Really Remote Internet Access

RexDart writes "The BBC Online has profiled Duane DeFreitas, an adventurer and guide living in Guyana. He's three hours away from the nearest town (in the dry season; three days away when it's raining), yet has full internet access via satellite. His latest project: setting up Skype for phone service, as soon as he can import a microphone and speakers. Yet more proof that the internet is truly everywhere. Mind the jaguar."

Comments

Mic & Speakers

[fembots]

setting up Skype for phone service, as soon as he can import a microphone and speakers

Is there a software which turns text into audio for Skype, and turns audio from Skype into text? Can the normal text-to-speech software do that for Skype?

To him it'll be like an IM client, but the other party might enjoy talking/listening instead of typing.

Re:Performance of Skype over Sat?

[epiphani]

I looked at satalite access a few years ago when I was looking at buying a house too far out of town to get broadband.

Geosynchronous Orbit is at 35,786 Kilometers. It takes light 120ms to get from earth to a geosync satalite. (source).
Hence, 240ms round trip. Back and forth, you to your provider. Another 240ms to get a responce.

The only reason I'd consider satalite access would be for bulk downloads. 540ms on an ssh session would quickly drive me insane.

So add that half second to whatever routing overhead there is involved in skype (I usually see about .3 to .6 of a second delay, talking to people within a few hundred kilometers). I'd say, all in all, pretty crappy experience.

But its better than nothing I suppose.

IP over Ham

[cyberfunk2]

I've heard you can do IP over shortwave radio (i.e. Ham Radio), would this be a reliable/ reasonable option in this case?

In what cases does that sort of system work? Is it high bandwidth ?

I'm hoping for some knowledgable Ham slashdotter here.