Help needed: 2 way Satillite

Rez-N-8

Hi there, I'm looking for sites that provide 2 way internet access, any ideas. much appreciated.

Nuphor

The only 2-way satellite system I'm aware of is an offering by Tiscali. But since they don't offer any services in Ireland, I think it unlikely that they'll bother offering the service here. A shame though, since the service apparently wipes the floor with all other satellite systems.

"Pricing is most likely to be £49 per month, with speeds of up to 512kb/s downstream and up to 153kb/s upstream"

As reported by

Unmetered Ireland

Check out there site here. Try emailing them just to make sure. Ya never know, they may well be offering it here.

http://satellite.tiscali.com/

Rez-N-8

I found 1 that does in ireland but i was wondering if there are more

http://www.web-sat.com/

fabien

Tried to email info@web-sat.com, but the email address doesn't exist...are they still in business?
Located this crowd through unmetered ireland: aramiska.com.
Apparently available in Ireland, although the only reseller I could find (Abacus.ie) seems in trouble...
Another interesting point is the pricing...1024 down/256 up no caps/up to 30 pc's is 399 Euro in France and most of Europe, but it's 599 Euro in Ireland...
Check it out for yourselves: Aramiska

Occidental

Educom in Dublin on 01-8601995.

They have a service which actually exists and works, but be warned, there are caps and the pricing could/should be better.

bkehoe

Aramiska does exist and work. Mine is probably going to be installed next week. They have several resellers in Ireland, though you do order through their site. Aramiska also run specials on packages; you could email them to ask if there are any on at the moment. BTW, Beamsolutions do a vsat service too, no download limits, though I think there's a fair usage thing, and 512k down is the fastest available.

fabien

Thanks bkehoe. Would you mind telling us whereabouts you're based, and what kind of deal you got?
Also, I couldn't find BeamNetworks, have you got a website for them? Thanks again.
Does anyone know if it would be possible to subscribe in France and bring the dish and modem back here, I mean technically would it work?
Also, are you allowed to share your connection with neighbours via wireless for example?

Occidental

Wasn't trying to insinuate that Aramiska doesn't exist or work, but with the amount of hype around this area of the market at the moment, I feel it's worth pointing out what exists compared to what we are being promised.

Be interested to hear your views on the Aramiska services once you've been using it for a while, costs, downtime etc.

bkehoe

Hi,
Oops, Beamsolutions.net, keep thinking of last years name.

I will be reporting back on Aramiska.. When I ordered in June there were only 6 or 7 installs in Ireland at that stage. I've ordered the Arc3, and got €450 per month, €400 total setup fees (325 install, 75 connection). One reason Aramiska is dearer than the others is because it has low contention ratios, and you get the 'Arc' boxes. The Arc is 2 small pcs, one which connects to the dish (and can be used on its own), the other a firewall and the mail server.

No, its not possible to sign up in France and bring it back. For a start, you need a french bank account, and a building for them to install the equipment on. If you manage to get it there, you'd then have to bring it back, and pay a person trained in aligning a 2way dish (it is much more difficult to aligning a normal one, as any error will result in poor or non existant uplink. Then, assuming you get the dish aligned, it wouldnt work, as you would be a different distance from the satellite. VSAT terminals (2way satellite) are calibrated at the time of install with the main up/downlink hub in central europe somewhere. Any change of location of around 20miles or more will cause it to become uncalibrated and not work right. Aramiska probably wouldnt recalibrate it for you untill they got your new address, and then they'd probably treat you as an Irish person instead of a French person.

You can connect up to 30 pcs onto the standard Arc1 - 5 services, or up to 100 onto the Arc4+ and Arc5+.

Brendan

fabien

Thanks Brendan, that's a much better deal, but still don't understand why it should be more expensive than the rest of the world...anyway, do your prices include VAT, and did you have to pay 12 months upfront?

Do you think they would have a problem if you shared the connection via wireless?

spongebob

it may be that they do more miles per install than in France.

the dish may also be bigger and dearer than in France to get the same signal....

personally I would never trust a company named aramiska!

Aramiska = Ar Meisce = Scuttered.

Not funny at €450 a month.

M

dconn

hi fabien

before you start beliveing aramiska's promises

check out educom's offering i have it since last febuary with no problems. www.orbitlink.ie for all the details

to the best of my knowledge they will supply you in france

just give them a ring to find out. they were very helpful to me
00353 1 8601995 will get them from france

cheers

d

bkehoe

Well I'm sending this through my Aramiska connection now. It was installed this morning and was up and running after a few little problems. Speeds are very good. I'm on the Arc3 (1mbit/256k) and get over 100KB/sec download with a few threads, and around 50 - 60KB/sec with single thread downloads. It's a breath of fresh air compared to my old one way satellite internet. Browsing is much faster as well; around ISDN speed on average. I'll see how it goes over the next few days, and see if it stays this good.

Brendan.

Dustaz

More of a nets comms thread methinks

fabien

Thanks Brendan,
ISDN speed you said? Isn't that a bit slow for E450 a month?
are you not getting the advertised 1 meg down?
Fabien

bkehoe

The nature of 2 way satellite means that browsing can never be as fast as say a 1mbit adsl line, as satellite has 600-700ms pings while adsl has under 100ms. The speed of the satellite over 56k/ISDN shows itself best on graphics intensive sites, for example, as it gets multiple large files to download. On this site, I can see the extra speed when going into a thread with a lot of replies; they appear instantly. My father, who does share dealing online was impressed at the speed that the large list of the ftse250shares came up; before he could be doing other things on other sites while waiting on it to load, but when he was trying it last night it appeared in a few seconds.
I am very happy with the browsing speed as it's faster than I'd expected it to be and a lot faster than on my old one way satellite setup. I can get up to the 1MBit when downloading files no problem. Got an average of 95KB/sec downloading Office XP SP2 with only a 2 thread download, which is excellent, especially as it was coming from the US. I also tried some streaming video; 300k stream in windows media player and it worked fine; something I never could get to work with one way satellite.

Brendan.

Synkronite

What are the latency issues like?
Im interested in it, but Id be looking for it as a tool to - among other things - video conference (usually thru MS Netmeeting) with clients and my other offices in Dubai and the US.

Also although you say loading websites with loads of graphics is faster- what about websites with lots of small picture files- would latency cause an issue here?

I dont game- but wouldnt mind waiting a few extra seconds for a website to start loading as long as it loads super fast- but if videoconferencing will be delayed- I lose incentive for shelling out so much.

Thanks

bkehoe

Video conferencing would be lagged. I get on average, 700ms pings to US west coast servers, and 570 - 600ms to European servers. This also, as you say, rules out most online gaming.
All websites appear faster to me; I was just saying that the speed increase is noticed best on sites with large graphics/flash animations, etc.