target market for Spaceway service is Enterprise customers, with consumers being just gravy, since they're so expensive to support. The argument for businesses is very compelling, though.

You're completely missing the point.

[pigeon768]

People don't get satellite based internet service because it's better than DSL/cable- it's not. Like everyone has said, the latency is horrible. They get it because they live out in the boonies and don't have access to DSL or cable. Satellite based 'net is better than dial-up, which is often the only other option.

Re:You're completely missing the point.

[Anonymous Coward]

This still wont last. The number of people who dont have fast land access and want more than dialup is nowhere near enough to keep this thing up.

Re:You're completely missing the point.

[Yort]

This still wont last. The number of people who dont have fast land access and want more than dialup is nowhere near enough to keep this thing up.

I beg to differ. There are plenty of people in rural areas who don't have access to a broadband connection, for a variety of reasons:

• They live in a small rural town, and the cable company doesn't offer internet (and likely won't for quite some time
• They live in a small rural town, and the phone company doesn't offer DSL (and likely won't for quite some time
• They live several miles outside of a rural town, and the only option is dial-up or satellite (my parents fall into this category - they live 5miles outside a Wisconsin town of 2600. No broadband anywhere!

The reason it may not last is, IMHO, the price. Most of the people who are in such a position as to need satellite are also not going to want to spend $100/mo on broadband internet access. Witness how long it took for satellite TV to take off - it wasn't until the major packages got down in the $30-$50 range that people started to buy, but once they did, they did it with a vengeance.

I think if satellite access got down to under $50 a month for decent broadband, with relatively low ($100) startup costs, more people would use it.

Troy

Re:You're completely missing the point.

[Gorm the DBA]

It's getting there.

Currently my Direcway service is $59.99/month.

The startup is a bitch...but, if you're willing to pony up $99.99 a month for a year, they'll give you the dish, and after the year it reverts to the $59.99.

So the $450 for the dish is spread out over 12 months, at a not too too obnoxious interest rate.

And actually...latency isn't nearly the bitch some gamers make it out to be when compared to the nothing-but-packet-lag you get over the 26.4 connection the dialup provides (on a good day).

I can play Diablo II on battlenet barely...but I couldn't over Dialup. Yeah, you're right...it's 2 years out of date and lame, but it's still an improvement.

Re:You're completely missing the point.

[DAldredge]

The 5-10 million people in the US that the telco forgot about aren't enough?

SCORE

[Anonymous Coward]

+2 Technical
-1 Artistic
-1 Antisemitic
-1 Sick

Score: -1 Troll

so how big a market are they targeting?

[eric_01]

Did a quick google search and came up with this article:

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,81284, 00 .asp

Which says that 68% of homes have access to broadband. (I assume that means DSL and cable modems). As someone else so eloquently put before, "satellite latency sucks".

So that means that satellite is targeting the remaining 32%... minus those that have trees or mountains obstructing the southwest sky... lets see, rural folks that don't have trees... i smell a money maker

Re:so how big a market are they targeting?

[insanecarbonbasedlif]

I read somewhere that 47% of all statistics are made up. ./

Oh, here's the link for the SP fiber project

[SexyKellyOsbourne]

http://www.rense.com/general28/ptocss.htm

Gotta love google.

It's strange that they won't offer cable internet connections in many rural towns, but the government would want to run a fiber line to the south pole.

Someone call Katz!

[fobbman]

a"As someone who probably won't live long enough to see DSL or cable Internet reach my rural neighborhood..."

Someone call Katz! We've got a suicidal geek on our hands.

Re:Someone call Katz!

[mhesseltine]

Why? To push him over the edge?

Re:Someone call Katz!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well...maybe Katz can get him in touch with Junis...he knows how to get by in those touch situations. He's smart...even got Divx's up on his Commodore 64!

Interestingly...haven't seen anything from Katz in awhile. Maybe he finally went off the deep end.

Latency problem is unsolvable.

[IGnatius T Foobar]

The basic problem with satellite-based Internet access is physically unsolvable: even though speeds are in the multimegabit range, the latency is unacceptable for chatty applications. The time it takes a radio signal to get from an uplink dish, to the satellite, and back to a downlink dish, is in the multi hundred millisecond range -- and it can't be sped up without, to paraphrase our old friend Scotty, changing the laws of physics.

Good bandwidth combined with crappy latency is just fine if all you're doing is downloading. A transfer that takes 30 seconds still takes 30 seconds, so who cares if it started and ended one second later? E-mail ... usually not a problem either. But web pages? It's going to feel a bit sluggish, as those pages take a second or two to start loading, even if they do load fast once they start. You can completely forget about using telnet or SSH. If you remember what netlag was like when the Internet was still using a lot of 56k and 19.2k connections -- that's what it's like with satellite.

I'm glad to see that there are more options opening up, but the latency of satellite Internet is something that cannot be fixed.

Re:Latency problem is unsolvable.

[dpilot]

I once heard something about someone wanting to try using one of those NASA solar-powered airplanes as a relay point. It's high enough up to be "equivalent" to a satellite and is able to fly in circles and act "geostationary". But at the same time, it's a lot lower, so the latency wouldn't be a problem. It sounds like an interesting compromise - scalable, too. (More bandwidth => more planes => more collision-avoidance algorithms)

Re:Latency problem is unsolvable.

[cmason]

The solution to this is making the satellites closer, ie LEO (Low Earth Orbit). Alas, the only potential provider for LEO IP access has died on the vine.

Sigh.

Still waiting for decent, interactive internet access anywhere on the globe.

-c

Re:Latency problem is unsolvable.

[zrodney]

maybe there's a niche where 56k for interactive
type things like ssh and port 80 could be used
and satellite could be used for bulk data ftp/email?

how to make the http request and response take advantage of the bw in the satellite but keep
the responsiveness of dsl/modem would be a problem

Re:Latency problem is unsolvable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeez, naysayers everywhere. It's not unsolvable, we just have to replace the atmosphere with Bose-Einstein fluid ;-)

Re:Latency problem is unsolvable.

[edwazere]

I've got my system set up a little like that... let me explain.

I've got an ISDN line to Demon Internet, which has reasonably low ping times (still useless for games, but that's not the point) and a 1-way satellite Internet connection through netsystems.com.

I have a couple of squid caches here, one does all the caching ('cos it has a big drive dedicated to that) and one has the satellite "modem" in it.

So I use the proxies for http and ftp and the straight IDSN for interactive stuff.

Plus every other time I apt-get it comes straight from the squid cache!

Not perfect, but better than the ISDN alone, the latency used to go up something chronic when I was downloading anything.

Of course I'd switch to ADSL or cable in a heartbeat if anyone offered it to me, and the wireless co-op is looking challenging to say the least given the geography here!

Re:Latency problem is unsolvable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm... 44000/300000, satellite latency even in Geosync is only 0.14 seconds. That's not to bad for 95% of all applications, including web pages. However, you do have to alter your TCP parameter some what such that congestion control doesn't kill you.

-Jay

Re:Latency problem is unsolvable.

[grammar fascist]

Another problem - at least if you use IE - is that the number of simultaneous connections IE will open to transfer data is limited to 4.

You can hack this, though. In the registry editor, add the following values to the key "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Internet Settings":

- DWORD MaxConnectionsPerServer: some number
- DWORD MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server: some number

(I don't know what the analagous settings are for Mozilla, or even if it has any.)

If you have extreme bandwidth and extreme latency, a high number of simultaneous connections can really make a big difference.

Sounds like your install is messed up

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical upstream speeds is 30-100kbps and downstream is about 1Mbit-1.4Mbit on the two-way (DirecWay) systems my company has installed.

Sounds like your setup is improperly crosspoled.

We have it at work

[freakyfreak2]

We have Starband here at work. I hate it. Ping times average around 1.5 seconds. It is hell to work in SSH or even FTP anything. Things time-out all the time and it disconnects if a bird lands on the dish. As soon as we can get DSL we are switching. I don't even use it anymore. I forced them to get a dial up account so I can do my work. I was spending a 3rd of my time waiting for things to upload. I pick dial-up any day over sattelite.

Re:We have it at work

[pmz]

Things time-out all the time and it disconnects if a bird lands on the dish.

Would that bird be a "leaky abstraction"?

Listen up

[Marshall Mathers III]

Yo

You tellin' me that Kazaa can get me mp3s
Off some outerspace satellite sendin' TCP/IP feeds?

I used to have ta wait till new songs came out
But fuck it; all I gotta do now is use 802 11 -- no doubt!

After the FCC got done bustin' me for rappin' my rhymes
They move on to EchoStar and say "Where is your mind...
You can't be floatin' this shit out in the vacuum of Space
Let's keep broadband here on Earth; fuck you, you're a disgrace!"

Time for me to depart the pages of Slashdot
Gotta head off with my Dell and smoke some more pot

Speaking of transfer rates

[swb]

...or more specifically transfers, when do I get my money? I mean I got your email and everything and I'm more than willing to help you get your, I mean our, money out of the country.

SEXY KELLY OSBORNE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you have this picture of HOMOS and CmdrTACO???

Only good if...

[Brad1138]

I am a Satellite Dish installer, Both Dish, Directv, Starband and Direcway. As posted numurous times the latency SUCKs with either.(I use cable for internet) The only thing it is better than dialup is if you do a lot of large downloads. It can have fairly fast speeds, I usually see between 400-1000kbps. But there are more problems than just that. Direcway is worse but both seem to create lots of computer problems that aren't covered by there wtty. We have stopped selling Direcway because almost every customer will call in w/in the 1st couple months with problems. Installation of any number of software programs can mess up the system (ie antivirus, Norton anything, etc..) We roll out and verify that the Sat system is fine and tell the customer they need to see a computer tech.(we supply some techs for them to contact) The customer always gets mad, its just ugly. Youd be better of with a 33.6 for gameing. I recommend not to get one.

Kudos to you!

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like due to the hard work of the trolls, the good old days are back at slashdot!

For those about to troll, we salute you!

Something must be wrong

[jki]

...if companies have to seek for a license before they can show a functional prototype of the satellite...that's just absurd.. or maybe I have just followed this badly - but this is the impression I have got.

Satellite is too slow

[tuxlove]

While I'm glad for the guy in the middle of nowhere now that he finally has some way to access the Internet, I do not envy anyone who has to use satellite for their Internet connection. The laws of physics dictate that you will get a minimum of 500 milliseconds ping time to anywhere on the net. Packets must travel 22k miles from the planet to the satellite, then 22k miles back down to your ISP. That's already about 240 milliseconds. Then add the transit time from your ISP to the destination site; for the sake of argument, say it's instantaneous and adds no transit time. Then add in the return trip of 240 milliseconds, for a total of 480 milliseconds. This represents the absolute minimum round-trip time for data sent via satellite. Of course, in the real world, it will be somewhat longer than that, but it depends on your ISP and the rest of the hops between you and the destination.

In terms of realtime games, this sucks bigtime. In terms of web browsing, it can also be quite annoying. A friend of mine had to dump his satellite connection because the latency made web browsing unpleasant and he was at a serious disadvantage in online gaming. That's not to say that throughput is bad, however. It can be quite good, but because of the latency it's probably best suited for non-interactive stuff like transmitting large data files, email, etc.

If I lived in the boondocks, I probably wouldn't hesitate to get satellite. Otherwise I would stay away!

Rural not all bad

[jackjumper]

I live in a small town in Vermont (pop 971) and have both Cable and DSL access available (I got DSL because it was available first). The reason? We have a small independent telco that has been very aggressive in rolling out broadband. They own all their own equipment, so there's no CLEC/Bell crap.

Also our state public service board takes its job seriously...

That was easy for Echostar

[Chastitina]

The Federal Communications Commission in June revoked EchoStar's license for using the high-speed Ka-band frequency because it said the satellite TV company missed construction milestones.

EchoStar immediately appealed and submitted a photograph of a satellite under construction with the high-speed capability.

Gee, maybe all Saddam has to provide is photographic evidence and an appeal to overcome US objections to missing disarmament deadlines? ;)

Dilemma

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... my stomach hurts and I have to shit all the time. My shit is so wet.. What to do experts???

