How Good Is A Satellite Internet Connection?

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starhawk

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My mother currently has a 56k modem that *never* gets above 40kbps... which it got to *once*. Usually it runs at 34.6kbps, with occasional peaks to 38kbps.

We cannot get DSL in our area, but apparently there is some sort of satellite connection that we could get. My mother is considering getting this.

What I would like to know is... is it worth it, or is satellite Internet total crap?
 
the down is ok, the upload just plain sucks. my uncle had sat when DSL wasnt avaliable, its expenisve and its not that fast, but def better than a 56k... as soon as DSL was aval in his area he got rid the sat and went DSL, very happy with the switch

sometimes the sat would go out in the rain or really bad weather, something to think about...
 
I'm pretty sure its complete crap. You can't even think about gaming with it. It might be faster, but it is not worth the insanely high price
 
here's the speed:

3072 kbps downloads / 256 kbps uploads

it'll never get used for gaming... but mother is an attorney with the appelate defender's office (juvenile law div.), so she's constantly looking up 35-page word files, criminal records, and the like.

she also has all the technical computer knowledge of my left shoe :D
 
I had the old direcpc one-way sat, it did about 80kb/s down in real usage and used a modem to upload. You have to go into "terrestrial" mode in order to game with, which is modem only. So dont expect a good ping with sat, for just dling its good when compared to a modem when no other broadband availiable.

As for the two way system, its the same thing except you have another dish to upload with at nice speeds. Still sucks with gaming, (sending small packets of data quickly is different from downloading something)
 
starhawk said:
3072 kbps downloads / 256 kbps uploads
Click to expand...
i doubt youll get those speeds, especially when it is anything but very clear and sunny out, alot of stuff can interfere with the signal. it is terribly expensive for what you get, but it would be better than a 56k if no other alternative exists
 
I have used sat. before. Im not sure what i had, but i think it might have been 2 way... because we had 3 sat. dishes all together... and 1 was direct TV, the other 2 were black. I actually got my ping down on around 4 CS servers to 100 and under. average like 80.... i was suprised... and i thought that was slow... But now that i see you guys are saying it's REALLY slow. I guess i was lucky.
 
Dumb question, but have you checked if cable is available?

I know when I first moved into my place I was out of reach of DSL but got cable the day after I called. (of course now DSL does reach me but cable's faster for the same price, so screw DSL)
 
Im in the same boat. I am forced to game w/ 56k. Can't get DSL or Cable and Satellite just sucks. Just have to wait and hope my neighborhood gets broadband soon!!
 
Othersider said:
Dumb question, but have you checked if cable is available?

I know when I first moved into my place I was out of reach of DSL but got cable the day after I called. (of course now DSL does reach me but cable's faster for the same price, so screw DSL)
Click to expand...

What are you talking about cable runs upwards of 50$ while dsl is only 30$. My friend got that 10$ bellsouth deal and it isin't half bad.
Anways yeah satallite connections are very slow if you think about it the signal has to go all the way up into space and back down. Thats a pretty long ways their. But as it seems your only option you might as well seeing its faster than 56k, and ive seen people game and such on 56k so it might be worth it?
 
From my experience I'd just stay on 56k if any Telco's or Cable companies are planning to run broadband out to you sooner or later.

Satellite Internet = poop.
 
okay... here's what's availible:

dialup: 34.6kbps, 37.2kbps, or 38kbps. we have gotten 40kbps *once*. $free*
sprint dsl: not availible in our area.
bellsouth dsl: not availible in our area (unless bellsouth does a coup- we're not even in their area)
time warner: not availible in our area.
roadrunner: not availible in our area.
this satellite thing: 3072kbps unless it craps out. $30 or so per month

*my second cousin once removed owns ConnectNC, an isp based out of southern pines, nc (it's near pinehurst) since we're relatives, mother and i get free (!) dialup. (they also get free advertising from me in the form of me bragging about them)

oh... AMDXP, how would i find a burstable t1? and how much per month would it cost?
 
i remember when it rained my uncle's connection went kinda limp
 
Kevin003 said:
What are you talking about cable runs upwards of 50$ while dsl is only 30$. My friend got that 10$ bellsouth deal and it isin't half bad.
Anways yeah satallite connections are very slow if you think about it the signal has to go all the way up into space and back down. Thats a pretty long ways their. But as it seems your only option you might as well seeing its faster than 56k, and ive seen people game and such on 56k so it might be worth it?
Click to expand...


That $50 also usualy includes the price of "family" cable (channels 2 - 70). Plus you don't have to have a land line.
 
If you're only paying $30/month for the satellite, you can expect to pay an equipment and installation fee of several hundred dollars. Also, the bandwidth is usually fine on satellite, the latency is what sucks. This is especially true if you have a 2-way satellite connection.

Anyway, I would not suggest satellite unless there is a compelling reason for it other than impatience with the dial-up connection.
 
If you're really set on satellite, check out Wild Blue. They're brand new, but they're supposed to be cheap with good speeds.
 
Megadeth_Guy01 said:
I highly doubt your going to get 3MB down on a satellite connection, I don't even get that on my DSL.
Click to expand...
no, but thats becuase DSL is falling behind, many cable connections go over that nowadays
 
We used to have DirecPC. We were very satisfied with it until DSL became available in our area.

It advertised 400kbps down, and modem speed upload (since we had the one way variety). That sucker could get 200KB/s (that's Kilo-bytes / second) download if you downloaded several things simultaneously. The best you could do with a single download was ~60-70 kb/sec. In any case, it worked great for downloading big files. In order to get these high speeds, you had to tweak a number of TCP/IP settings in windows--which is better optimized for low latency connections by default.

Gaming was crap, latency was extremely high (~500ms). This is due to the laws of physics, and can't be improved. The satellite is 22,300 miles up! Take that, times 2 (up/down) and you got 230ms latency just from the time it takes the signal to go up and back!

But, I can't emphasize this enough, we found that it worked just fine for downloading big files.
 
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