Bill Pitz wrote:
>
> droo wrote:
>
>>
>> On Sun, 25 Sep 2005 15:59:56 -0400, Ryan Stewart
>> <dapurplert@dakota-durango.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Directv uses a satellite receiver. ANYONE can get it. My friend who
>>> can't get DSL or Cable has it. Works pretty good (not quite as good as
>>> most cable/DSL and useless for online gaming) but it betas the holy hell
>>> outta dialup. Weather does affect it, but not as bad as you think.
>>>
>>> Think he is paying 59.99 a month though.....
>>
>>
>>
>> OIC. I just checked their website and they6 mention that in small
>> print at th ebottom that if DSL is not available. So what is the
>> deal. Is the uplink a dialup connection?
>
>
> That's the way it used to work when the service was first made
> available. I think there are still a number of offerings that use
> dial-up as the uplink connection.
>
> However, most vsat services available now are 2-way. As with DSL, the
> download speeds that are available (and technically possible) are much
> greater than the upload speeds. As was already mentioned, it's next to
> useless for games or most other applications that are very latency
> sensetive. You're looking at a minimum of ~600ms latency, often more,
> simply due to the physical round-trip that the packet must make.
> "Acceleration" based on transparent web proxies, packet spoofing, and
> header modification make most applications like HTTP work reasonably
> well. File transfers are plenty fast as well, since the raw bandwidth
> is present -- there's just a mild delay.
>
> Most of what I work with is commercial grade stuff, quite a bit more
> sophisticated (and faster, more expensive, etc.) than the DirecTV
> "DirecWay" service. For residential users with no other option, it's a
> good route to go. There are also a number of companies popping up that
> are using Surfbeam gear on Ka-band spot beams (main benefit = smaller
> dish required) at extremely reasonable rates (relatively speaking). The
> end-user gear for Surfbeam-based services is quite a bit cheaper because
> it's based on DOCSIS (the cable modem standard) rather than the
> proprietary systems used by most other manufacturers. Surprisingly,
> despite the various complications, it's become quite possible to
> implement applications like VoIP over satellite links with quite amazing
> results.
>
> The one thing to keep in mind with virtually any residential satellite
> link (unless you're paying through the teeth for dedicated bandwidth) is
> that they are going to be WAY oversubscribing the total bandwidth
> available. Much more so than with DSL or cable services. This is
> because their actual costs for the satellite bandwidth are astronomical
> compared to access to copper/fiber. Clever design and management of the
> network makes this pretty transparent to most users, though.
>
> -Bill
>
One application I have wondered about is RV campers. You know those
people whose permanent address is a mailboxes etc. or an RV park.
Plenty of RV's have satellite dishes, and have learned how to align them
every night, I suppose it couldn't be any more difficult to do with an
internet connection. But then I suppose the real purpose of living like
that is to remain off the grid....
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Oct 01 2005 - 12:50:23 EDT