Upstream latency

[C.U.T.M.]

I work with a guy that has satellite 'net access and the only issue he's had with it is the upstream latency, which is why they do not suggest it for real-time gaming. Other than that he's pleased with it, but I've never actually sat in front of his machine.

As for my own personal satellite experience, I worked with a business that used satellite internet access and it was horribly slow. The only thing I could figure out was that the provider sucked and it's not a usual satellite internet issue seeing as how my friend and others are happy with it.

Brad, brad..

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't tell me you fuck lone housewifes while you install dishes??? Their husbands are out working somewhere and you take the advantage of the situation????

Why Nobody Wants It, Really

[limekiller4]

I only have a three-word reply:

"4,000 milisecond latency."

Just ask India, because that's all they have.

Re:Why Nobody Wants It, Really

[LostCluster]

What's the latency on a cable modem on a system that hasn't been upgraded since the 1960s and a DSL connection that's 10 miles from it's termination point?

Re:Why Nobody Wants It, Really

[sandhitsu]

Who gave you that information about India ?

Re:Why Nobody Wants It, Really

[slykens]

"4,000 milisecond latency."

Just ask India, because that's all they have.

While I love to pick on the poor Indians too, this just isn't true.

I've run a network to my company's office in India for the last five years. Internet access from VSNL is very good and has a latency of 275 ms round trip to my office in the USA. My private line is 252 ms round trip, so it only cost me 23 ms to come via the Internet instead of my private circuit.

Now, providers other than VSNL leave a lot to be desired. Most come via satellite (500ms-750ms) and suffer from terrible congestion and packet loss.

alt.satellite.direcpc.

[Anonymous Coward]

Go there and see how well the various consumer level satellite providers are doing. They all suck and Starband is currently the worst of the bunch.

Two way has been a reality for quite a while and sucks hard. Uplink speeds are generally slower than you'd get with a modem.

Only get satellite if you have absolutely no other choice (and that includes smoke signals). I had DirecPC in early 1997. Used it right up through 1999, though the last 6 months I basically only kept it around so I could pick at it like the scab on a wound that wouldn't heal. My roommates and I preferred to share my 24/7 56k dialup connection because it worked every time. Sure, it would take a while to download a big file but you could schedule that download to run i the middle of the night and know it would be done on schedule.

I once tried to download a set of linux ISOs with DirecPC. Spent several nights babysitting it. I could only run it from 6pm to 6am without getting charged for "prime time" use so I'd start it up when I got home, monitor it all evening, then shut it down around midnight. After the first night, I decided to spend a few bucks and order it from cheapbytes. I was still spending my evenings downloading when the CDs arrived in the mail.

DirecPC sucks. Starband is worse. Earthlink is just re-packaged DirecPC. Even the independant resellers have significant restrictions. Stay the hell away from satellite if you have any other choice!

What orbit?

[Rick the Red]

Are these geosyncro like the TV satellites, or a constellation like Iridium (and Teledesic, before they folded)?

It makes a big difference -- Do you have a dish that points to one spot in the sky, or do you link to a series of sats as they pass overhead? In other words, will this work while you're mobile, or do you have to be in a fixed spot? And is the coverage global or regional? Will it reach Alaska and Hawaii or are they too far off-center?

Re:What orbit?

[Brad1138]

Actually they are in a "Geostationary" orbit, The same as sat. tv. Geosynchronous has more of an elliptical orbit.

SSH over Satellite?

[Centinel]

I realize that latencies are way to high for gaming on satellite access, but can anyone whose tried the 2-way systems tell me if it's possible to have a decent SSH session?

For things like BitchX on IRC from a shell account or remotely administering a server?

Also, can you use a NAT box like a Linksys router to provide access to a home LAN with these systems?

Re:SSH over Satellite?

[Tazzy531]

I'm using DirecPC at home. It's the one way version where the upstream goes through the phone line. I was able to setup a proxy server to get my home lan online. But I don't think you can just directly hook it into a router.

Re:SSH over Satellite?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Starband in a remote place without DSL/cable. I've used SSH connections from time to time, but found them slow and not something I would want to do on a regular basis.

Satellite alternatives

[ScooterBill]

I have one word for you rural people...Wireless. I too was without cable/DSL due to our mountaintop home, then as I was picking up the phone to order a satellite link I accidently heard of a wireless service that had just popped up. Works like a charm even though we're miles away from the transmitter. Look for this stuff to pop up in your neighborhood. It's 802.11a technology. Latency? I think a whopping 50ms.

Re:Satellite alternatives

[dkh]

We tried an outfit here in central Maine for about two weeks that did 802.11b fixed point wireless - it was horrible. The 400ms latency folks are speaking about would have literally been 100% better (yes 800 ms latency just to get to the wire).

Probably would work ok, if there weren't a lot of users, if the people doing actually had a clue, and they weren't using repeaters. Multipass and multiple hop radio relays make for a crappy user experience - we went - happily - back to ISDN. Cheaper, great latency, decent gaming if you want it. Sure huge downloads can be time consuming but its not as bad as you might think.

Fixed point wireless is something to be avoided.

That's funny.

[mindstrm]

Because I have satellite internet here... it's full duplex 1.5Mbps. Yes, the latency is high, 420ms for the satellite hop, but other than that, and the occasional solar outage, which is entirely predictable, it works just fine. Realtime gaming is out, of course, but surfing is fine. You do notice the latency, but it's not enough to annoy you.

And you totally missed the point.. satellite internet is always going to have high latency, yes, but the coverage is excellent.. it's ideal for places that don't have land based lines.

Obviously if a high speed landline is available, you won't choose satellite.

Re:That's funny.

[aminorex]

So who is your provider? What is the tech?

Re:That's funny.

[tommck]

How much? How big's the dish? are you in the US?

T

Only if you cross State boundaries

[Anonymous Coward]

Otherwise the FCC has no lawful (I didn't say practical or attempted) jurisdiction.

Latency is not as much a problem for LEOs

[bradams]

One way to ease the latency of satellite networks is to use low earth orbit (LEO) satellites.

Teledesic plans to do just that (if they ever get off the ground).

Any one else know of other LEO internet startups?

I have direcway and it works...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have had my direcway (don't ask me where the t in direct went) dish for about a month now and it works pretty well. I get an average of 700Kb down (have seen 1.1Mb) butt only 40Kb up.

The ping times to DAoC stay around 800ms, but my wife and I have been playing without too much problem.

I am also in the SWG beta, but I can't really comment on that.

Jorgie

Re:birds

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you put a clear plastic cover over it? Or would that not be transparent to the signal?

You may get DSL before you think

[Proc6]

My business partner works from his home in the small town of Dayton, Iowa. We're talking so small they have a caseys, and thats about it. I imagined he'd be on dialup for life. He now has 256k DSL and could go much higher if he wanted to pay for it. Apparently there are some easy-to-implement turn-key solutions for small telephone co-ops. The co-op that runs the phones for his dinky town, another even dinkier town, and one "small" town (maybe 2 caseys!) bought into it. I get the impression what they do is put a DSLAM in each town center, and since no house is outside of a 16,000 wirefoot range, pretty much 1 DSLAM covers the entire town. So the phone co-op buys 3, puts one in each town, and then probably buy into some bigger ISP with a T1 from their main office to the ISP's office or something for the big pipe.

All I know is my jaw about fell off when I learned he could get DSL out where everyone is like 90 years old, and its a 45 minute drive to get to the nearest McDonalds.

Starband and Echostar aren't parters anymore...

[LostCluster]

Echostar's going it alone, and that's been known for a while. They broke up their relationship with Starband earlier this year, then went to court over who owned the customer database.

High latencies, so?

[uradu]

There's more to life than gaming. On an average business day I bet your average large corporation firewall adds more latency than satellite when everyone is refreshing their home pages on cnn.com or weatherchannel.com. Much of the day reading /. can be a serious pain, quite apart from the marginal posts. For the people that can't get anything else, 1-second delays ain't nothing.

The cable company's new line

[yerricde]

because we were paying for a service, there'd be no need for commercials

The cable company now claims: "The commercials pay for the copyrighted works; the subscription pays for bringing them to you."

Re:birds

[freakyfreak2]

Dunno, never thought about it. Damn thing is way up high ontop of a silo. My work is in a barn that has been converted into an office building. Really interesting but we are miles from civilization. I'll mention the idea to the boss.

Source Code Crapflood

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is the actual source code for an ASCII converter. Fix it your damn self, this is a crapflood

