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Anyone use Satellite to connect to the internet?

zbalat

zbalat

Platinum Member
Direcway is offering two way satellite dish claiming 128K upload 400K download for $59.99 per month (I have to buy the dish). I have no other option other than dial up where I live.

Do any of you have or know someone that has satellite internet access? If so can you please give me some real world up/downstream numbers?


Thanks in advance
 
No matter how fast a Satellite dish ISP is, you're still going to get a ~200-300ms lag time/ping due to the time it takes for the data to travel up to the satellite and back to you. Meaning, you're always going to have a 200-300ms ping in games.
However, if it?s your only option, I would recommend you take it. It?s generally slower than they quote though...but still faster than dial-up.
 


<< you're still going to get a ~200-300ms lag time/ping due to the time it takes for the data to travel up to the satellite and back to you. >>



I wish! Pings average 650ms on a good day. Remember the data request travels from your computer to the sat to the ground station and the from the ground station to the sat to you!

I have Starband, It works ok as a download service I average 500K down but only 30-60K up. during Peak usage speed decreases as it's a shared pipe. I recomend it ONLY if you can't get anyother service and ISDN is to expensive or not fast enough for ya. ISDN is availabe in 98% of US homes, but fees vary greatly!
 
i had 1 way DirecTV and avaraged 700-800ms lag. and dont forget about there FAP (fair access policy) can download more then 250 megs in a short period of time or somethin, then they drop ur speed way bellow 56k.
 


<< http://www.anandtech.com/systemrig_stats.html

Internet Stats

Cable: 6810
xDSL: 3647
ISDN: 265
Dial Up: 2986
Wireless: 218
T1: 582
T3: 378
OC3+: 244
Other: 638
It seems like 218 people at AT use wireless. >>

Wireless doesn't mean satellite... I have wireless internet and it's just a form of line of sight connection between a tower (locally) and a transmitter at your house.

I guess I could answer more if anyone wants to know.
 
I have two way directway. Lag is horrible. I can no longer play online games, but I never did much anyway. It is good for downloads, but the upload speed is very poor. Some sample pings:

Pinging forums.anandtech.com [216.151.100.125] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 216.151.100.125: bytes=32 time=856ms TTL=244
Reply from 216.151.100.125: bytes=32 time=742ms TTL=244
Reply from 216.151.100.125: bytes=32 time=796ms TTL=244
Reply from 216.151.100.125: bytes=32 time=779ms TTL=244

Ping statistics for 216.151.100.125:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 742ms, Maximum = 856ms, Average = 793ms



Pinging zdnet.com [128.11.45.117] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 128.11.45.117: bytes=32 time=1438ms TTL=240
Reply from 128.11.45.117: bytes=32 time=1310ms TTL=240
Reply from 128.11.45.117: bytes=32 time=1068ms TTL=240
Reply from 128.11.45.117: bytes=32 time=1692ms TTL=240

Ping statistics for 128.11.45.117:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1068ms, Maximum = 1692ms, Average = 1377ms

Download speeds on my client (ICS) pc tested at pcpitstop.com:
Text Block Size 1000 KB
Transmission Speed 1016 Kb/s

Speeds on Server:
Text Block Size 1000 KB
Transmission Speed 1640 Kb/s

The download is sometimes double these results and sometimes the speed drops off to nothing, but as you can see the download
speeds are not bad at all.

Upload Speed 30 Kb/s
-as usual upload speed is low

Hope this helps. I paid $399 for the hardware and $59 per month last July. It has been Ok, but I did keep my dial-up because it will go down. The only other option I had was shotgun modems (which I had) and Direcway is much better than dual modems.

**edit** I forgot to mention NOC errors, ranging errors, low signal strength, as well as a total system hang if the system is up for more than three days. Many times I am downloading or surfing and it will just cut out and give me a NOC error. I have to reboot the server and recycle the satellite modems. It has slowly been getting better though. Check out www.copperhead.cc for more info. Hope this helps.
 
Satellite Access hasn't really improved any. StarBand and DirecWay are both fairly mediocre ISPs.

"Wireless" access usually doesn't mean satellite. For example, we have a local ISP here that uses 802.11b for wireless access -- so long as you have a direct line of sight to a nearby tower. Unfortunately, the security isn't too good, the speeds are mediocre, and the cost is rather high -- not to mention yet another dish to mount.

Certainly, if it is your only option, go for it. But I wouldn't toss the dial-up if I were you 😀
 
Thanks for the peplies guys. I live in that 2% of the country that can't even get ISDN so I ordered it today I'll keep my dial up ISP as suggested.

Freeway your link convinced me to make the purchase. Thanks.
 
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