Satellite Broadband is it worth it?

Peter

Am thinking of getting the 1Mbps service from AVCbroadband. However since I will still need my dialup connection I'm wondering whether it's worth it. Mainly what I'm wondering is how long it would take to download say a 400MB file on average using Limewire or another program given the queues and download speed.

Thanks for any help,
Pete.

jubbly

can you not get a two way satellite broadband job ?

Creamy Goodness

if you are doing anything latency based i.e gaming stay away that's all i'll say.

SnotNosedGit

I had satellite broadband until i was able to get real broadband.
Most people who tell you to avoid satellite have actually never had it.
My conclusion after a few months using it is that its not as good as real broadband but way way way better than dialup.

I can't stress enough what a leap it is in quality from dialup.

Ok your uploads arent any faster but your downloads and surfing are no different to real broadband.

You cant play games or use voice apps, you still need your own phone line but thats no different to dialup anyway.

You can try avcbroadbands £15 per month service with 256Kbs down for a month and see what you think. Even that is light years ahead of dialup. Then you can upgrade the speed to a more expensive package if you feel the need.



look up avcbroadband and you ca

Blaster99

Perhaps the thing to consider is that unless you live in the darkest corner of nowhere, there will probably be a proper broadband alternative available in the near future so don't go spending massive amounts of money on satellite gear as it's probably only a short term solution.

oscarBravo

Blaster99 wrote:

...unless you live in the darkest corner of nowhere...

...like Afghanistan, say.

BlueShaun

Blaster99 wrote:

Perhaps the thing to consider is that unless you live in the darkest corner of nowhere, there will probably be a proper broadband alternative available in the near future so don't go spending massive amounts of money on satellite gear as it's probably only a short term solution.

you mean like outside the pale, or the other outposts?

where i live(a village of about 600 people) the eircom schedule which i believe runs to end 2007 (GBS sabotage not included) does not even support registering expressions of interest.

1huge1

i live in a town of a few thousand people and we dont have any other choices other than satellite i live in south east limerick and i wouldnt consider it a dark corner in the middle of nowere

SnotNosedGit

I live about 5 miles from Swords and couldnt get broadband.
Eventually was able to get BB via a wireless provider.

Go for the satellite. I dont know anyone who has gone for it and regretted it. Its so much better than what you have.
Anyway, if you get the monthly pay as you go package you can cancel it with no notice as soon as you dont need it anymore.

Your downloads will be exactly the same speed as a similar speed BB connection.
But your uploads will be dialup speed for one-way sat. Which is not a problem for browsing and downloading at all.

BIG TIP : DONT GET SATELLITE BB FROM ANY IRISH PROVIDER - RIP-OFFS
go for one of the ones mentioned in boards like avc or skydsl. I'm sure there are other options too.

netwhizkid

try skydsl i get 1mbps with 1gb download every month for €16.90 i a have to dial-up still but as another poster said don't condemn it until you actually try it, i find it perfect for my needs although i had to defer buying an ipod because of its lack of p2p i planned to buy an ipod and use a program called ares to download my music however as sat broadband don't support p2p i am waiting until dsl becomes available within the next 6 months. Satellite is no good with voip or online gaming either however it is perfect for everything else. With my service you set it to download your favourite web pages "offline" without dialing-up you could set it to say download whatever page at say 7pm or 5am or whatever. These are the best service i found and are the by far the cheapest. Other provider are actually in a few cases only re-selling skydsl for profit. Go direct and save the mulla.

jubbly

Is there any discount on the phone bill or is it a free phone number you connect to ? It would be a bit of a sickener having to pay for the call as well.

jubbly

i see skyDSL is offering download speeds of 16,000 kbps. How fast is this exactly?

is the the same k measurement that you use on the modem when downloading a file form the internet ?

1huge1

16,000kbps =2mbps which is very fast for satellite

jubbly

http://www.mediaroad.com/products/speedcheck/free_tools/
16,000 kbps its a 2mb line. Very fast indeed.

zuma

2MB(yte) line.

Wouldnt mind downloading from that type of connection...large files would fly!!!

jubbly

what is the story with using the phone line to connect then ? do you have to pay for it seperately ? That would be an awful balls

netwhizkid

jubbly wrote:

what is the story with using the phone line to connect then ? do you have to pay for it seperately ? That would be an awful balls

Yes unfortunatly you have to pay for all dial-up costs. I am on Eircoms flat rate 25 package which give 25 off peak hours every month for €9.99 a month. If you have got big internet bills say of a hundred a month or more, 2 way satellite broadband from the likes of digiweb would more suit i think theirs is €99 a month but it costs over a grand to install and set-up i believe. If you were thinking about this or you have huge internet bills. It would be better getting a community project going to get a group and county scheme going instead of paying through the nose. Where abouts are you btw ?