0100 ;ASCII ART CONVERTER (v 2.0) 0105 ;BY PAUL TUPACZEWSKI 0110 ;(c)1987, ANTIC PUBLISHING INC. 0115 .OPT NO LIST 0120 .OPT OBJ 0125 ; 0130 LOHI1 = $CF ;Page 0 0135 LOHI = $CB ;variables. 0140 POINTER = $CD 0145 ICCOM = $0342 ;CIO command 0150 ICBAL = $0344 ;CIO lo and 0155 ICBAH = $0345 ;Hi buffer adrs 0160 ICBLL = $0348 ;CIO lo and 0165 ICBLH = $0349 ;hi buffer lens 0170 CIOV = $E456 ;OS CIO routine 0175 ICAX1 = $034A ;CIO aux1 0180 ICAX2 = $034B ;CIO aux2 0185 SDLSTL = $0230 ;Dlist pointer 0190 SDMCTL = $022F ;DMA 0195 VDSLST = $0200 ;DLI pointer 0200 NMIEN = $D40E ;DLI switch 0205 WSYNC = $D40A ;Wait for sync 0210 ; 0215 *= $2000 0220 ; 0225 START 0230 LDX #$30 ;First, 0235 LDA #3 ;open our 0240 STA ICCOM,X ;keyboard 0245 LDA # KH 0260 STA ICBAH,X 0265 LDA #4 0270 STA ICAX1,X 0275 LDA #0 0280 STA ICAX2,X 0285 JSR CIOV ;Do it! 0290 ; 0295 ;Main loop. 0300 ST1 0305 JSR CLEARFN ;Clear the 0310 ; filename area. 0315 JSR CLRBIGBUF ;Clear our 0320 ; screen memory 0325 JSR CLEARALLELSE 0330 JSR CLOSE ;Close channels 0335 ; 0340 LDX #$20 ;Close disk 0345 LDA #$0C ;channel. 0350 STA ICCOM,X 0355 JSR CIOV 0360 LDA # DLIST1 ;list. 0375 STA SDLSTL+1 0380 LDA #33 ;Smaller 0385 STA SDMCTL ;screen 0390 LDA #$C4 ;green 0395 STA 710 ;GR.0 lines 0400 LDA # DLI 0415 STA VDSLST+1 0420 LDA #$C0 0425 STA NMIEN 0430 LDA # ST1 ; error. 0445 STA MNUJMP+2 0450 ; 0455 GETKEYS 0460 JSR GETKEY ;Get a key. 0465 LDA KEY ;Is it a 0470 CMP #32 ;space? 0475 BEQ CONVERT ;Yes, convert. 0480 ; 0485 CMP #'G ;Is it G? 0490 BNE NO1 ;No. 0495 ; 0500 LDA #'+-32 ;Toggle from 0505 SEC ;GR.7 to 0510 SBC L5+19 ;GR.7+ or 0515 STA L5+19 ;vice versa. 0520 JMP GETKEYS ;back. 0525 ; 0530 NO1 0535 CMP #'P ;Is it P? 0540 BNE NO2 ;No. 0545 ; 0550 INC POS ;Yes, change 0555 LDA POS ;picture 0560 CMP #4 ;positioning. 0565 BNE NOTOVER 0570 ; 0575 LDA #0 0580 STA POS 0585 ; 0590 NOTOVER 0595 LDX POS ;Show arrow. 0600 LDA ARWS,X 0605 STA L4+23 0610 JMP GETKEYS 0615 ; 0620 NO2 0625 CMP #'C ;Is it C? 0630 BNE NO3 ;No. 0635 ; 0640 LDA #1 ;Toggle column 0645 SEC ;from 80-132 and 0650 SBC COL ;vice versa. 0655 STA COL 0660 ASL A 0665 ASL A 0670 LDY #0 0675 TAX 0680 LOOPQ 0685 LDA COLS,X ; Show our 0690 STA L1+23,Y ;columns. 0695 INX 0700 INY 0705 CPY #4 0710 BNE LOOPQ 0715 ; 0720 JMP GETKEYS 0725 ; 0730 NO3 0735 CMP #'D ;Is it D? 0740 BNE NO4 ;No. 0745 ; 0750 INC FILENAME+1 ;Increment 0755 LDA FILENAME+1 ;default 0760 CMP #'9 ; drive. 0765 BNE OKDRIVE 0770 ; 0775 LDA #'1 0780 STA FILENAME+1 0785 OKDRIVE 0790 LDA FILENAME+1 0795 SEC 0800 SBC #$20 0805 STA L2+14 0810 JMP GETKEYS 0815 ; 0820 NO4 0825 CMP #'L ;Is it L? 0830 BNE GETKEYS ;No. Start over. 0835 ; 0840 JSR INPUT ;Get filename. 0845 JMP GETKEYS ;Back. 0850 ; 0855 ; Start conversion. 0860 ; 0865 CONVERT 0870 LDA FILENAME+3 ;Is there 0875 CMP #32 ; a filename? 0880 BNE GOTAF1 ; Yes. 0885 ; 0890 JMP GETKEYS ; Do over. 0895 GOTAF1 0900 JSR SETMD ; Set borders. 0905 LDA # SELECT ;Edit?" 0920 STA SDLSTL+1 0925 DEFRNT 0930 JSR GETKEY ;Get a key. 0935 LDA KEY 0940 CMP #'U ;Is it U? 0945 BEQ USEDEFS ;Yes! 0950 ; 0955 CMP #'E ;Is it E? 0960 BNE DEFRNT ;No, try again. 0965 ; 0970 JMP GOTAFILENM ;edit them. 0975 ; 0980 USEDEFS 0985 LDX #0 ;Copy default to 0990 USE1 0995 LDA DEFAULTS,X ;gray shade 1000 STA CHARCOLR+32,X ;chart. 1005 INX 1010 CPX #64 1015 BNE USE1 1020 ; 1025 JMP DONEFIGR ;Good, convert. 1030 ; 1035 GOTAFILENM 1040 LDA # DLIST3 ;"Edit" 1055 STA SDLSTL+1 ; screen. 1060 LDA #0 ;Black-out 1065 STA 711 ;extra text. 1070 LDA #$40 ;DLI's 1075 STA NMIEN ;off. 1080 JSR OPEN ;Open disk 1085 JSR CLRBUFF ;Clear buffer 1090 JSR CLRCOLS ;Clear gray 1095 ; shade chart. 1100 LDA #0 ;Temp var. 1105 STA TEMP 1110 GETLOOP 1115 LDX #$10 ; OK, get 1120 LDA #7 ;256 bytes off 1125 STA ICCOM,X ;the file. 1130 LDA # BUFFER 1145 STA ICBAH,X 1150 LDA #0 1155 STA ICBLL,X 1160 LDA #1 1165 STA ICBLH,X 1170 JSR CIOV 1175 LDY #0 1180 SRCHLOOP 1185 LDA BUFFER,Y ; Check for 1190 JMP CHECK4RTN ; a RETURN. 1195 ; 1200 BACKHR 1205 TAX ;Find individual 1210 LDA CHARCOLR,X ;occurences. 1215 BNE SRCHCONT 1220 ; 1225 INC CHARCOLR,X 1230 LDA BUFFER,Y 1235 SEC 1240 SBC #32 1245 LDX TEMP 1250 STA DISPLINE,X 1255 JMP LOP 1260 ; 1265 SRCHCONT 1270 INY ; Continue it. 1275 BNE SRCHLOOP 1280 ; 1285 LDX #$10 1290 LDA ICCOM+1,X 1295 CMP #136 ; End Of File? 1300 BNE GETLOOP ; No. 1305 ; 1310 EOF 1315 JSR CLOSE ; Close disk. 1320 LDA #$46 ; Turn the text 1325 ; on again. 1330 STA 711 1335 LDA #0 ; Clear temp var 1340 STA TEMP 1345 INPUT1 1350 LDX TEMP ; Show arrow. 1355 LDA #$40+'^ ; ^ is actually 1360 ; CTRL-UPARROW. 1365 STA ARL,X 1370 LDA CRL,X ; Show cursor. 1375 CLC 1380 ADC #$80 1385 STA CRL,X 1390 KEYGET 1395 JSR GETKEY ; Get a key. 1400 LDA KEY 1405 CMP #155 ; Is it RETURN? 1410 BEQ DONEFIGR ;Yes. 1415 ; 1420 CMP #126 ;Is it BKSPACE? 1425 BNE NOBK ;No. 1430 ; 1435 LDA TEMP ;At start? 1440 BEQ KEYGET ;Yes. 1445 ; 1450 JSR ERASECR ;Erase cursor. 1455 DEC TEMP ;Back up! 1460 JMP INPUT1 ;get key... 1465 ; 1470 NOBK 1475 CMP #32 ;Is it a SPACE? 1480 BNE NOSPC ;No. 1485 ; 1490 LDA TEMP ;At end? 1495 CMP #31 1500 BEQ KEYGET ;Yes. 1505 ; 1510 JSR ERASECR ;Erase cursor. 1515 INC TEMP ;Onward! 1520 JMP INPUT1 ;Get key... 1525 ; 1530 NOSPC 1535 CMP #48 ;Have 1540 BCC KEYGET ;a 1545 ; number 1550 CMP #'4 ;from 0 1555 BCS KEYGET ;to 3? 1560 ; 1565 SEC 1570 SBC #48 ;Good, change 1575 STA TEMP+1 ;ATASCII to #. 1580 LDX TEMP ;Show it. 1585 LDA ARL-32,X 1590 CLC 1595 ADC #$20 1600 TAX 1605 LDA TEMP+1 ; Store value 1610 STA CHARCOLR,X ;in gray 1615 ; shade chart. 1620 LDX TEMP 1625 LDA TEMP+1 1630 CLC 1635 ADC #$10 1640 STA CRL,X ;Next cursor pos 1645 LDA #0 1650 STA ARL,X 1655 INC TEMP 1660 JMP INPUT1 1665 ; 1670 DONEFIGR 1675 JSR OPEN ;OK, open again. 1680 GR7SCRN 1685 JSR OPENS ;Let the OS 1690 ; take care of the 1695 ; screen mem. 1700 REST 1705 LDA #34 ;Normal screen. 1710 STA SDMCTL 1715 LDA #0 ;Start at 1720 STA XX ;0,0 1725 STA YY 1730 LDA #12 ;Our colors... 1735 STA 712 ;(wonderful 1740 LDA #10 ;grays.) 1745 STA 708 1750 LDA #7 1755 STA 709 1760 LDA #2 1765 STA 710 1770 LDA #$40 ;No DLI's. 1775 STA NMIEN 1780 GETLOOP2 1785 LDX #$10 ;Get 256 1790 LDA #7 ;bytes off 1795 STA ICCOM,X ;the disk... 1800 LDA # BUFFER 1815 STA ICBAH,X 1820 LDA #0 1825 STA ICBLL,X 1830 LDA #1 1835 STA ICBLH,X 1840 JSR CIOV 1845 ; 1850 LDX #$10 ;End Of File? 1855 LDA ICCOM+1,X 1860 CMP #136 1865 BNE ZZZZOOM ;No. 1870 ; 1875 JSR CLREST ;Clear the rest. 1880 ZZZZOOM 1885 LDA #0 ;Temp. pointer 1890 STA P256 1895 PLOTLOOP 1900 LDX P256 1905 LDA BUFFER,X ;Get chr by chr 1910 CMP #155 ;Is it ATASCII 1915 ; RETURN ? 1920 BEQ LF ;Yes. 1925 ; 1930 CMP #13 ;Is it ASCII 1935 ; RETURN ? 1940 BEQ LF ;Yes. 1945 ; 1950 CMP #10 ;Is it ASCII 1955 ; linefeed? 1960 BEQ IT ;Yes. 1965 ; 1970 TAX 1975 LDY COL ; OK. Offset 1980 LDA COLAMT,Y ; the X 1985 CLC ; values. 1990 ADC XX 1995 STA TEMP+1 2000 LDA CHARCOLR,X ; Get gray 2005 LDX TEMP+1 ; shade color. 2010 LDY YY 2015 JSR PLOTROUT ;Plot it. 2020 INC XX ; Next X. 2025 IT 2030 INC P256 ;Inc. buffer. 2035 LDA P256 ;Done? 2040 BNE PLOTLOOP ;No. 2045 ; 2050 JMP GETLOOP3 ;Get more. 2055 ; 2060 LF 2065 LDA #0 ;RETURN handler. 2070 STA XX ;X=0, 2075 INC YY ;Y=Y+1. 2080 JMP ITZNEET ;Next! 2085 ; 2090 GETLOOP3 2095 LDA $0353 ;EOF? 2100 CMP #136 2105 BNE GETLOOP2 ;No. 2110 ; 2115 JSR CLOSE ;Close disk. 2120 ENDIT 2125 JMP TOGLS ;Done, wait 2130 ; for toggles. 2135 ; 2140 ; Plotting handler. 2145 ; 2150 PLOTROUT 2155 STA TEMP+2 ; Store 2160 LDA POS ; all our 2165 BNE PLOTROUT1 ;X and Y 2170 ; and offset 2175 LDA TEMP+2 ; for 2180 JMP PLOT ; positioning. 2185 ; 2190 PLOTROUT1 2195 CMP #1 2200 BNE PLOTROUT2 2205 ; 2210 TXA 2215 STA TEMP+1 2220 TYA 2225 STA TEMP 2230 MD 2235 LDA #128 2240 SEC 2245 SBC TEMP+1 2250 TAY 2255 LDA TEMP 2260 TAX 2265 LDA TEMP+2 2270 JMP PLOT 2275 ; 2280 PLOTROUT2 2285 CMP #2 2290 BNE PLOTROUT3 2295 ; 2300 STX TEMP+1 2305 STY TEMP 2310 LDA #159 2315 SEC 2320 SBC TEMP+1 2325 TAX 2330 LDA #95 2335 SEC 2340 SBC TEMP 2345 TAY 2350 LDA TEMP+2 2355 JMP PLOT 2360 ; 2365 PLOTROUT3 2370 TXA 2375 STA TEMP+1 2380 TYA 2385 STA TEMP 2390 MD2 2395 LDA #-$20 2400 CLC 2405 ADC TEMP+1 2410 TAY 2415 LDA #159 2420 SEC 2425 SBC TEMP 2430 TAX 2435 LDA TEMP+2 2440 JMP PLOT 2445 ; 2450 ; Final finish. 