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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 The big news is that based on this 'new evidence' the FCC has rescinded their revocation of Echostar's license.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?"
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
How about some hardcore 802.11b. All you need is a coffee can and an old satellite dish.
Hardcore 802.11b
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.
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?)
Look a monkey!
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.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
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.
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.
... 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.
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
I'm glad to see that there are more options opening up, but the latency of satellite Internet is something that cannot be fixed.
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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.
Why? To push him over the edge?
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
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).
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Since no other broadband option was available I use Direcway. Here are my current stats:
t tp://www.broadbandreports.com/faq/satellite
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
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- 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.