1huge1

could someone tell me what are the broadband providers in hospital co.limerick ive been trying to find them for ages

jbkenn

From DCMNR website County and Group Broadband Scheme

Limerick - Hospital & Knocklong - Ildana Teoranta - Satellite

http://www.ildana.net/


jbkenn

jubbly

Im holding out for Wireless, an engineer is coming thursday to check out the site. I cant see any basestation but its worth a shot. Failiing that its the Satellite. Expensive though

ricey

oscarBravo wrote:

...like Afghanistan, say.

Or Mayo!

oscarBravo

ricey wrote:

Or Mayo!

Considering Inishturk is in the process of setting up a broadband network without having to resort to a satellite connection: nope.

1huge1

jbkenn wrote:

From DCMNR website County and Group Broadband Scheme

Limerick - Hospital & Knocklong - Ildana Teoranta - Satellite

http://www.ildana.net/


jbkenn

thanks for the help mate
i guess ill just wait for wireless (who knows how long that could take)

emmo16

Try http://www.europeonline.com/ They have many packages lots of info on the site

1 year Europe Online E-DSL Service + Satellite Dish 80 cm + Universal Single LNB + DVB PCI Card
299 € plus postage and packing

One year of Europe Online E-DSL Service includes :
500 MB of EOL FastSurf at speeds up to 512 Kbit/s every month !
1 GB of downloads from the Internet every month with File Fetch, plus 1000's of free selected softwares, films, MP3's & games at 2 Mbit/s speed - Guaranteed !
Music television, Sport, Film, Adult, Eurotip at 512 Kbit/s speed - Unlimited Access!
Unlimited access to our DSL Digital Library, our Interactive MediaThek and our
E-Lert service
1 free film every month, & much more.

zuma

emmo16 wrote:

Try http://www.europeonline.com/ They have many packages lots of info on the site

1 year Europe Online E-DSL Service + Satellite Dish 80 cm + Universal Single LNB + DVB PCI Card
299 € plus postage and packing

One year of Europe Online E-DSL Service includes :
500 MB of EOL FastSurf at speeds up to 512 Kbit/s every month !
1 GB of downloads from the Internet every month with File Fetch, plus 1000's of free selected softwares, films, MP3's & games at 2 Mbit/s speed - Guaranteed !
Music television, Sport, Film, Adult, Eurotip at 512 Kbit/s speed - Unlimited Access!
Unlimited access to our DSL Digital Library, our Interactive MediaThek and our
E-Lert service
1 free film every month, & much more.

That looks pretty good!!!

Has anyone here got this package and what do they think of it???

arikv

Cremo wrote:

if you are doing anything latency based i.e gaming stay away that's all i'll say.

Cremo means that there's delay in sat conn. so it's bad for online gaming.

p2kone

are vpn connections possible over satellite broadbands??

oscarBravo

p2kone wrote:

are vpn connections possible over satellite broadbands??

In theory, yes. In practice, the quality of a VPN connection seems to vary from crap to non-existent.

p2kone

so vpn's a nono

the likes of remote desktop and pc anywhere are ok??

oscarBravo

No personal experience, but given the latency I'd imagine it's pretty awful - you're talking about the guts of a second between a keystroke or mouse action and the visual feedback.

jimoc

Just to give a bit of personal experience here.
Our office in Limerick has DSL from Eircom.
Our office in Wicklow has two way satellite from Aramiska. (no LOS for anything else and allegedly too far from the exchange for DSL.)
Don't even think about getting Satellite if you are doing anything except downloading large files or surfing pages.
VPN is useless.
VNC is useless.
PC Anywhere is unusable unless you are used to moving your mouse at a rate of millimetres per second.
VOIP is like using walkie-talkies. After every sentence you will have to say 'Over' then wait for 3 seconds before the person on the other side starts responding.
And as for ssh connections all I can say is, it is possible to make a cup of coffee while waiting for a response from a simple ls -la command
So my advise is, stay far far away from a satellite connection.

1huge1

jimoc wrote:

Just to give a bit of personal experience here.
Our office in Limerick has DSL from Eircom.
Our office in Wicklow has two way satellite from Aramiska. (no LOS for anything else and allegedly too far from the exchange for DSL.)
Don't even think about getting Satellite if you are doing anything except downloading large files or surfing pages.
VPN is useless.
VNC is useless.
PC Anywhere is unusable unless you are used to moving your mouse at a rate of millimetres per second.
VOIP is like using walkie-talkies. After every sentence you will have to say 'Over' then wait for 3 seconds before the person on the other side starts responding.
And as for ssh connections all I can say is, it is possible to make a cup of coffee while waiting for a response from a simple ls -la command
So my advise is, stay far far away from a satellite connection.

just out of curiousity does caherconlish have any bb options other than satellite because hospital is fairly close to it and all we have is satellite and we are a good bit bigger than caherconlish

oscarBravo

Caherconlish has been approved for a group broadband scheme (using fixed wireless, not satellite) under the second call for proposals. The rollout of services should begin in the next few months.

Hospital's satellite scheme was approved under the first call for proposals.

