Slashdot Mirror
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."
Do you think he is worried about identity theft?
Surely he's using Tiger by now.
Three hours away from the nearest woman.
I wonder what sites he vists most often?
Bidirectional satellite connections have been available for consumer use for a little over 3 years now (that I am aware of).
I use DirecWay. The Fair Access Policy sucks, you only get a measured amount of bandwidth to use per time slot. Mine is 500 meg per 4 hours. The speed of the transmission is nice. Download speeds can get upto 2000bps and upload varies based on how much money you parley. Mine is 120bps (pitifull I know).
The latency is born from the signal having to leave your satellite dish, upto the geosychronise orbiting satellite, back down to the Network of Operations, out to the Internet, back from the Internet to the NOC, back up to the Geo sat, and finally back down to your satellite dish. All told, the best time for round trip transmission is 0.7 seconds.
All network traffic handshaking is hampered by this high amount of latency. If whatever protocol requires pretty rapid back & forth to be responsive, then it's pretty much guarenteed it will suck with satellite internet service.
-FlynnMP3