Satellite Internet for Gaming?

SphericalCrusher asks: "I have been using Comcast high-speed internet for the last three years. Before that, I used Bellsouth DSL and then random dial-up services — but I have to say that overall, I love Comcast the best. Now that my parents are moving, to a new house some 12 miles away, and having no money for my own place, I'll have to move with them . The thing is, the road that it is on is pretty far off the highway, and after calling all broadband providers in the area, I've found out that broadband is not available at my new location. Charter Cable Communications covers the entire area of Summerville, Georgia except mine and neither Bellsouth or Alltel offer DSL. Now, I'm forced to either go back to dial-up or try out a satellite broadband service, which is what I want to do. Has anyone here had any success in gaming online with satellite internet?" "After purchasing the modem and cords off of eBay for DirecWay (now HughesNet), I'm ready to get satellite internet (we had everything else we needed at the new house). However, has anyone here used satellite and actually enjoyed it? I play a good bit of online games, such as World of WarCraft, Quake IV, and F.E.A.R. and I know gaming online with those will not be the same (the satellite is 25,000+ miles from Earth) because of latency issues. Will the high latency seriously affect the overall download and upload speeds?"

Comments

Do the math.

[Lord Kano]

The Clarke band is 22,500 miles above the earth. For each outgoing packet, the data has to make the round trip of ~45,000 miles. Light travels at approximately 186,000 miles per second.

45,000/186,000 = 241.9(rouded)MS of latency for each outgoing packet. Under optimum conditions a ping will take 848.8 MS to return. Now that's just to their uplink center. Add in another 60 - 200 MS of latency for other servers. You're looking at upwards of one second, over 1,000 MS of latency for any game that you play. Obviously it is of no use for a "gamer". Unless you're playing internet chess, steer clear because you're going to get better response times from dialup.

LK