1huge1

what kind of idiots are in charge of our broadband scheme why would we want satellite over wireless or adsl

zuma

1huge1 wrote:

what kind of idiots are in charge of our broadband scheme why would we want satellite over wireless or adsl

Lazy idiots who dont want to go to the trouble of going the wireless route as Satellite BB is far easier to setup!!!

genie

Please excuse my ignorance but why do you still need dial up for satellite BB? My brother has just bought a cottage in the arse end of Co Sligo, nearest house with a phone is one and a half miles away, he has a mobile and doesn't really want to get in a phone line. Is satellite BB completely out of the question here?

netwhizkid

genie wrote:

Please excuse my ignorance but why do you still need dial up for satellite BB? My brother has just bought a cottage in the arse end of Co Sligo, nearest house with a phone is one and a half miles away, he has a mobile and doesn't really want to get in a phone line. Is satellite BB completely out of the question here?

Well for one way satellite broadband (which requires a dial-up or mobile connection for the send part of it and for uploading) You'd probably require a dial-up connection for Skydsl which is what i have. I am getting extremely sick of it though as it has been down about 5 times in the last 2 weeks, the customer service is manure, Basically german speakers and if you want help expect up to a week for e-mail reply. I am looking forward to terminating my contract this march hopefully the CGBS (County Group Broadband Scheme) will have delivered it by then as major steps are afoot right now to bring it to my community. Has anyone any experiences with these group broadband schemes ? How do they compare to ADSL from Eircom or is there any difference ? Right now i am so P*ssed with my satellite bb that i'd advise against it unless you know that broadband won't be available where you live for like a year or whatever.

genie

Thanks for that! Looks like he'll have to make do with his mobile and use the pc's at the library. :rolleyes:

1huge1

netwhizkid wrote:

Well for one way satellite broadband (which requires a dial-up or mobile connection for the send part of it and for uploading) You'd probably require a dial-up connection for Skydsl which is what i have. I am getting extremely sick of it though as it has been down about 5 times in the last 2 weeks, the customer service is manure, Basically german speakers and if you want help expect up to a week for e-mail reply. I am looking forward to terminating my contract this march hopefully the CGBS (County Group Broadband Scheme) will have delivered it by then as major steps are afoot right now to bring it to my community. Has anyone any experiences with these group broadband schemes ? How do they compare to ADSL from Eircom or is there any difference ? Right now i am so P*ssed with my satellite bb that i'd advise against it unless you know that broadband won't be available where you live for like a year or whatever.

ya my town of hospital got our broadband from the rural community thing total waste of time all we got offered was satellite broadband dont get your hopes up

oscarBravo

netwhizkid wrote:

...hopefully the CGBS (County Group Broadband Scheme) will have delivered it by then as major steps are afoot right now to bring it to my community. Has anyone any experiences with these group broadband schemes ? How do they compare to ADSL from Eircom or is there any difference ?

Depends on the provider - more to the point, depends on the technology they're using. What's your local scheme?

netwhizkid

oscarBravo wrote:

Depends on the provider - more to the point, depends on the technology they're using. What's your local scheme?

Afaik the community is giving the idea of working with eircom to fast track exchange enablement consideration, We are in the process of canvassing people to see how much interest will be there first as their is only about 700 people but there is about 150 new houses being built in the community. A meeting will be held and i will be doing more research between here and then. Ideally exchange enablement would be the solution as it would allow for everything like P2P, voip, gaming etc. Another solution could be wireless as my area is farily mountainy. Any more info on the new wimax wireless that supposdley allows for non-line of sight usage ? The satellite thing i have is grand as its back again now, whatever went wrong ! but ideally i want 24/7 365 unlimited access as does everyone, ah we can all dream !

oscarBravo

netwhizkid wrote:

Afaik the community is giving the idea of working with eircom to fast track exchange enablement consideration, We are in the process of canvassing people to see how much interest will be there first as their is only about 700 people but there is about 150 new houses being built in the community. A meeting will be held and i will be doing more research between here and then. Ideally exchange enablement would be the solution as it would allow for everything like P2P, voip, gaming etc.

If you're considering going that route, be sure to demand a minimum level of line passes from Eircom. I'd suggest at least 80% of connected lines. If they're not willing to commit to that, ask yourself why.

netwhizkid wrote:

Another solution could be wireless as my area is farily mountainy. Any more info on the new wimax wireless that supposdley allows for non-line of sight usage ?

WiMax doesn't do NLOS outside of urban areas.

Sponge Bob

oscarBravo wrote:

If you're considering going that route, be sure to demand a minimum level of line passes from Eircom. I'd suggest at least 80% of connected lines.

80% of connected lines (on that exchange) on day one, otherwise Eircom will never fix them up. If they install the gear and then test the lines off the exchange and find that 60% pass they must fix some lines pronto before the exchange is declared 'live' and they get paid .

When talking to Eircom this kind of guarantee is called an SLA or service level agreement and is normal in the tecoms industry so they cannot pretend they never heard of it