2455 ; 2460 TOGLS 2465 LDA 53279 ; OPTION? 2470 CMP #3 2475 BEQ MENYOU ;Yes. 2480 ; 2485 LDA #7 2490 STA 709 2495 LDA 764 ;Keypress? 2500 CMP #255 2505 BEQ NOSLCT ;no. 2510 ; 2515 LDA L5+19 ;Toggle screens. 2520 BEQ HIR 2525 ; 2530 LDA #192 2535 STA BTM+1 2540 BNE YUMP 2545 ; 2550 HIR 2555 LDA #96 2560 STA BTM+1 2565 YUMP 2570 JSR TRANSFER7 2575 LDA #255 2580 STA 764 2585 ; 2590 NOSLCT 2595 LDA # MENYOU ; an error. 2610 STA MNUJMP+2 2615 JMP TOGLS ;Back! 2620 ; 2625 MENYOU 2630 LDA SDLSTL ;Another 2635 STA LOHI1 ;menu. 2640 LDA SDLSTL+1 ;Show it. 2645 STA LOHI1+1 2650 LDA # DLIST0 2665 STA SDLSTL+1 2670 LDA #12 2675 STA 709 2680 LDA L2+14 2685 STA LSAVE+20 2690 ; 2695 CONSKYS 2700 LDA 53279 ;START key? 2705 CMP #6 2710 BNE MORECONS ;No. 2715 ; 2720 LDA LOHI1 ;Otherwise, 2725 STA SDLSTL 2730 LDA LOHI1+1 2735 STA SDLSTL+1 2740 JMP TOGLS ;Back! 2745 ; 2750 MORECONS 2755 LDA 764 ;Key? 2760 CMP #$FF 2765 BEQ CONSKYS ;No. 2770 ; 2775 JSR GETKEY ;Get a key. 2780 LDA KEY ;Is it 1-4? 2785 CMP #'1 2790 BCC CONSKYS 2795 ; 2800 CMP #'5 2805 BCS CONSKYS 2810 ; 2815 CMP #'3 ;YES! Is it 3? 2820 BNE NOPEY2 ;No. 2825 ; 2830 JSR INPUTQ ;Get filename. 2835 JMP CONSKYS ;try again. 2840 ; 2845 NOPEY2 2850 CMP #'4 ;Is it 4? 2855 BNE NOPEY ;No. 2860 ; 2865 JMP ST1 ;Restart. 2870 ; 2875 NOPEY 2880 LDA LSAVE+22 ;First, is 2885 BEQ CONSKYS ; there a 2890 ; a filename? No! 2895 ; 2900 LDA KEY ;Yes, but which 2905 CMP #'1 ;mode? 1? 2910 BNE NOPEY1 ;No... 2915 ; 2920 JSR OPENSVE ;Open save file 2925 LDA #0 ;temp... 2930 STA TEMP 2935 LDA 88 ;Start screen 2940 STA LOHI ;address. 2945 LDA 89 2950 STA LOHI+1 2955 LB 2960 LDY #0 2965 LOADBUFF 2970 LDA (LOHI),Y ;Our EXPAND 2975 STA BUFFER,Y ;routine... 2980 ; Changes GR.7 2985 STA BUFFER+40,Y ;into GR.7+ 2990 INY 2995 CPY #40 3000 BNE LOADBUFF 3005 ; 3010 LDX #$10 ;Save to disk. 3015 LDA #11 3020 STA ICCOM,X 3025 LDA # BUFFER 3040 STA ICBAH,X 3045 LDA #80 3050 STA ICBLL,X 3055 LDA #0 3060 STA ICBLH,X 3065 JSR CIOV 3070 LDA $0353 3075 CMP #1 ;Any errors? 3080 BNE OHOH1 ;Yes. 3085 ; 3090 LDA LOHI ;Next screen 3095 ; bytes. 3100 CLC 3105 ADC #40 3110 STA LOHI 3115 LDA LOHI+1 3120 ADC #0 3125 STA LOHI+1 3130 INC TEMP 3135 LDA TEMP 3140 CMP #96 ;End of screen? 3145 BNE LB ;No. 3150 ; 3155 JMP CLOSESAVE ;Yes, close. 3160 ; 3165 NOPEY1 3170 CMP #'2 ; Not this one! 3175 BNE CONSKYSQ ;ARRRGH! 3180 ; 3185 JSR OPENSVE ;Open for save. 3190 LDX #$10 ;Plain 62 sector 3195 LDA #11 ;save. 3200 STA ICCOM,X 3205 LDA 88 3210 STA ICBAL,X 3215 LDA 89 3220 STA ICBAH,X 3225 LDA # 7680 3240 STA ICBLH,X 3245 JSR CIOV 3250 JMP CHECKERR ;Done. 3255 ; 3260 CONSKYSQ 3265 JMP CONSKYS ;Loop back. 3270 ; 3275 OHOH1 3280 JMP OHOH ;Ditto. 3285 ; 3290 CHECKERR 3295 LDA $0353 ;Error? 3300 CMP #1 3305 BNE OHOH1 ;Yes. 3310 ; 3315 JMP CLOSESAVE ;Close disk. 3320 ; 3325 MORECONS1 3330 JMP MORECONS ;Back. 3335 ; 3340 CLEARALLELSE 3345 LDX #0 ;Clear all else! 3350 CAE1 3355 LDA #0 3360 STA DISPLINE,X ;Show lines. 3365 INX 3370 CPX #96 3375 BNE CAE1 3380 ; 3385 LDA #0 ;colors! 3390 STA 712 3395 LDA #10 3400 STA 709 3405 LDX #0 3410 TXA 3415 CLEARCHCLS 3420 STA CHARCOLR,X ;Gray shades! 3425 INX 3430 CPX #120 3435 BNE CLEARCHCLS 3440 ; 3445 RTS 3450 ; 3455 ITZNEET 3460 LDX POS ;Other stuff! 3465 LDA L5+19 3470 BNE UDDER1 3475 ; 3480 LDA ENDZ,X 3485 CMP YY 3490 BNE LEEVE 3495 ; 3500 JMP NXTSCRN 3505 ; 3510 UDDER1 3515 LDA ENDZZ,X 3520 CMP YY 3525 BNE LEEVE 3530 ; 3535 JMP NXTSCRN2 3540 ; 3545 LEEVE 3550 JMP IT 3555 ; 3560 NXTSCRN 3565 LDA #96 3570 STA BTM+1 3575 JSR TRANSFER7 3580 NX 3585 LDA #0 ;Clear screens! 3590 STA XX 3595 STA YY 3600 JMP IT 3605 ; 3610 NXTSCRN2 3615 LDA #192 3620 STA BTM+1 3625 JSR TRANSFER7 3630 JMP NX 3635 ; 3640 CLOSESAVE 3645 LDX #$10 ;Close the save 3650 LDA #11 ;by appending 3655 ; color info. 3660 STA ICCOM,X 3665 LDA # COLORSD 3680 STA ICBAH,X 3685 LDA #4 3690 STA ICBLL,X 3695 LDA #0 3700 STA ICBLH,X 3705 JSR CIOV 3710 LDX #$10 3715 LDA #$0C 3720 STA ICCOM,X 3725 JSR CIOV 3730 JMP CONSKYS ;Back. 3735 ; 3740 COLORSD 3745 .BYTE 12,10,6,2 ;Our screen 3750 ; gray shades. 3755 ; 3760 OPENSVE 3765 LDX #$10 ;Open for 3770 LDA #3 ;disk write. 3775 STA ICCOM,X 3780 LDA # FILENAME 3795 STA ICBAH,X 3800 LDA #8 3805 STA ICAX1,X 3810 LDA #0 3815 STA ICAX2,X 3820 JSR CIOV 3825 LDA $0353 ;Error? 3830 CMP #1 3835 BNE OHOH ;YES!!! 3840 ; 3845 RTS 3850 ; 3855 OHOH 3860 PLA 3865 JMP ERROR 3870 ; 3875 ; Input filename 3880 ; 3885 INPUTQ 3890 JSR CLEARFN ;Clear filename 3895 LDX #0 3900 INPLOOPQ 3905 STX TEMP 3910 LDA #$80 3915 LDX TEMP 3920 STA LSAVE+22,X 3925 JSR GETKEY ;Get loop. 3930 LDX TEMP 3935 LDA KEY 3940 CMP #126 ;Backspace?? 3945 BNE NOTBKSPQ ;No. 3950 ; 3955 CPX #0 ; First spot? 3960 BEQ INPLOOPQ ;Yes. 3965 ; 3970 LDA #0 ; Back up. 3975 STA LSAVE+22,X 3980 LDA #32 3985 STA FILENAME+3,X 3990 DEX 3995 JMP INPLOOPQ 4000 ; 4005 NOTBKSPQ 4010 CMP #155 ;RETURN? 4015 BEQ FINIQ ;Yes. 4020 ; 4025 CPX #12 ;At end? 4030 BEQ INPLOOPQ ;Yes. 4035 ; 4040 STA FILENAME+3,X ;Save chr. 4045 SEC 4050 SBC #32 4055 STA LSAVE+22,X 4060 INX 4065 JMP INPLOOPQ 4070 ; 4075 FINIQ 4080 LDA #0 ;End it. 4085 STA LSAVE+22,X 4090 RTS 4095 ; 4100 ; Open S: device 4105 ; 4110 OPENS 4115 LDX #$20 ;Open it. 4120 LDA #3 4125 STA ICCOM,X 4130 LDA # SH 4145 STA ICBAH,X 4150 LDA #8 4155 STA ICAX1,X 4160 LDA L5+19 ;Pick a mode, 4165 BNE EIGHT ;any mode. 4170 ; 4175 LDA #7 4180 STA ICAX2,X 4185 JMP OPENIT 4190 ; 4195 EIGHT 4200 LDA #8 4205 STA ICAX2,X 4210 OPENIT 4215 JSR CIOV 4220 LDA L5+19 4225 BEQ LATERONDUDES 4230 ; 4235 LDA SDLSTL ;Store DL addr. 4240 CLC 4245 ADC #3 4250 STA LOHI 4255 LDA SDLSTL+1 4260 ADC #0 4265 STA LOHI+1 4270 LDY #0 4275 SRCHDL 4280 LDA (LOHI),Y ;Change GR.8 4285 ; to GR.7+ 4290 CMP #$4F 4295 BNE NOMLD 4300 ; 4305 LDA #$4E 4310 STA (LOHI),Y 4315 LDA LOHI 4320 CLC 4325 ADC #2 4330 STA LOHI 4335 LDA LOHI+1 4340 ADC #0 4345 STA LOHI+1 4350 JMP NXTDLB 4355 ; 4360 NOMLD 4365 CMP #$0F 4370 BNE NOREGL 4375 ; 4380 LDA #$0E 4385 STA (LOHI),Y 4390 BNE NXTDLB 4395 ; 4400 NOREGL 4405 CMP #$41 4410 BNE NXTDLB 4415 ; 4420 RTS 4425 ; 4430 NXTDLB 4435 LDA LOHI 4440 CLC 4445 ADC #1 4450 STA LOHI 4455 LDA LOHI+1 4460 STA POINTER+1 4465 STA LOHI+1 4470 JMP SRCHDL 4475 ; 4480 LATERONDUDES 4485 RTS 4490 ; 4495 SH 4500 .BYTE "S:" ;Screen handler. 4505 ; 4510 TRANSFER7 4515 LDA #0 ;Move screens. 4520 STA TEMP 4525 LDA 88 4530 STA LOHI 4535 LDA 89 4540 STA LOHI+1 4545 LDA # SCRN2 4560 STA POINTER+1 4565 TR1 4570 LDY #0 4575 TR2 4580 LDA (LOHI),Y 4585 PHA 4590 LDA (POINTER),Y 4595 STA (LOHI),Y 4600 PLA 4605 STA (POINTER),Y 4610 INY 4615 CPY #40 4620 BNE TR2 4625 ; 4630 INC TEMP 4635 LDA TEMP 4640 BTM 4645 CMP #96 4650 BEQ DONETRNS 4655 LDA LOHI 4660 CLC 4665 ADC #40 4670 STA LOHI 4675 LDA LOHI+1 4680 ADC #0 4685 STA LOHI+1 4690 LDA POINTER 4695 CLC 4700 ADC #40 4705 STA POINTER 4710 LDA POINTER+1 4715 ADC #0 4720 STA POINTER+1 4725 JMP TR1 4730 ; 4735 DONETRNS 4740 RTS 4745 ; 4750 CLRBIGBUF 4755 LDA #0 ;Clear screens. 4760 STA TEMP 4765 LDA # SCRN2 4780 STA LOHI+1 4785 CLRB1 4790 LDY #0 4795 TYA 4800 CLRB2 4805 STA (LOHI),Y 4810 INY 4815 CPY #40 4820 BNE CLRB2 4825 ; 4830 INC TEMP 4835 LDA TEMP 4840 CMP #192 4845 BEQ DONECLRING 4850 ; 4855 LDA LOHI 4860 CLC 4865 ADC #40 4870 STA LOHI 4875 LDA LOHI+1 4880 ADC #0 4885 STA LOHI+1 4890 JMP CLRB1 4895 ; 4900 DONECLRING 4905 RTS 4910 ; 4915 SETMD 4920 LDA L5+19 ;Offset borders. 4925 BNE PLUSG 4930 ; 4935 LDA #128 4940 STA MD+1 4945 LDA #-32 4950 STA MD2+1 4955 RTS 4960 ; 4965 PLUSG 4970 LDA #176 4975 STA MD+1 4980 LDA #16 4985 STA MD2+1 4990 RTS 4995 ; 5000 CLREST 5005 LDX $0358 ;Buffer pointer. 5010 LDA #32 5015 RESTLP 5020 STA BUFFER,X 5025 INX 5030 BNE RESTLP 5035 ; 5040 RTS 5045 ; 5050 CHECK4RTN 5055 CMP #155 ;ATASCII RETURN? 