Satellite Internet

Mecha Sonic · Post by **Mecha Sonic** » 18 Feb 2007, 04:43

I'm thinking about getting satellite internet. Everyone says it is bad for gaming, but according to Sefidel, it is better nowadays. Anyone recommend a company? Is HughesNet any good?

Peet · Post by **Peet** » 18 Feb 2007, 04:51

Highly recommendable if you want latency which makes that of dialup look ludicrously small.

grumpy_Bastard · Post by **grumpy_Bastard** » 18 Feb 2007, 05:01

It would help to know where your located, what your expectations are, and how much money you have to blow.

Mecha Sonic · Post by **Mecha Sonic** » 18 Feb 2007, 05:31

Well... I can't give an exact location, but I am in West Virginia. I am hoping to increase my speed tenfold at least, in both upload and download, if possible. Money shouldn't be a problem as my parents' boss may pay for it for the business they work for.

grumpy_Bastard · Post by **grumpy_Bastard** » 18 Feb 2007, 07:26

Mecha Sonic wrote:I am hoping to increase my speed tenfold at least

If you mean speed, as latency:

Satellite internet is not for you, unless your dialup already has 10 second pings. Satellite seems to range anywhere from 800 to 1500ms.

If you mean speed, as throughput :
If (up to) 512k for $50/mo is what your after, go for it.

I havent looked at the specific details of each service, but they really arnt a true service provider. Hughsnet for example, uses NAT which does not provide any true end to end connectivity whatsoever. For this reason alone, I would try and avoid it.

512/128 for 49.95 per month from wildblue
700/128 for 59.99 per month from hughesnet
512/128 for 49.95 per month from starband

I cant remember now, but Im fairly sure all of these providers use NAT, and have monthly bandwidth limits. If there truely is no other option, satellite might be the way to go.

If it were me, I would probably keep a cheap dialup plan, along with satellite, though thats an additional 20-30 per month.

Mecha Sonic · Post by **Mecha Sonic** » 19 Feb 2007, 00:32

I don't do much online gaming, so it's really no big deal. As long as I can play Spring the same or better than with dial-up, I'm fine with satellite.

Comp1337 · Post by **Comp1337** » 19 Feb 2007, 19:42

Games on satellite are nono. The throughput is good, but the latency on signals is horrible.

Mecha Sonic · Post by **Mecha Sonic** » 19 Feb 2007, 23:37

There's a company called StarBand. The download/upload for the Pro service is 1024/256. That should be good for gaming I hope...

Post by **Kloot** » 19 Feb 2007, 23:54

No. Satellite is the worst solution possible for gaming for the simple reason that the signals first have to travel 40K kilometers up and another 40K kilometers down again to get packets to their destination, which at the speed of light takes 300 milliseconds on a good day, and then all the way in reverse to get packets from said destination back to their source, adding another 300 milliseconds of travel-time. What matters is how long it takes for packets to be transferred from A to B to A, not how many are sent per second.

Strategia · Post by **Strategia** » 20 Feb 2007, 00:06

More like <0.4k actually, but your point still stands.

bamb · Post by **bamb** » 20 Feb 2007, 00:11

Well, considering light speed is 300,000 km/s, it takes about over 0.12 s to go to geostationary orbit, which is at 36,000 km. And same back. So maybe 0.3 s extra lag, or 300 ms. I don't know what else then too on top of that, ie at your end or where the signal is relayed to.

Strategia · Post by **Strategia** » 20 Feb 2007, 00:44

bamb wrote:Well, considering light speed is 300,000 km/s, it takes about over 0.12 s to go to geostationary orbit, which is at 36,000 km. And same back. So maybe 0.3 s extra lag, or 300 ms. I don't know what else then too on top of that, ie at your end or where the signal is relayed to.

Problem is that satellites aren't just big mirrors which instantly divert the signal to the ground/next sat, hence the lag. Live news reports via satellite have a three-second lag, even if the report is being made from the parking lot outside the studio building. You can see this especially well with new reporters; they just stand there doing nothing for a few seconds after the anchorperson has stopped speaking, because they first need to receive it and then transmit the response back. More experienced reporters are better at anticipating when the anchor is going to stop speaking, and hence there isn't much of a lag, but sometimes they speak a tad too early or are surprised by an unexpected question at the end of a sentence. But I digress.

grumpy_Bastard · Post by **grumpy_Bastard** » 20 Feb 2007, 01:16

bamb wrote:Well, considering light speed is 300,000 km/s, it takes about over 0.12 s to go to geostationary orbit, which is at 36,000 km. And same back. So maybe 0.3 s extra lag, or 300 ms. I don't know what else then too on top of that, ie at your end or where the signal is relayed to.

4 times a packet has to go up to space in order to just reach the gateway.

http://www.wolfgame.org/crapbox/satellite_innernet.JPG

iamacup · Post by **iamacup** » 20 Feb 2007, 02:10

i thought satelites only downloaded, because you cant transmit through the ionosphere without a really powerfull transmitter.. and i thought that their latency only sucked because they had to use dialup as their upload medium.

i thought they worked like this

1) You send a request via a dialup connection to the satalite server thing
2) The satelite server thing sends your satelite dish the information you requested (FAST)

bamb · Post by **bamb** » 20 Feb 2007, 02:22

grumpy_Bastard wrote:
bamb wrote:Well, considering light speed is 300,000 km/s, it takes about over 0.12 s to go to geostationary orbit, which is at 36,000 km. And same back. So maybe 0.3 s extra lag, or 300 ms. I don't know what else then too on top of that, ie at your end or where the signal is relayed to.
4 times a packet has to go up to space in order to just reach the gateway.

http://www.wolfgame.org/crapbox/satellite_innernet.JPG

Ah you're right of course, the trip is back and forth. So in total 600 extra to your ping just for light speed. :)

Love the pic btw, do you work as an illustrator?

Mecha Sonic · Post by **Mecha Sonic** » 20 Feb 2007, 03:24

Damn it all >_<

grumpy_Bastard · Post by **grumpy_Bastard** » 20 Feb 2007, 04:52

iamacup wrote:i thought satelites only downloaded, because you cant transmit through the ionosphere without a really powerfull transmitter.. and i thought that their latency only sucked because they had to use dialup as their upload medium.

i thought they worked like this

1) You send a request via a dialup connection to the satalite server thing
2) The satelite server thing sends your satelite dish the information you requested (FAST)

They can work like that if thats the service you want. If your after the 2 way service, You would be suprised how far a 1W transmitter fed into a 20+Dbi antenna will get you.

Quanto042 · Post by **Quanto042** » 20 Feb 2007, 08:30

OMG, Mecha, ur avatar makes my EYES BURN! >_<

Mecha Sonic · Post by **Mecha Sonic** » 20 Feb 2007, 09:27

HAHAHAHAHA yeah it's the screaming intern from X-Play...

LOrDo · Post by **LOrDo** » 22 Feb 2007, 01:44

To be honest...I'd rather have dial up.
Use the money you'll save from not having satellite internet and buy a new kickass computer or something.

Spring RTS Engine

Satellite Internet

Satellite Internet