Satellite modems - any body use one?

cherrio

Hi,

I am stuck in 56K Hell and have to get out, I don't care what it takes.

The whole eircom I-stream/DSL is a farce and isn't coming any where near me for years, so I am running out of options.

Then I heard about Satellite modems, I know they are expensive, but I will pay it, if that what is takes to get rid of my 56k connection!

I was just wondering, does any one here use the Digiweb (http://www.broadband.digiweb.ie) or the Orbitlink (http://www.orbitlink.ie) service, if so, whats it like? How bad is the latency? Would you recommend it? Any thing I should be aware of?

thanks in advance,
Robert

Dustaz

Moving to wireless, home of Irelands top satellite gurus

Dr. Dre

whoa ! fair play if you can afford it. If, however, you have not heard about www.netsystem.com check them out, I use them and find them excellent.
NOTE: It's only a one way service, meaning you still have to use an ISP for the upstream.

byte

I had Netsystem until yesterday when I cancelled. P2P doesn't work well and the speeds were sometimes erratic. Also, webpages weren't any faster to load than dialup. Downloading programmes was usually good though with speeds of about 20-25KB which was nice! It costs €36 per month and you'll get a free Skystar 2 PCI DVB card

Before that I used Europe Online which was fairly OK but it was scheduled (not live) downloading. It worked well with FFM where you could get Gigs of downloads per night!

Unfortunately, I see that they've capped the service to just 700MB per month! Could dowload treble that in one night! So I think it's now a no-go area! It's now €15 per month.

Anyway, I got 2 free DVB cards! Thanks to them! Out of the 2, Netsystem is prob the best if you don't use Peer-2-Peer network.

cherrio

No, never say www.netsystem.com before. But I do a fair amount of uploading and webpage surfing, not a whole lot of downloads.

I am still thinking satellite modem, but no one here seems to actually have one or used one. From what I know the latency is the biggest problem, but how bad actually is it?

thanks,
Robert

gurramok

I agree with Irishbyte, i was a user of netsystem for 1 month.
It was awful for most of the time, the service was oversubscribed.
Speeds were at alot of times the same as dial-up, reason for cancelling.
Latency is always there with satellite, however there are suppose to be new 1-way services available from uk,
Have not tried them yet so can't comment.

bkehoe

I used to use 1 way satellite from 1999, and recently moved to 2 way. From what I've seen, one way providers like to oversubscribe and then all the users get bad performance, or they throttle certain ports, say for p2p apps or FTP/Usenet. Netsystem claim that they are going to remove the port throttling soon, and if they do, then performance is average. Obvious downside being that you need your phone and normal isp connected at the same time.

I have been using Aramiska 2 way sat (1MBit down, 256k up) since August, and its been better than I had expected. They use low 10:1 contentions, though the prices do reflect this! The service is reliable, and you get your own mail server, cache, and lots of stats on the connection via the internal firewall pc they install. A ping from here to the first hop in their NOC takes around 500ms. Typically pings are below 600ms to EU servers, and below 700 to US servers. This isnt really noticable for web pages due to accelleration software they use, but is noticed in games, so if you're a gamer, it probably isnt for you. Standard packages can be shared to up to 30pcs, and enhanced ones to up to 100.

Digiweb uses the Gilat system, and while there are no fixed caps, they do reserve the right to throttle your connection if you're a heavy user. This is the same as the UK resellers, BT and Tiscali, so isnt unusual, especially as its so cheap. For a single user, or a few houses sharing it (they do allow this as long as it isnt commercial) that wouldnt be downloading 24/7, it would be ideal. Latency should be the same on this, and they do use web accelleration software too.

Brendan

Pokes

I still have SNL , do you think netsystem would suit me at all.When you said that peer to peer performace is pretty erratic at times does this change at night time say 2 - 6am ? But ftps etc typically run at around 25k a sec yeah ?

bkehoe

http://www.netsystemusers.com is a good site to find out whats going on at the moment, etc; there is a lot of talk, and complaining, in the forums. They have aparrantly being adjusting things, so some days ftp is worse than a modem and p2p is good, others they're both bad, and some days when even http slows down, though I beleive their primary goal is to give HTTP priority.

Brendan

Wook

damn my quest for a internet gaming connection continues...and here i am willing to pay whatever it takes...-sigh- (except eircom)

cherrio

I called Digiweb.ie and asked them to send me the ping results of pinging google.com and here they are,

Pinging google.com [216.239.51.100] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 216.239.51.100: bytes=32 time=755ms TTL=49
Reply from 216.239.51.100: bytes=32 time=752ms TTL=49
Reply from 216.239.51.100: bytes=32 time=746ms TTL=49
Reply from 216.239.51.100: bytes=32 time=740ms TTL=49

Ping statistics for 216.239.51.100:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 740ms, Maximum = 755ms, Average = 748ms


I guess ping isn't the fairest of benchmarks, but ain't half bad for around trip of ~50,000Km.

Aramiska, sounds good also, but I couldn't afford €600 a month, Not sure if any of my neightbours would go for it either.


Found out today, my exchange is one of hte new enabled ones in Cork, but of course there is a problem, because I have ISDN, they can't do the test. So I now have to down grade my line, taking 2 weeks, then wait another week while they 'test' the line. But I hold very little hope that it will work (ISDN never worked, but thats another story!).

bkehoe

Just did a ping test for you there now:

Pinging www.google.com [216.239.37.101] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 216.239.37.101: bytes=32 time=675ms TTL=41
Reply from 216.239.37.101: bytes=32 time=686ms TTL=41
Reply from 216.239.37.101: bytes=32 time=655ms TTL=41
Reply from 216.239.37.101: bytes=32 time=653ms TTL=41

An Irish Server:

Pinging fraggle.esatclear.ie [194.145.128.12] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 194.145.128.12: bytes=32 time=597ms TTL=237
Reply from 194.145.128.12: bytes=32 time=575ms TTL=237
Reply from 194.145.128.12: bytes=32 time=588ms TTL=237
Reply from 194.145.128.12: bytes=32 time=575ms TTL=237

Brendan.

cherrio

there is only about a 100mill sec between the two. I could live with that:-)

thanks for the info bkehoe.

n21roadie

anybody using ipviasat.net service and also i am looking for
a dvb pci card and Lnb

Urban Weigl

Those pings actually seem better than I had thought satellite would be: I now plan to get Gilat's service though through Mediasat as they do not charge any setup fee, just 216 euros a month plus VAT which I do not have to pay.

Since those posts have been made, have the pings on satellite generally gotten worse or better? Curious. :P