5060 BNE NEXT1 5065 ; 5070 JMP SRCHCONT 5075 ; 5080 NEXT1 5085 CMP #13 ;ASCII RETURN? 5090 BNE NEXT2 5095 ; 5100 JMP SRCHCONT 5105 ; 5110 NEXT2 5115 CMP #10 ;ASCII LF? 5120 BNE XIT1 5125 ; 5130 JMP SRCHCONT 5135 ; 5140 XIT1 5145 JMP BACKHR 5150 ; 5155 ERASECR 5160 LDA #0 ;Erase cursor. 5165 LDX TEMP 5170 STA ARL,X 5175 LDA CRL,X 5180 SEC 5185 SBC #$80 5190 STA CRL,X 5195 RTS 5200 ; 5205 CLRBUFF 5210 LDX #0 5215 TXA 5220 CLROOP 5225 STA BUFFER,X 5230 INX 5235 BNE CLROOP 5240 ; 5245 RTS 5250 ; 5255 CLRCOLS 5260 LDX #0 5265 TXA 5270 CLRCLOOP 5275 STA CHARCOLR,X 5280 INX 5285 CPX #120 5290 BNE CLRCLOOP 5295 ; 5300 RTS 5305 ; 5310 OPEN 5315 LDX #$10 ;Open disk file. 5320 LDA #3 5325 STA ICCOM,X 5330 LDA # FILENAME 5345 STA ICBAH,X 5350 LDA #4 5355 STA ICAX1,X 5360 LDA #0 5365 STA ICAX2,X 5370 JSR CIOV 5375 LDA $0353 ;Error? 5380 CMP #1 5385 BNE ERROR ;Yes. 5390 ; 5395 RTS 5400 ; 5405 CLOSE 5410 LDX #$10 ;Close it! 5415 LDA #$0C 5420 STA ICCOM,X 5425 JMP CIOV 5430 ; 5435 ERROR 5440 LDA # ERR 5455 STA SDLSTL+1 5460 LDA $0353 5465 STA $D4 5470 LDA #0 5475 STA $D5 5480 JSR $D9AA ;Convert ERR # 5485 JSR $D8E6 ;to screen mem. 5490 CLD 5495 LDY #$FF 5500 PNUM 5505 INY 5510 LDA ($F3),Y 5515 AND #$1F 5520 STA ERRLIN+10,Y 5525 LDA ($F3),Y 5530 BPL PNUM 5535 ; 5540 JSR RAZZ ;Buzz. 5545 JSR CLOSE ;Close. 5550 JSR GETKEY ;Get a key. 5555 MNUJMP 5560 JMP ST1 5565 ; 5570 INPUT 5575 JSR CLEARFN ;Clear filename. 5580 LDX #0 5585 INPLOOP 5590 STX TEMP 5595 LDA #$80 5600 LDX TEMP 5605 STA L2+16,X 5610 JSR GETKEY ;This 5615 LDX TEMP ;input 5620 LDA KEY ;loop 5625 CMP #126 ;is 5630 BNE NOTBKSP ;identical 5635 ; to 5640 CPX #0 ;the 5645 BEQ INPLOOP ;other 5650 ; input 5655 LDA #0 ;loop. 5660 STA L2+16,X 5665 LDA #32 5670 STA FILENAME+3,X 5675 DEX 5680 JMP INPLOOP 5685 ; 5690 NOTBKSP 5695 CMP #155 5700 BEQ FINI 5705 ; 5710 CPX #12 5715 BEQ INPLOOP 5720 ; 5725 STA FILENAME+3,X 5730 SEC 5735 SBC #32 5740 STA L2+16,X 5745 INX 5750 JMP INPLOOP 5755 ; 5760 FINI 5765 LDA #0 5770 STA L2+16,X 5775 RTS 5780 ; 5785 CLEARFN 5790 LDX #0 ;Clear 5795 LOOPCLR 5800 LDA #32 ;filename. 5805 STA FILENAME+3,X 5810 LDA #0 5815 STA L2+16,X 5820 STA LSAVE+22,X 5825 INX 5830 CPX #13 5835 BNE LOOPCLR 5840 ; 5845 RTS 5850 ; 5855 RAZZ 5860 LDY #$20 ;Razz routine. 5865 RAZZ1 5870 LDX #$7F ;Same as CTRL-2 5875 RAZZ2 5880 STX 53279 5885 STX WSYNC 5890 DEX 5895 BPL RAZZ2 5900 ; 5905 DEY 5910 BPL RAZZ1 5915 ; 5920 RTS 5925 ; 5930 TEMP 5935 .BYTE 0,0,0 ;Temp. Vars. 5940 ; 5945 PLOT 5950 STA COLOR ;Plot routines. 5955 STX XSTOR 5960 STY YSTOR 5965 LDA YSTOR 5970 ASL A 5975 STA POINTER 5980 LDA #0 5985 ROL A 5990 STA POINTER+1 5995 JMP CONT 6000 ; 6005 COLOR 6010 .BYTE 0 ;Color hold 6015 XSTOR 6020 .BYTE 0 ;storage... 6025 ; 6030 GETKEY 6035 LDX #$30 ;Get a key 6040 LDA #7 ;routine. 6045 STA ICCOM,X 6050 LDA # KEY 6065 STA ICBAH,X 6070 LDA #1 6075 STA ICBLL,X 6080 LDA #0 6085 STA ICBLH,X 6090 JMP CIOV 6095 ; 6100 KEY 6105 .BYTE 0 ;Key value. 6110 ; 6115 CONT 6120 ASL POINTER ; The plot 6125 ROL POINTER+1 ;routine. 6130 ASL POINTER ;(Kinda complex) 6135 LDA POINTER 6140 STA STOR1 6145 ROL POINTER+1 6150 LDA POINTER+1 6155 STA STOR2 6160 ASL POINTER 6165 ROL POINTER+1 6170 ASL POINTER 6175 ROL POINTER+1 6180 LDA POINTER 6185 CLC 6190 ADC STOR1 6195 STA POINTER 6200 LDA POINTER+1 6205 ADC STOR2 6210 STA POINTER+1 6215 LDA 88 6220 CLC 6225 ADC POINTER 6230 STA POINTER 6235 LDA 89 6240 ADC POINTER+1 6245 STA POINTER+1 6250 LDA XSTOR 6255 AND #3 6260 TAX 6265 LDA XSTOR 6270 LSR A 6275 LSR A 6280 CLC 6285 ADC POINTER 6290 STA POINTER 6295 LDA POINTER+1 6300 ADC #0 6305 STA POINTER+1 6310 LDY COLOR 6315 LDA BMASK2,X 6320 AND COLORS,Y 6325 STA STOR1 6330 LDA BMASK1,X 6335 LDY #0 6340 AND (POINTER),Y 6345 ORA STOR1 6350 STA (POINTER),Y 6355 RTS 6360 ; 6365 ; Various stuff. 6370 ; 6375 COLORS 6380 .BYTE $00,$55,$AA,$FF ;plot 6385 ; colors 6390 BMASK1 6395 .BYTE $3F,$CF,$F3,$FC ;Masks 6400 ; for 6405 BMASK2 6410 .BYTE $C0,$30,$0C,$03 ;plot 6415 ; routines. 6420 YSTOR 6425 .BYTE 0 ;Storage 6430 STOR1 6435 .BYTE 0 ;for 6440 STOR2 6445 .BYTE 1 ;plot routine 6450 KH 6455 .BYTE "K:" ;Keybd handler. 6460 COLS 6465 .SBYTE "80 132 " ;Columns. 6470 COL 6475 .BYTE 0 ;Col. toggle. 6480 ARWS 6485 .SBYTE "" ;Our arrows 6490 POS 6495 .BYTE 0 ;Position code. 6500 FILENAME 6505 .BYTE "D1: " 6510 ; Filename buffer 6515 CHARCOLR 6520 *= *+120 ;Where we place 6525 ; our edited gray shades. 6530 BUFFER 6535 *= *+256 ;Load-in buffer 6540 COLAMT 6545 .BYTE 40,14 ;Col. amounts. 6550 ;DEFAULTS are our default 6555 ;gray shades. 6560 DEFAULTS 6565 .BYTE 0,2,1,3,2,2,3,1,2,2 6570 .BYTE 3,2,1,1,1,1,3,3,3,3 6575 .BYTE 3,3,3,3,3,2,2,2,2,2,2 6580 .BYTE 3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3 6585 .BYTE 3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3 6590 .BYTE 3,3,3,3,3,3,3,2,2,2 6595 .BYTE 1,1 6600 ; 6605 LOP 6610 INC TEMP 6615 LDA TEMP 6620 CMP #32 6625 BEQ DONELDING 6630 ; 6635 JMP SRCHCONT 6640 ; 6645 DONELDING 6650 JMP EOF 6655 ; 6660 ; Our display lists/data. 6665 ; 6670 DLIST1 6675 .BYTE $70,$70,$70,$70,$70 6680 .BYTE $70,$F0,$47 6685 .BYTE LINES 6690 .BYTE $90,$02,$70,$02,$00 6695 .BYTE $02,$00,$02,$00,$02 6700 .BYTE $00,$02,$00,$02 6705 .BYTE $41, DLIST1 6710 SELECT 6715 .BYTE $70,$70,$70,$70,$47 6720 .BYTE SLCTLINE 6725 .BYTE $07,$41 6730 .BYTE SELECT 6735 SLCTLINE 6740 .SBYTE "ÕSE DEFAULTS OR " 6745 .SBYTE "ÅDIT YOUR OWN? " 6750 LINES 6755 .SBYTE +$C0," ART CONVERTER! " 6760 .SBYTE " (c)1987, Antic Publishing Inc. " 6765 L1 6770 .SBYTE " Ãolumn of printout: 80 " 6775 L2 6780 .SBYTE " Ìoad file D1: " 6785 .SBYTE " Äefault drive number " 6790 L4 6795 .SBYTE " Ðicture postioning: " 6800 L5 6805 .SBYTE " Çraphics mode: 7 " 6810 .SBYTE " ÓÐÁÃÅ starts the conversion " 6815 ; 6820 ;* Our DLI's. 6825 ; 6830 DLI 6835 PHA 6840 TXA 6845 PHA 6850 LDX #$90 6855 LLL 6860 STX WSYNC 6865 STX $D019 6870 INX 6875 CPX #$A0 6880 BNE LLL 6885 ; 6890 LDA # DLI1 6905 STA VDSLST+1 6910 PLA 6915 TAX 6920 PLA 6925 RTI 6930 ; 6935 DLI1 6940 PHA 6945 TXA 6950 PHA 6955 LDX #0 6960 LDY #$0E 6965 LLL1 6970 STX WSYNC 6975 LDA #$4A 6980 STA $D018 6985 LDA #0 6990 STA $D017 6995 INX 7000 CPX #9 7005 BNE LLL1 7010 ; 7015 LDA #$C4 7020 STA $D018 7025 LDA #10 7030 STA $D017 7035 LDA # DLI 7050 STA VDSLST+1 7055 PLA 7060 TAX 7065 PLA 7070 RTI 7075 ; 7080 ; More display lists. 7085 ; 7090 DLIST3 7095 .BYTE $70,$70,$70,$70,$47 7100 .BYTE LINES2 7105 .BYTE $07,$70,$70,$70,$70 7110 .BYTE $70,$02,$00,$02,$00 7115 .BYTE $02,$70,$70,$70,$70 7120 .BYTE $70,$06,$00,$06 7125 .BYTE $41, DLIST3 7130 LINES2 7135 .SBYTE +$80," NOW SEARCHING " 7140 .SBYTE +$80,"FILE FOR BYTES.." 7145 DISPLINE 7150 .SBYTE " " 7155 ARL 7160 .SBYTE " " 7165 CRL 7170 .SBYTE " " 7175 .SBYTE +$C0," ENTER DATA: " 7180 .SBYTE +$C0,"0=WHITE, 3=BLACK" 7185 XX 7190 .BYTE 1 ;Our screen X 7195 YY 7200 .BYTE 1 ;and Y values. 7205 P256 7210 .BYTE 1 ;Pointer... 7215 ; 7220 ; Yet another display list. 7225 ; 7230 DLIST0 7235 .BYTE $70,$70,$70,$70,$70 7240 .BYTE $70,$70,$47 7245 .BYTE LINESF,$30 7250 .BYTE $70,$02,$00,$02,$00 7255 .BYTE $02,$00,$02,$00,$02 7260 .BYTE $20,$02 7265 .BYTE $41, DLIST0 7270 LINESF 7275 .SBYTE +$80," CHOOSE AN OPTION: " 12345678901234567890 7280 .SBYTE " ± Save screen - mode 7 " 7285 .SBYTE " Save screen - mode 7+ " 7290 .SBYTE " Enter save filename " 7295 .SBYTE " Restart program " 7300 .SBYTE " ÁÎÙ ËÅÙ toggles screens, ÓÔÁÒÔ for scrn" 7305 LSAVE 7310 .SBYTE " Save filename D1: " 7315 ; 7320 ; Our screen boundaries for all 7325 ; positioning modes. 7330 ; 7335 ENDZ 7340 .BYTE 96,160,96,160 7345 ENDZZ 7350 .BYTE 192,160,192,160 7355 SCRN2 = $4000 ;Buffer screen. 7360 ; 7365 ; Guess what. A display list 7370 ; to handle errors. 7375 ; 7380 ERR 7385 .BYTE $70,$70,$70,$70,$70 7390 .BYTE $70,$70,$70,$70,$70 7395 .BYTE $47, ERRLIN 7400 .BYTE $41, ERR 7405 ERRLIN 7410 .SBYTE " ERROR - " 7415 ; 7420 ;* Where we start from. 7425 *= $02E0 ;Init addr. 7430 ; 7435 .WORD START 7440 .END

