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VoIP for Deployed Soldiers?
rickbassham asks: "With VoIP really catching on these days, I decided to look into it for keeping deployed soldiers in touch with family and friends. I am currently a soldier in Iraq, and have the ability to get satellite-based internet, thanks to a few of the locals. While individually it is prohibitively expensive, a group of soldiers can come together to purchase a decent-to-high-speed internet connection. One of my plans is to link other soldiers to Vonage or another VoIP provider, so they will be able to keep in touch. Understanding the latency issues with VoIP via satellite (not to mention the other disadvantages), what upload speed does Slashdot recommend as a minimum for a QoS enabled connection for about 15-20 soldiers? The same for a non-QoS connection? What recommendations do you have for a good VoIP provider?"
Skype No pesky service fees as long as all involved have accounts, or you can call for a low low rate, 1.7 Euro a minute.
I hate sigs.
Latency on sat connections can be upwards of 900ms... I don't think VoIP is going to like that very much at all.
+ G to tha Izzo, A to tha Tizee, Talking Giz-oat, Ya'll Bettah Feel Me... +
When you're talking about several thousand milliseconds of latency, all the bandwidth in the world isn't going to make your VoIP any better. If it takes 2000ms from when the packet leaves your VoIP provider until when it gets to you, no matter what you do, your conversation is going to have a 2000ms delay..
;)
unless I'm wrong, which I'm pretty sure I'm not, but if I am, please post back! I'm sure my VoIP customers would most appreciate it
While I can't really comment on voice over IP as I've never used it I have read a lot about over the Broadband Reports forums. You may want to stop by and ask your question there.
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/voip
At least on Navy bases, the phone starts at $1 a minute in the Gulf (satphone). Having internet if you get a villa in Bahrain or something WOULD be hugely expensive.
Lot of guys live lots of different ways there.
The problem here is that the per minute costs are still very expensive, and VoIP wouldn't be.
The latency isn't the end of the world, it is jitter that is really a concern. Geo satelites have been used for voice for a long time, and while somewhat anoying, are perfectly usable.
While possible offtopic would like to warning the poster though he mentions he is getting a commerical line.
.... watch your ass, with all going on your don't need a ART15.
As a former theatre level Information Assurance Manager, VOIP works through the great DOD firewall in the sky (to include SWA). I know the current IAM and while he is a good guy, you never know when command is going to get in the mood to bust troopers for stupid shit (like non AKO IM). VIOP is against AR 25-2 and CENTCOM 25-260
De Oppresso Liber
Vonage says this about satellite internet:
Yes, our service generally works with DSL Satellite Internet connections or any Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) device (i.e. your home router). DSL requires Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) authentication "username & password" to access the Internet so you will have to configure your Vonage adapter or home router for this service. There may be some latency inherent on a satellite connection or line of sight issues that could affect audio quality when making calls through the Vonage service. Our calls require 90 kbps of consistent upload/download speed to make and receive calls through the Vonage network.
G.711 only works up to about 250ms each way. After that your MOS score will go down and the voice will just plain start to suck.
G.729 which is smaller in size can handle only about 125ms one way delay before it breaks down and its MOS score will drop off.
Also factor in that human speech typically assumes a pause of about 500ms a change of speaker you could have shitty voice quality with people talking over each other because they thought the other person had stopped speaking.
I used VoIP in Iraq/Kuwait when I was there.
Worked great. As long as you only go through 1 sat hop, it really wasn't that bad. It's better than nothing. I used packet8 out there btw.
Back in the US,
ChiefArcher
Actually,
the shortwave community can still make this happen, and does. I live in Chicago. Using a Sony ICF 2010 shortwave reciever a couple years back I picked up a military transport over Newfoundland. The soldiers on the plane were returning from Afghanistan. They were communicating with a HAM in Iowa, who was then patching them through for 1 minute conversations to family to let them know their arrival time in Washington. Pretty neat actually, and purely accidental that I heard the transmission as i was running up and down the dial listening for interesting things.
jeff
I would test-drive your VoIP provider of choice over the connection before you drop the bucks, if VoIP is a make-or-break.
I've had both satellite Internet (Starband...yeeech) and Vonage (after I was able to get cable). While I love Vonage, I would not want to dream of that over satellite latency.
On top of that, a 2-directional satellite system is unlikely to have the upstream bandwidth to make this smooth. Vonage has a "bandwidth saver" that you can enable, but that might be like pissing in the ocean.
That being said, a high-speed, albeit high-latency connection is a very very good thing(tm) even without voice.
Your bandwidth is still limited, so some traffic shaping and transparent http proxying might be in order.
For the communications side of it, perhaps set up a (possibly private) IRC channel where your buddies and family can hang out. You could even setup a local IRC server on your gateway box and link it with an ircd in the states. Don't know how much bandwidth you would save, but it would be cool.
My hats off to you and all of our fighting forces. Whether the war is just or not is an issue with the government, you guys go in harm's way every day.
ITU-T recommendations for toll-quality voice are 150ms round-trip latency which you've got Buckley's chance of getting across a Sat link. That being said, if your expectations are that you are using a Satellite phone, then much higher figures might be quite acceptable. I second the vote for Skype. The iLBC codec it uses degrades very gracefully over low-quality links.
I work for a VoIP company that sells wholesale termination to customers in various coutries around the globe. Many of our customers come from locations where a landline isn't an option, and use satellite to carry their VoIP to us. From their experience we can say that on average, you're going to be able to handle about 7 simultaneous calls per 128Kbits of upstream. The calls themselves only take up about 12Kbits (each direction) per call, but there will be other data you're likely to be contending with that will eat up some of your available bandwidth.
