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Thinking About Purchasing Satellite Service for A Site

M

MrControversial

Senior member
My company needs a broadband Internet connection from one of its sites but it's in a rural area. So the best solution I could come up with was Earthlink Satellite (and T1, but it was like $900 a month, way out of our range). I've heard about satellite service before, but I've never used it for Internet because it's readily available in my area.

Are any of you familiar with Satellite Internet access and what the cons are? Is it like Satellite TV where on a cloudy day you lose your signal? You know stuff like that. I need a service really bad and this is the most cost effective. The installation cost is $600, but after that it's only $69.95 per month.
 
The stuff I've messed with was just like satellite tv. You lose it on a cloudy day, random leaves kill the signal, ping times range in the 800ms range, upload and download speeds are limited (and sometimes reduced when you transfer too much data)...
 
Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
The stuff I've messed with was just like satellite tv. You lose it on a cloudy day, random leaves kill the signal, ping times range in the 800ms range, upload and download speeds are limited (and sometimes reduced when you transfer too much data)...
Click to expand...

How does it compare to IDSN performance-wise. Other than the drops, how is upload and download speeds in the realworld. The rep I talked to said it was around 500k.
 
I don't know a lot about the Satellite internet connections but I know with Satellite TV if you have your dish calibrated correctly you won't lose signal due to clouds or leaves. Our DirecTV never goes out anymore now that we calibrated it better, even in a hard snow storm we had a few nights ago, still worked fine, no digitization or anything..

Just my .02 cents
 
MrControversial, the satellite Internet service you're contemplating is a consumer, residential, occasionally browsing the web and sending email grade service. It is NOT a business grade service. If you're using it for any real business purpose you will not be happy with it.

$900/month for T1 service to a rural area is reasonable. If your business needs connectivity, it's worth it.
 
Originally posted by: cmetz
MrControversial, the satellite Internet service you're contemplating is a consumer, residential, occasionally browsing the web and sending email grade service. It is NOT a business grade service. If you're using it for any real business purpose you will not be happy with it.

$900/month for T1 service to a rural area is reasonable. If your business needs connectivity, it's worth it.
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agreed.


With satellite you are talking about a MINIMUM latency of 1 SECOND and speed well below a megabit/sec.
 
Another vote for T1 here, especially if you've got more than a handful of users, but...

Originally posted by: MrControversial
How does it compare to IDSN performance-wise.
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Badly - you would find the latency of the satellite annoying. Personally I would much rather have dual ISDN than satellite at twice the speed.


 
DirecWay is also a good provider.

Leaves falling and killing the signal is a bit extreme with what I've experienced, but yes you will lose the signal at times. Especially during heavy storms, overcast days with a thick cloud base, and when high winds move or disrupt the dish.

As far as business uses go, Citrix will run DECENTLY (and I stretch that word) over a good satellite connection. If you're contemplating VPN or anything like that, you'd better think twice. If its for basic web surfing and email, then you can try it out.

I echo what cmetz said: the T-1 is worth it if this is going to be a long-term location and your business really needs good connectivity. $900/mo is not that bad at all for a rural area. Keep in mind that this time last year, T-1 prices right next to the CO were not a whole lot lower than that. Is $900/mo including a loop charge?
 
DirecWay does have "business-level" service plans. I've never used it, but I have a friend who's a certified installer and used it at their home for a while. It has its issues, but can work reasonably well.

While a T1 would certainly be preferable, there ARE tons of small businesses that refuse to pay $900 a month for Internet connectivity. There've been a couple of folks in these Forums lately that are setting up DIAL-UP MODEMS for their business because they can't get DSL or Cable Modem and refuse to pay nearly $1000 a month for high-speed connections. DirecWay is less than $200 for their business-level connections.

And, yeah, a DirecWay connection will suffer from high ping times and other annoying behavior, but it's GOT to beat a dialup modem!
 
>With satellite you are talking about a MINIMUM latency of 1 SECOND and speed well below a megabit/sec.

Several of the satellite services have a highly proprietary TCP/web accelerator thing, where they totally spoof TCP and actually use a proprietary protocol tweaked for the high latency link, and they prefetch web content down the line to help hide the latency. This makes the service work well enough for its intended purpose of residential web and email usage.

The moment a VPN enters the picture, you're in for a lot of pain. SSL isn't necessarily fun either.
 
DirecWay's Business Service Site.

Wow. This is the second time I've explored DirecWay's web site. How can it be SO SLOW??? Are they using Satellite for their web servers? Don't give up. Their site will come up, eventually. 😱

DirecWay FAQ on VPN:
16) Q: Can I run a VPN using DIRECWAY for business?

A. Yes, but running a VPN client over satellite is not an ideal configuration. If you choose to run VPN over satellite, your data speeds may be reduced by as much as 50- 75%. You can restore your connection to full speed by simply disabling your VPN client when your session is over.
Note: DIRECWAY technical support does not provide help with configuring or troubleshooting problems associated with VPN clients.

*** DIRECWAY does offer an end-to-end VPN accelerator solution for large corporations and government agencies. This accelerator delivers higher connection speeds over VPN. Go to vpn.direcway.com for more information.
 
Originally posted by: cmetz
MrControversial, the satellite Internet service you're contemplating is a consumer, residential, occasionally browsing the web and sending email grade service. It is NOT a business grade service. If you're using it for any real business purpose you will not be happy with it.

$900/month for T1 service to a rural area is reasonable. If your business needs connectivity, it's worth it.
Click to expand...

It's a small rural health center with a small budget. My boss cringed at the T1 monthly investment so the only other option was satellite. Is the performance better or worse than ISDN?
 
Originally posted by: Boscoh
DirecWay is also a good provider.

Leaves falling and killing the signal is a bit extreme with what I've experienced, but yes you will lose the signal at times. Especially during heavy storms, overcast days with a thick cloud base, and when high winds move or disrupt the dish.

As far as business uses go, Citrix will run DECENTLY (and I stretch that word) over a good satellite connection. If you're contemplating VPN or anything like that, you'd better think twice. If its for basic web surfing and email, then you can try it out.

I echo what cmetz said: the T-1 is worth it if this is going to be a long-term location and your business really needs good connectivity. $900/mo is not that bad at all for a rural area. Keep in mind that this time last year, T-1 prices right next to the CO were not a whole lot lower than that. Is $900/mo including a loop charge?
Click to expand...
For comparison T1 at our Downtown location is around $320 a month which is what we pay for business class DSL.

 
Originally posted by: MrControversial
Originally posted by: cmetz
MrControversial, the satellite Internet service you're contemplating is a consumer, residential, occasionally browsing the web and sending email grade service. It is NOT a business grade service. If you're using it for any real business purpose you will not be happy with it.

$900/month for T1 service to a rural area is reasonable. If your business needs connectivity, it's worth it.
Click to expand...

It's a small rural health center with a small budget. My boss cringed at the T1 monthly investment so the only other option was satellite. Is the performance better or worse than ISDN?
Click to expand...

what kind of traffic are we talking about?

VPN? database access?

Web surfing?


If so, how many users
 
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