You've tried the rest...

[shepd]

Now try the best.

No, I don't work for them. No, I don't use their service anymore (I got WiFi based 'net now). Yes, they support Linux (they even developed a custom, in-house applicaiton for it). No, they don't do any of that leaky-bucket BS that infuriates anyone using most of the competing services. Yes, they sell to anyone who can receive their signal in any country. [Canadians note: If you get their service and want to remain within the law, avoid surfing any sites within Canada].

The coolest part is that it's Ku-Band and it uses standard DVB. This means you can get the dish to receive it for next to nothing, and you can use _any_ DVB card you like.

Oh, and I wrote a (crappy) mini-HOWTO for Linux that you can check on their forums (sorry, they're locked to the public).

Re:You've tried the rest...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's another faq that might help:

http://www2.arnes.si/~mthale1/dvb_english.html

Stats From a Direcway User

[StillTrekkin]

Since no other broadband option was available I use Direcway. Here are my current stats:
Pinging aol.com [64.12.149.24] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 64.12.149.24: bytes=32 time=761ms TTL=50
Reply from 64.12.149.24: bytes=32 time=738ms TTL=50
Reply from 64.12.149.24: bytes=32 time=738ms TTL=50
Reply from 64.12.149.24: bytes=32 time=818ms TTL=50

Ping statistics for 64.12.149.24:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 738ms, Maximum = 818ms, Average = 763ms

For more info on Sat. internet try:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/sat
and
ht tp://www.broadbandreports.com/faq/satellite

Re:Stats From a Direcway User

[StillTrekkin]

Oops! forgot to add speed: WDC Speakeasy 2002-11-20 16:51:04 EST: 2002 / 43 Your download speed : 2002803 bps, or 2002 kbps. A 244.4 KB/sec transfer rate. Your upload speed : 43907 bps, or 43 kbps. Your upstream result was very slow! .. not good Seems like broadband .. above the 1mbit barrier!

No streaming porn to Antarctica...

[Cheese Cracker]

the transfer rate was something akin (no exaggeration!) to 300Bps.

I guess they'll have to survive by watching good old VHS tapes or DVD then... :)

Ever try putting Win2k on a P-166?

[bobKali]

I did and it couldn't even find the mouse (a Microsoft mouse at that).

Suppose you shouldn't need that for a firewall/router but it wouldn't supprise me if you did.

Re:Ever try putting Win2k on a P-166?

[GigsVT]

Yes, of course I've done it!

What I was describing wasn't theoretical, it's my actual firewall setup, and it's not that slow even.

P-166 with 80 megs ram, mouse, keyboard all works and everything, 1.6GB hard disk, tiny personal firewall (or whatever they call it now)...

It has a caching web proxy that you pretty much need to use for starband, I think I gave it 100 megs for caching.

It's actually not too bad. I still get full speed downloads, up to 120kilobytes/sec, the same as hooking it to a fast computer.

iD4 did NOT imply that aliens use Macs

[yerricde]

Since alien's run MacOS-compatible systems and communicate using a protocol extactly similiar to our TCP/IP

Not necessarily. It's possible for a software developer to use a Mac to emulate the aliens' computer well enough to get a virus working. It's also possible for such a developer to write a custom protocol stack in Open Transport.

Re:iD4 did NOT imply that aliens use Macs

[Tokerat]

As much as I love Apple, not a damn person in the general public knows what you're talking about. ID4 was product placement.

*closes clock-is-ticking app and disconnects from afp://.dnydns.org*

...and there are no such things as alien file servers. Sheesh.

A few of the big names behind satellite Internet.

[Anonymous Coward]

These are a few of the researchers and developers who've brought satellite Internet technology to its current state. Sure, there's still a long way to go, but look how far they've come. It's great to see so many hard-working people putting their talents and intelligence to good use.

NAME: Burdge, Jonathan E-MAIL: jlb@io.com, jlbatdarc@w-link.net, elby@adequacy.org, darc@w-link.net ALIASES: lb, jlb, Elby

NAME: Casillas, Luis E-MAIL: casillas@stanford.edu, em@adequacy.org ALIASES: em, Estanislao Martinez, Sylvain Tremblay

NAME: Corrigan, Barry E-MAIL: barry@bjcorrigan.fsnet.co.uk, bc@adequacy.org ALIASES: bc, ktb (Kiss the Blade), Lover's Arrival, Euroderf, Erbert Paget-Paget, Anya

NAME: Dickson, Craig E-MAIL: crd@inversenet.com, mendaxveritas@yahoo.com, mendaxveritas@pacbell.net ALIASES: mv, Mendax Veritas

NAME: Flickinger, Dan E-MAIL: flikx@geekizoid.com, flikee@xmission.com ALIASES: flikx

NAME: Haberberger, George E-MAIL: ghaberbe@frontiernet.net, George.Haberberger@usa.xerox.com ALIASES: GeorgeHa, Hairy_Potter

NAME: Huston, Bill E-MAIL: bozoman@vlad.geekizoid.com, ALIASES: bozoman

NAME: Johnson, Peter E-MAIL: peter.johnson@voicestream.com, shoeboy@adequacy.org ALIASES: Shoeboy, Peter Johnson

NAME: Lockwood, Scott E-MAIL: wsl3@attbi.com, vlad@geekizoid.com ALIASES: Vladinator, Lonesome Cowboy Burt, Quick Star, Pinkerton Floyd, etc.

NAME: Linwood, Rob E-MAIL: rcl@cs.csoft.net, rcl211@is9.nyu.edu ALIASES: AuntFloyd, Con Troll

NAME: Mann, Warren E-MAIL: broken@warmann.com ALIASES: osm, OpenSourceMan

NAME: McPherson, Craig E-MAIL: craig@laceyonline.com ALIASES: craig, naked&petrified guy

NAME: Nelson, Brian E-MAIL: elenchos@adequacy.org ALIASES: Elenchos

NAME: Osborne, Michaell E-MAIL: osborm@yahoo.com, dmg@adequacy.org, michaellosborne@netscapeonline.co.uk ALIASES: dmg, Dumb Marketing Guy, Lord Hugh Toppingham

NAME: Sassaman, Esther E-MAIL: esther@antioch.edu, perdida@adequacy.org, reva_altamira@yahoo.com ALIASES: Perdida, Reva Altamira, etc.

NAME: Skinner, James E-MAIL: spiralx@spazmail.com, spiralx@adequacy.org ALIASES: SpiralX, Manifold, Jon Erikson

NAME: Stanton, Matt E-MAIL: matt@madeforchina.com, serf@adequacy.org ALIASES: Serf

NAME: Zikowski, Zachary E-MAIL: zikzak@io.com, zikzak@adequacy.org ALIASES: Zikzak, kp

NAME: ???, Ernie E-MAIL: trollmastah@hotmail.com ALIASES: Trollmastah

Power requirements

[Anonymous Coward]

Just out of curiosity, how much power does the satellite transmitter require?

Stupidity of /.ers

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, only 4 stupid 'spam' jokes. Are you capable of comprehending that there is much more to a country than the ONE thing you heard about it? You all just proved how uncultured you truly are.

Re:Stupidity of /.ers

[Anonymous Coward]

Then get off your ass and do something to change Nigeria's image. Most people haven't heard a peep from that backward hellhole except for the 401 crimes.

Re:Stupidity of /.ers

[Anonymous Coward]

It clearly shows that it is easier to destroy your image than to build a good one.
Inhabitants of Nigeria and Korea, and to a lesser extent China, Taiwan and Singapore send nothing useful and only irritating spam to my mailbox, and to millions of others. Their governments should do something about that before they ruin their countries' name.

Re:Stupidity of /.ers

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah its not like United States' name isnt ruined elsewhere in the world...

I am a boonie-ite. Hear me roar.

[blueforce]

I never thought I'd say this, but apparently I now live in "the sticks". My wife and I bought a new house over the summer, in a smaller village, away from the city where we work ( about 20 miles ).

I gave up my road runner internet access to do this. Fortunately ( so I thought ) the local phone company "out there" is Verizon.... I smell DSL!!!

Wrong.

Largest DSL provider in the Milky Way??? Sure. Only... just not where I moved to. Now, understand - it's NOT because I'm too far from the station. I can see it ( through the trees ).

Next call to the local cable company - does the local cable company offer anything? Abso-friggin-lootly not. Nothing. Nada. "Broadband? Sir, we offer our new VHF package with one HBO channel. Broadband? Internet - Never heard of it."

I have Dish Network for my television service ( must watch college football - Go Blue!
Nonetheless, I've been relegated to my dial-up connection, that connects, believe it or not, at 53k.

Now... what I REALLY want to know is why I hear SO MUCH HYPE about making broadband available to EVERYONE but it's all just TALK.

You see, there's a fundamental flaw here. For example, Earthlink offers high-speed cable access to their customers..... in Time-Warner serviced areas. Huh? Wait a minute. Time-Warner customers already HAVE access. Time-Warner owns Road Runner. So, what they're saying is, I can get Earthlink internet access over my Road Runner line? HELLO - WHAT ABOUT ME??? Why is Earthlink competing with Time-Warner for their own lines when there are poor saps like me stuck "in the boonies" with a local cable company but no cable internet access??? They could corner the friggin' market if they'd tap that. Instead, they'd rather offer access where there's already access. Earthlink isn't the only bone-headed provider. There are others but for the sake of brevity, I'll leave it at just them. I just don't get it.

Let's clear up some things.

[mindstrm]

- Satellite internet is not "useless" nor is it "Untolerable for websurfing" or "useless for ssh or telnet".

- There is a latency due to the speed of light. It is not 800ms minimum as some people are claiming. In my case about 420ms round trip. This is not quite like latency on really congested internet connections, where latency tends to fluctuate.. it's just a steady, unchanging 420ms added to everything.

- Latency will be higher at higher lattitudes; I'm at about 10 degrees north.

