internet/email via satellite

In My Humble Opinion
1

So who has some experience or information about getting your internet and email through satellite connection, rather than dial-up or dsl or other more common methods?

I live and work far enough from any population centers that it will be many years, if ever, before any kind of high-speed hard-wired connection is available, and I was wondering what kind of other options might be out there. It would be great for my work, too, if we could provide a half-dozen or so connections for customers visiting here, without having to pay for a separate phone line for each one, for example.

Pablito

2

The way I understand it is that satelite connections stream a certain amount of data at a time, making it impossible to play MMORPGs, streamed news clips, movies, etc. But if all you are using it for is email and work, it sounds like a good option. I know it is a little faster than phone, but I am not sure how much. That’s all I know about it.

3

You can get satellite connections that are as fast as you can pay for, if you follow me. More money gets you more speed. In the past, satelite were just download and you used a phone line for uploading, but now they work both directions. And the sinlge biggest drawback, for some at least, is the lag time which will make it impossible to play games and things that require quick responses.

4

DaddyTimesTwo is exactly right, the only issue is the latency involved with sending the signal up and back down through the satellite.

Some things just won’t work very well, if at all. Multi-player games that require real-time interaction won’t work. Virtual Private Networking (IPsec VPN) probably won’t work (and MS networking inside it definitely won’t). Two-way video conferencing and Internet telephony won’t work.

On the bright side, if cable modems and DSL aren’t an option, it is about the only cost effective broadband solution.

Surfing the web on dial-up is like: click, wait, quarter of a page, wait, half the page, wait, three-quarters of the page, wait, the page.

Surfing on DSL/cable modem is like: click, wait, the page.

Surfing on satellite is like: click, wait, wait, the page.

Streaming video works just fine, btw.

Also, it has some other benefits. Satellites, by their nature, broadcast. Every piece of data that is sent to your computer is also sent to every other dish tuned to that satellite transponder. It is up to your “satellite modem” to figure out what data should be forwarded to your computer. Because of this, satellite providers can offer things that regular ISPs can’t (or don’t).

For example, when I was using satellite internet, the system allowed you to “subscribe” to certain websites (like USA Today, and other media sites). The satellite service would broadcast the entire (current) content of the site overnight, and if you were subscribed, all that data would be stored in a cache on your local harddrive. In the morning, when you went to look at that site, all the data was on your local drive, and there was no delay at all in displaying it. Pretty cool, actually.

Bottom line: If you have no other options, want broadband, and are willing to pay their fee (which is comparable to DSL, IIRC), and don’t require realtime interactive applications, go for it!