As others have said, latency is going to be a problem, but from that part of the world, your likely already experience the joys of satellite latency in your "normal" calls. Again, our experience here is that as long as you can keep your latency below about 750ms you're going to have usable calls. A big factor here is the number of satellite hops your provider is send you through. A single hop will keep you under 750, while two hops will generally break the 1000ms barrier.
Anyway, hope those numbers help you in your considerations, and take care.
> From what I understand from the one guy I know that just returned from Iraq the
> locals over there want absolutely NOTHING to do w/the military personnel
> stationed in the desert
Depends on where in Iraq you are. Iraq is a very divided country; in some spots, you're quite safe as a soldier (even an American soldier, although being a foreign soldier is better). In others, even leaving your base in an armored vehicle is risking your life. It all depends. But in general, yes, most Iraqis according to polls don't want us there; over 80% of Sunnis and almost 70% of Shiites, and almost half of Sunnis think that attacks on US forces are justified (according to the last Zogby poll). Looks like UIA (SCIRI, Dawa, etc) are going to be asking the US to stay, as the ING only has about 5,000 people who are actually combat ready (despite the fact that plank #2 on their platform was to demand a timetable for the US to leave). A lot of their supporters have expressed anger at this change in stance.
But yeah... back to the original question, I wouldn't dream of VoIP via Satellite; it's not an issue of upload speed as the soldier asking the question wanted to know, but the latency. Unless the Iraqis are offering to improve the speed of light, VoIP will always be quite laggy. IM works nice, though - I've chatted with a friend in LSA Anaconda over ICQ.
"That's Nietzsche. He killed my father." -- Jesus, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
One of the PCs on my home network hosts a Ventrilo http://ventrilo.com/ server (very minor overhead.) My group of friends installed the small client software and connect to a password protect "chat" room.
Push-to-talk and voice-activated modes are offered. The client software offers enough options to (possibly) intimidate new users, but once configured it is as easy as it gets.
However, a previous post mentioned the use of AIM to communicate with troops overseas. Many IM clients are now integrating voice/video communication. I believe MSN offers voice and video, and I think AIM has voice as well.
For PC voice communication, I suggest using a decent mic in a fixed location as well as a pair of headphones. The new Logitech webcam I have offers cool face-tracking features as well as an integrated mic.
Question to all: anyone aware of a Windows VOIP app that integrates strong encryption?? I believe Nero's SIPPS http://www.nero.com/us/632232585951420.html/ offers this feature, but I'm looking for an Open Source product. Free would be nice. Anyone??
Como? Cuando? Que?
I've successfully used Cisco's VOIP Communicator software running over a dial-up 56k connection (so thats 53k max down and 33.6k max up). It wasn't great quality, but it was tolerable.
Jitter is definitely the kicker for VOIP, delay isn't that big of a deal. It takes some getting used to in regular conversation to have a >200ms delay, but I'd say anything under 1500ms could be tolerable with some experience.
Casca
Recently home from the great sandbox! The way we did it was through our conractor friends. They had access to VOIP, I'm sorry I don't remember what brand however. I know they were relying on Satellite to transmit as well. Anyways, good luck over there! Oh, and join the AF, we have plenty of DSN lines.. :)
I saw this post and felt I should reply to address some misconceptions about voip and satellite. As CTO of an Iraqi ISP http://www.tigrisnet.net/ who offer wireless broadband service throughout Baghdad and Basra, I have many customers who are like you, groups of soldiers who got together to buy a connection for their barracks.
Our wirless broadband is fed by dedicated bandwidth over C-band satellite so the latency to our NOCs in downtown Baghdad and Basra is around 550ms but absolutely constant and reliable at that rtt, unlike VSAT services which are normally heavily contended and can indeed show wildly varying ping times in the 1000-2000ms range, indeed very bad for VOIP, either SIP or skype wont like that.
Of course round trip time is twice the delay that will affect voice calls, as voice delay is only the "throw" from my phone to your phone for a RTP packet. So around 1/4 sec of one-way delay makes for very acceptable voice quality.
Well.. I could be wrong on this but.. I think the service
he mentions uses Intelsat which are in geosynchonous orbits
that put them about 35,800 Km away. Up and back puts it at
71,600 Km, or about 0.238s or 238ms at light speed. As
already mentioned there is additional lag for the entire
system, hardware <-> satellite.
I've used VoIP on geo-sat links and you don't have to go half-duplex. Sometimes you do have to say "over" if your talking to someone who isn't used to a 2-second delay and doesn't know how to handle it, but most people get used to it quickly once they understand they need to shut up and listen longer.
The previous sig has been removed due to
"Also, in WWII at least; letters to home were free, no stamp."
still the case today, they just write "free mail" in the top corner where a stamp would be.The Adult Happy Meal - "I'm lovin' it!"
Sorry, but you really don't know what you're talking about in this situation.
The milnet has limited bandwidth for a whole lot of uses. One of the things thats transferred is real time audio/video from drones and other planes/helicopters doing recon and search and destroy work. Theres always the communications chatter going on between all the teams out and about, etc. All of this also gets looped back to the Pentagon.
For the folks that run the satellites for milnet, they get about 15 minutes of "free time" online a day and the most bandwidth intensive thing they can use is AIM.
Ok, I need to shut my mouth at this point and pay attention to OPSEC even though all that info is freely available on AFN...