- TCP has no fundamental issues with this extra latency; in fact it deals with it JUST FINE. What TCP *does* have an issue with is the data link layer losing packets for reasons OTHER than congestion. That means if your satellite gear is crappy, small dish, weak signal, and you are losing a percentage of traffic due to noise, TCP will become almost useless (it will keep backing off thinking it's reducing congestion) On the other hand, with adequately powered gear, and a dish with the proper gain, this is NOT a problem whatsoever.

- The TCP hacks that consumer satellite services use are NOT fundamentally necessary for satellite internet; they are a result of cheap gear and small dishes that are provided for home use.

- The reason satellite is harder from higher lattitudes is because satellites are lower on the horizon, you have to go through more atmosphere to see them, they are farther away, and you are on the edge of the footprint where signal is weakest.

- Not all internet connections use landline; major isps in smaller countries have satellite backup for their landline connections. If a satellite connection can carry an entire country's internet traffic, it's hardly "useless"

- Weather can affect radio reception, but again, this depends largely on the power levels involved, and the gain of the dish used. The difference between a 2 foot dish on your balcony, and a 15 foot dish on the roof is huge.

- Full duplex connections are entirely possible, and need not be asymetric... but they require a good transmitter on the ground. Home connections will be asymetric, because nobody wants to fork out for high power gear at home.

- Satellite internet need not be proprietary. This is an artifact of tryign to bring cheap gear for home use. I have seen satellite gear in use that has standard ports; either ethernet, or v.35 for hookup to a good old cisco router.

Now I'm not saying that these current consumer satellite internet services are good... they may very well suck.. but let's be clear on what pros/cons are a result of the fact that they are usign satellite, and which ones are the results of stupid decisions by the providers.

Long Distance Wi-Fi

[cosmosis]

As time goes on, a matter of 2 or 3 years at most, high-speed internet access will be avaialble to even remote rural users using a combination of solar powered high-gain Wi-Fi and mesh-networks. With the recent release of 802.11g gear from Linksys, and a massive and immeninent proliferation of wi-fi built-in chips, its only a matter of time. Certainly before you die.

Planet P - Liberation Through Technology.

Re:Long Distance Wi-Fi

[hitchhiker]

The only problem I see with this is that the mesh must end in an internet connection of reasonable bandwidth like T1 or higher. In my area that would mean that the mesh must pass the signal at a reasonable latency (say 80ms or less for games) over 40 miles to the nearest currently terminated high speed connection. Unless they put terminations in huts along the road this will be a major problem.

I agree however, that this type of system has merit.

The tech?

[mindstrm]

I believe the tech is good old KU band satellite.

Who the provider is I can't say.. but it's an isp leasing bandwidth from a satellite, one channel per customer, to provide the link. It's not some mega service like Starband or whoever.

My point is only that satellite does not have to be so bad; it's the current mass market satellite providers who are making it bad.

OT: WTF

[Tokerat]

When did /. stop allowing HTML entities in text??

Re:OT: WTF

[thgreatoz]

They didn't. See?

Re:OT: WTF

[Tokerat]

No, I dont' mean HTML TAGS, I mean stuff like

™

HTML Character Reference Entities, the little markups that give you special and extended characters, added for cross-platform character set and Unicode compatability within browsers for special and scientific characters.

See here. Apparently only the < and > and & are allowed now. No more ™ :-(

Re:OT: WTF

[thgreatoz]

LOL thats what I get for reading things too quickly.

Re:birds

[golo]

It has to be "Mylar", that would work... or a radome

Iridium?

[dachshund]

they barely could get the doctor's recommendations and instructions for a biopsy over the satellite, since it only worked every few hours at best and the transfer rate was something akin (no exaggeration!) to 300Bps.

I'm surprised they can't get better access over the Iridium network (or whatever it's calling itself this week.) Don't those satellites converge on the poles?

Broadband rankings by state

[neonfrog]

Vermont ranks 48th in the nation as far as broadband. Read this report The Digital Economy - Broadband Telecommunications

I am also a Vermonter and live not too far from you BUT I can get no high speed services other than a dish. How come you get them and I don't? You are in a major tourist town and near the interstate -- the infra-structure already existed. I am 5 miles from my telco and if it isn't raining my phone line can handle 36kbps. I am using 2 modems and doing modem bonding to get 72kbps when the weather is right. Sometimes with 2 modems I get less than 48kbps...

Why, if VT is in New England and NE has some of the BEST states for Broadband, does broadband suck in this state? Too rural. Density gets intensity from the internet. If you live within a few miles of I-89 or a few choice hubs like B-town or Mont-peculiar then you are set. The rest of the state connects to the internet by smoke signal...

I've researched this thing to death. When I lived in downtown Burlington I had cable and before cable existed I had ISDN. Verizon is down-marketing ISDN so even that is hard to get where I am -- when I had it installed 4 years ago it was a free installation and the monthly fees were okay. Now it is over $250 just to get the line checked -- this is a non-refundable deposit. If the line sucks you just threw $250 into the wood stove. If a repeater is needed then _I_ have to pay for it (a few thou) and the telco owns it. Yeah, right.

I have asked people who have StarBand in VT and the reports are all the same: when it works it is awesome for DLing and surfing (latency issues as all have noted). But pray it doesn't rain, snow, cloud up, get windy, etc. because then it just goes away. And we know the weather in Vermont is always wonderful, right? Look out your window ... oh dear ...

Even the local StarBand installer told me to wait a while because it just wasn't ready for dependable use (that was over a year ago, though).

Oddly, my dad used to work for WCVT. I still know guys who work there!

Re:Broadband rankings by state

[jackjumper]

I definitely feel lucky...I guess I get DSL because I happen to live within an area where there's a locally owned telco (WCVT) that owns all their own stuff and happened to want to do it. I wonder how many places in the country have that?

Another argument for smaller, local companies over huge ones...

hey, ya know what????

[zogger]

--this is a good idea methinks. I never thought about before, but you are right!Like you I remember EXACTLY back when cable company's were granted their exclusive monopolies. They sure DID promise that cable tv would be commercial free. I remember the debates in the town council were I was living at the time, they stated as such. I don't live there now, but I bet this happened all over the US.

There's a lawsuit angle potential there I think, to break their monopolies now. Perhaps some massive punitive fines and rebates to customers as well. Their current contracts might be abrogated or declared void if it can be proven they failed to live up to their promises when they got their licenses. Hmmm. There is zero reason any more to allow them to control turf as a monopoly. Yes, expensive to rollout new cable,(or fiber?) but in some areas, it might be feasible. And anyplace the company can be successfully sued, perhaps they get auctioned off, cheap intact cable system for pennies on the dollar to some new startup? Who knows but the possibilities are there.

Yes, I can answer.

[Faldgan]

Sheesh. I am *amazed* at the amount of disinformation most of these people are posting. Yes, I know it's slashdot, but WOW. Feel free to e-mail me with any other questions if you want.

I am qualified to answer this question because my mom has Starband internet, and I often end up doing things on her computer for her. (She runs RedHat linux and windows dual-boot)

For IRC, it'll be fine if you use low-scroll rooms. but if they are fast, it'll probably be a bit hard to follow.
For command-line apps and whatnot, it's a tad annoying, since everything you do has a 1/2 delay at least. If you are used to typing without immediate feedback, it's OK.

For X apps, or VNC, it's pretty nasty. If you just have a quick change or something to do, it's doable, but you won't be wanting to do much at all over that connection.

If you consider remotely administering a server to be connecting with VNC or whatever windows has as it's new remote desktop thing, then you are going to be dissapointed for any task that takes more than about a dozen mouse clicks.

thankyou!

[zogger]

--I've read at least a hundred articles on this satellite thing and your's was THE most helpful workaround I've seen. REMOVE THE LITTLE PLATE. I AM going to remember that. The *&*&*^% satellite bozos got a lot of nerve. You need to get modded to five like immediately. And someone who posts at mac central(anyone reading this) should stick this over there as well.

Dont underestimate the latency!

[Anonymous Coward]

I had Starband and the latency KILLED me. It is basically unusable for interactive sessions (telnet,ssh,etc). The numbers they throw out are "best possible" but that often comes down to how well your dish gets alligned when they install it. Lazy install person == more latency.
IMHO it's only worth the money if you only use it for Web surfing and have no other choices.

Re:Dont underestimate the latency!

[cruachan]

So you get your provider to come back and re-align the dish. Why is this different from any other consumer product with a maintenance contract?

They already have this

[Anonymous Coward]

In Canada, LincSat has two-way high-speed internet connections.

WHITE POWER

[Anonymous Coward]

White power 1 - 2 - 3 - 4!

I stand watch my country, going down the drain
We are all at fault, we are all to blame
We're letting them takeover, we just let 'em come
Once we had an Empire, and now we've got a slum

(chorus)
White Power! For England
White Power! Today
White Power! For Slashdot
Before it gets too late

Well we've seen a lot of riots, we just sit and scoff
We've seen a lot of muggings, and the judges let 'em off

(chorus)

Well we've gotta do something, to try and stop the rot
And the traitors that have used us, they should all be shot

(chorus)

middle eight:
Are we gonna sit and let them come?
Have they got the White man on the run?
Multi-racial society is a mess
We ain't gonna take much more of this
What do we need?

(chorus)

Well if we don't win our battle, and all does not go well
It's apocalypse for Britain, and we'll see you all in hell

(chorus) x2

Please Stay In Nigeria

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't need any more immigrants in the USA. Thank you.

Worked fine back in '96

[cjsnell]

I'm not sure about the situation down there now, but back in 1996, I used to traceroute and finger their machines occasionally for fun and I never had much of a problem reaching them. IIRC, the last hop ping times were in the 800-2000ms range. I'm not sure about the bandwidth but I seriously doubt it was as low as 300Bps.

They used to have a machine, mcmvax.mcmurdo.gov, that you could finger. It felt kind of funny, you know, screwing around with a machine all the way down there. :)

lucky bastard

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I got 24k baud! I live so far out in the boonies I just signed up for DOSC (Data Over String and Cans). I'm lucky to get 300 baud when the missus isn't drying laundry on my line.

Re:lucky bastard

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, well we don't even have water, so there'd be no laundry drying on the line -- except we can't afford that much string. I'm forced to rob convenience stores so I can get arrested so the cops will give me a free phone call so I can dial up from jail and post to Slashdot!

looks interesting, try something more active.

[twitter]

Why not a phase aray and low earth orbit satilite system? It might cut down on the launch costs and your ping time. Aim, we don't need no stinking aim, it points itself. Go get it!

Point, Counter-Point...

[srvivn21]

Completely forgetting about telnet is not a bad idea. But SSH? Even over satellite, it's really quite reliable.

I work for a company that provides internet access to REALLY rural schools. Bush Alaska. It's hard to get more rural than that.

I oversee the maintenance of over 140 servers across the state (at least one per site) and have to both use SSH and a web interface on a regular basis. Not just to monitor the server status, but also to UPDATE the damn things (software packages of over 20 MB on occasion).

Unless the weather at the site is crap (or has been, and has knocked the dish off axis a bit) I hardly ever have trouble with keeping a reliable SSH connection. Waiting for the web interface to load takes a bit more time over the satellite link is a noticible delay, but it doesn't render my job impossible. Not even unenjoyable. We used to use NT 4 and PC Anywhere. That was unenjoyable, but not impossible.

Yeah, we use a proxy (Squid) at the sites to make browsing a bit more responsive (it is a noticeable difference), but that doesn't affect messengers (MSN, Yahoo, AIM) or video conferencing (distance learning, or one teacher at one site teaching classes at several sites, WITH INTERACTION).

Sure, satellite sucks in comparison to terrestrial bandwidth delivery, but it's not the tar pit that so many people here claim it to be.

Yes, but the latency kills it.

[dszd0g]

I live in a rural part of the bay area right now (Santa Cruz Mountains). No DSL or cable is available and they are not likely to be offered any time soon.

I gave DirectWay a try, but the latency is absolutely horrid. I get about 150ms latency on my modem (which isn't very good), but with DirectWay I was getting 1s -- even as high as 2s on a bad day. The best I have heard anyone get is around 800ms.

There is no way to do much better than that with geosynchronous satellites. For a satellite to be geosynchronous it needs to be about 23,000 miles up. Thus a ping has to go from me to the satellite, from the satellite to the ground station, from the ground station to the satellite, and from the satellite to me. That's approximately 92,000 miles. The speed of light in a vacuum is approximately 670,000,000 mph. That comes out to about 500ms. Since we aren't dealing with a vacuum and there is overhead, we aren't even going to see anything like that. A good modem connection can get around 100ms, which is 5 times better than the ideal for satellite or about 10 times better than what I was getting.

I really was hoping the low orbit satellite systems would take off, because that would have significantly cut down the latency. Unfortunately, all those systems seem to have gone bankrupt or been canceled.

For anyone doing anything that requires good latency (ssh, games, etc.) satellite internet is going to be slower than a modem.

Re:Yes, but the latency kills it.

[Daengbo]

'fraid your math stinks -- That's about 500ms -- No. That's about 137ms, plus overhead. Your post is useless. Congrats. Next time, preview.

Re:Yes, but the latency kills it.

[dszd0g]

1.37x10^(-4) hours (137uh if you like), convert that to seconds (multiply by 3600) and you get 0.494. I am not sure how you got 137ms.

O.K., if you want the slightly more accurate version here it is. I looked up how far away the satellite I was on was (DirectWay has a few) and it is approximately 22,300 miles away.

22,300 miles * 4 = 89,200 miles

89,200 miles / 186,282 miles per second (speed of light in a vacuum) = 0.4788 s = 479ms

500ms is close enough for government work :)

If you want more accurate than that one would have to factor in the part of the trip that takes place in the atmosphere (and the change in atmosphere), but that will only raise the latency.

I'm not sure if your post was meant to be a flame, but I thought I'd respond in case someone was too lazy to do the math.

Re:What's your experience? (Starband)

[Tisha_AH]

Same here, I am a Starband user. The connection is two way. Up and down through the satellite. The DL speed gets up to about a Meg/sec, UL speed runs about 50-100K. It's fine as long as it doesn't rain (like it is right now). In far northeast Alabama (aka.. redneck) DSL and Cable access are far off. (BellSouth said "never", Comcast said "in a few years"). The 360 Modem (satellite TX/RX unit with a USB and 10 base port) is trouble free. I want to stick the feed horn on a large, second-hand C band dish to cut through the rain fade. When there are no other choices then satellite is the only way to go. BTW, gaming is damed near impossible and the system hates NAT forwarding (VPN for work). I have a Sun Blade indirectly attached to the network via a junky 486 as a firewall.

Satellite Internet STINKS -- from one who knows

[Anonymous Coward]

First off, no, you don't need a modem to upload -- that's the old version of the system. It's been replaced by a kinder, gentler version of internet Hell.

Since July I've been working for a DISH dealer to get the new version of DISH's internet service working. It kinda-sorta works ok for a single winDoze pc, but they don't support *nix or Macs at all. And the multi-computer solution 1) is a pain in the wazoo to set up and 2) fails frequently. Oh, the hours I've wasted troubleshooting this garbage. Download speeds register pretty high at www.dslreports.com, but it doesn't feel very fast on even a well-equipped PIII.

The multi-user version costs more and *requires* a custom version of WinProxy. It will NOT work with hardware routers/NATs because of proprietary code that encodes/decodes signals (another set of executables that are win32 only). As far as I can tell, the only purpose of this software is to limit the number of users (prevent piracy) and not to "speed up the connection" as the manual states.

Dealers can make a tidy profit on those not fortunate enough to get local DSL or cable service; but for $70/month, you'd expect faster speeds. I'd rather spend the money on lapdances, because you at least know beforehand you'll be getting teased.

I saw the DirectTV solution in place at one of my other clients. It's also pretty madcap, requires 2 router boxes & 2 dishes (one for sending, one for receiving). Also it cannot be shared through a hardware router (NAT) because their system only supports a single connection.

Re:Satellite Internet STINKS -- from one who knows

[duffbeer703]

I recentely setup Direcway (the DirectTV service) for my parents and was very impressed.

You get one dish with a transmit and receive line feeding into do decoders in the house. DirectTV only supports Windows and MS Internet Connection Sharing.

The download speeds are very high (as high as 2MB/s) but are capped. When your bandwidth usage exceeds the cap, they start capping your transfer rates and eventually turn off access for a couple of hours.

I had success setting up a proxy server, which works effectively up to about 5 users, at which point the slow upload speeds make usage difficult.

You forgot one...

[Mr2001]

• They live in a small rural town, and the cable company doesn't offer internet (and likely won't for quite some time
• They live in a small rural town, and the phone company doesn't offer DSL (and likely won't for quite some time
• They live several miles outside of a rural town, and the only option is dial-up or satellite (my parents fall into this category - they live 5miles outside a Wisconsin town of 2600. No broadband anywhere!

• They live near a medium-sized city, but not quite near enough for the local monopolies.

I live a couple miles from downtown Spokane, Washington (2nd largest city in the state; about 1/3 the population of Seattle) and there's no DSL or cable modem available for me or any of my neighbors. Qwest stops offering DSL about 3000 feet from my house, and AT&T Broadband has been promising that cable Internet will come "in a few months" for the past two years.

To bad i'm stuck with 14.4....

[pSyCo5319]

Too bad that with my phone lines, I get 14.4 connection. no cable/dsl (although i hear at&t is getting cable ready for Jan 1st... probobly not in my neighborhood...). And I ordered DirecWay, but the installer wouldn't install because of the trees *even though we have dish network!* So look at me mom! A fucking toaster could give me the ping of death...

We've got one in europe

[Smid]

I know, because I work on the hub technology development.

Its been live for about 6 months, over 1000 customers according to what I've been told.

There has been a large canadian corporation which has been taking tenders for providing access over the US/Canada for over a year now. They just keep asking and then doing nothing.

Whether they are waiting for the technology to be proven or whether they just ran out of money, I don't know, but if they are interested, they are moving like a snail...

But the reality is that it will be probably high costed (relatively) at first. But a lot of the customers are resellers of access, so I believe theres money in getting a terminal and localised isp'ing some customers.

Re:We've got one in europe

[Anonymous Coward]

In Europe (Astra coverage) there is also Europe Online (www.europeonline.com) which provides 1 way satellite access + multicast services. FileFetch is great, request any file from the internet and you can get it (about a day) later over the satellite - you do not have to be online at the time. Pretty cheap too, especially if you manage to find one of the cheap DVB cards with teh service bundled.

Eutelsat OpenSky

[zorgaliscious]

I work for OpenSky and can tell you that we have an amazing system that has been available for a while. We support Linux (as long as you have a DVB card that has Linux drivers) and are planning a MacOS X client and support as well. For the time being it's one-way (asymetric) but our clients are happy (we offer up to 2mbps down) and will be using open standards in the future as well. Just to let you know, all our engineers and platform is done on Linux ;-) We like Open standards and will be adopting as much openness as possible. For the time being we are Europe, North Africa, and Middleast and with yesterday's launch of W5 (covered on Slashdot too http://slashdot.org/articles/02/11/21/0055233.shtm l?tid=160 )we are going to be looking at other markets. Just to say it, OpenSky is not only internet, but also *real* streaming channels (no buffering or anything... real TV channels through the DVB card) and also Push that can transmit any data (movies on demand, software, etc). The best thing about Streaming and Push is that you do NOT need an UP channel. You just need a receiver.

Re:Eutelsat OpenSky

[Anonymous Coward]

A similar (better?) service is offered by Europe Online - see comment above.

Miles?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot submissions should not be accepted if it inlcudes any measurements in the redneck unit systems, i.e., miles, inches, feet, etc.

NextNet

[Anonymous Coward]

You should look into the non-line of sight wireless broadband that NextNet is producing.

Re:Satellite is too slow - WRONG!

[cruachan]

I have a satellite connection and it runs fine for web browsing, but you have to set it up correctly.

Windows by default sets simultanious connections to 3, so every time you browse a web page it can only get three items at a time. With no latency that isn't a problem, but on a satellite it's pretty grim.

So you up the connections to 25 (your sat. sofware should do this, but if your browing on a network pc which isn't the gateway then it obviously doesn't). Now instead of a multiple fetch-display-fetch cycle on each page you usually get the whole page in one go.

This does make for odd broadband. Instead of going to a page and it coming back bit by bit you open the page, there's a short latency, then bam - everything arrives back - but the net effect is no slower than 'normal' broadband.

There's other refinments you can make on tcp packet size and other parmeters, but connections is the main one.

Good Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

I must say you got a lot of fishes with that one. I admire you L1T3 TROLLing 5K1lls YO. YOu MaD crazY.

Not this particular satellite!

[rbird]

There won't be any internet access provided by this particular satellite. Echostar IX has a grand total of one Ka-band transponder. The rest are Ku or C-band. This is not nearly enough bandwidth to provide any sort of widespread service. The consensus over at DBSForums is that Echostar IX will be a test bed for future Ka-based services (which may include both internet access and HDTV programming). Echostar has 96 Ka-band licenses spread over two orbital locations. This WILL be enough to provide both video and data services (someday).

Bob

Bytes

[bill_mcgonigle]

B is byte, b is bit.

I can see stupid people posting as AC's, but what are we going to do when moderators don't know what a Byte is (this comment is +2 right now)?

WE've had it for ages

[Anonymous Coward]

In the UK, we've had satellite broadband for a while, with the Shetland Islands (very very remote) having access to it. In fact the scottish government and northern Ireland Assemblies give a credit against the cost of installation, and IT IS BI-DIRECTIONAL!!!, its also rather fast If your in the UK, you can't get cable or adsl, then try this, though it is from BT openworld Link here, so don't expect it to stay reliable or provide any form of customer support: never try have an arguement with them about postfix, they think its those yellow sticky notes!

Another cool thing...

[speleo]

...about two-way satellite Internet is that it can be mobile. I have one of these and it's pretty cool--you can surf from anywhere: http://www.furfly.net/winnebago/

With the Directway commerical plans the upload is still pretty slow but the downlink can exceed T1 speed. But, like cable modem, you're sharing the connection with large numbers of people and during peak hours the connection slows down.

What about ACK's?

[leeet]

I always wondered how someone could get decent speed on these things?

Everytime you receive a packet, you have to send an ACK back. Of course, this is a small packet and can make it easily through dial-up, but couldn't that be a bottleneck? Could download speed be affected in such a way? Let's say you can't keep up with sending ACKs, then the sender will re-transmit and this will cause more bandwith for nothing, causing slow downs as well.... Any thoughts?

BTW, I was told that you get pretty bad ping latency, so online gaming isn't to your advantage...

Re:What about ACK's?

[WhaDaYaKnow]

TCP doesn't send an ACK for every packet.

Try this link for more info

Cheers

Re:Satellite is too slow - WRONG?

[tuxlove]

That is a good optimization, of course, but you still have the .5 second latency for round-trip packets. That means a TCP SYN sequence takes about a second, and then you can start pushing data. That takes at least another second or so. But, if you do lots of concurrent connections, it will indeed reduce the total wait for the entire page load.

And games will still suck.

Re:Satellite is too slow - WRONG?

[cruachan]

It's very true that it doesn't work for games, and video conferencing isn't much good either (although I've heard there is a few tricks that can be pulled that can make this acceptable). One particular pain from my viewpoint is that neither VNC or pcAnywhere runs well either.

However on average, if you optimise as suggested, web browsing is no worse than conventional broadband. P2P, internet radio, file downloading, ftp and virtually everything else I can think of works fine at excellent speeds. That's 98% of what I do on the net.

In fact, with my sat connection I have considerably more bandwidth (512kb uncontended, 2Mb burst) than ADSL users. Not that that's an option in the middle of the Scottish Highlands where I live :-)

Re:Satellite is too slow - WRONG?

[tuxlove]

Hey, I might actually consider dumping both my cable and DSL for satellite if I got a chance to live in the highlands. At least in summer. Sounds worth it to me.

Last Post!

[alpg]

Waving away a cloud of smoke, I look up, and am blinded by a bright, white
light. It's God. No, not Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds, but God. In
a booming voice, He says: "THIS IS A SIGN. USE LINUX, THE FREE UNIX SYSTEM
FOR THE 386.
-- Matt Welsh

- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...