Satellite broadband

louie_the_fly (Stew) · #1 09-01-2013, 09:39 PM

We're looking at moving to a property just 10 minutes from where we currently live. 96 acres of pitch black skies... But no land line broadband. The current owners have satellite but don't use it much. They'll be leaving the dish there for the new owners' Anyone here currently use it? Whats it like in regards to reliability, speed, etc? Do you/can you use VOIP with satellite?

96 acres. I'll be able to build my observatory. In fact, Louise the fly even encourages the idea and said she'd like to learn.

acropolite (Phil) · #2 09-01-2013, 10:00 PM

The only satellite VOIP installations I've seen have been almost unusable. The two biggest issues are propogation delay and packet fragmentation.

A few years ago we pulled out an Asterix based satellite voip system for a customer and replaced it with a VOIP system running over spread spectrum radio.

On the plus side it doesn't really cost that much to try, you can get a Pennytel account for free, pay some upfront credit and test, if you're happy with the results an incoming number costs only a few dollars per month. If you have 3G mobile reception Siemens have some VOIP phones that will also connect via bluetooth and use your mobile phone for outgoing calls, either by O/G line selection while dialling or automatically using dialling tables.

If you have someone nearby within line of sight who has landline based broadband and is prepared to share then there is always the option of running a bridge radio link between your sites. There is some very nice unlicenced radio gear available at budget prices that will span up to 50km at very repspectable speeds. If you want more info send me a PM.

Nightshift · #3 13-01-2013, 10:35 PM

I have been using Sat internet for three years now, no ADSL here, works OK, not fast but better than nothing, VoIP is not an option, too much latency, 3G-4G is a much better option. If you dont get 3G at the site then consider if you really want to be that far out of town, if you do then enjoy your peace and quite and forget about internet, you cant have it all.

Forgey (Paula) · #4 13-01-2013, 10:59 PM

My parents had sat installed a few years ago as they cant get adsl in their area. It was barley usable, Dropouts, connection problems.
They now use 3G through Virgin.

Karls48 (Karl) · #5 14-01-2013, 08:38 PM

My sister got it on her farm. It works - sometimes. It is slow and unreliable. But better then no Internet at all.

louie_the_fly (Stew) · #6 14-01-2013, 10:30 PM

Thanks all for the replies. Although the current owner of the property uses satellite, as does the land agent, who lives just a couple of k's from the property, it's apparently not that fantastic. Mine & Mrs fly's mobiles both get full service there so wireless is an option. There's an Optus tower just a couple k's away from the house. There's a chance we can get bigpond ADSL connected through the landline, but that's to be confirmed. It's hi-tech out in them thar places... But still, you buy a place for it's lifestyle and it's dark skies.

naskies (Dave) · #7 15-01-2013, 02:17 AM

If you can get a 3G connection, it'll probably be more reliable (clouds don't cause as much interference), faster, and cheaper. It would be worth looking into routers that are capable of having an external antenna attached for better signal/performance too.

OzRob (Rob) · #8 15-01-2013, 02:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by naskies

If you can get a 3G connection, it'll probably be more reliable (clouds don't cause as much interference), faster, and cheaper. It would be worth looking into routers that are capable of having an external antenna attached for better signal/performance too.

We recently switched from using satellite internet for the remote observatory to a 3G connection. The 3G connection is far superior in both speed and reliability.

Barrykgerdes · #9 15-01-2013, 07:12 AM

Do you have nextg/3g mobile at the site. If so I would expect this to give the best service.

I currently use a Telstra/bigpond elite system at Wiruna when we go there. I only get a minimal system inside the house but can get a better signal if I put the modem up the tower. Its Wifi supplies all our computers and down load speeds are ADSL up to 600 KB/s.

The only problem we have is overload at peak periods that make it slower to get a slot but once connected full speed is available on downloads. We have even used it satisfactorily for portable Skype at a star party.

Barry

mithrandir (Andrew) · #10 15-01-2013, 01:06 PM

I got a reply from a mate who has sat broadband. He is an IT guy with extensive experience in installing/configuring sat and radio networks so if he says black magic believe him.

Quote:

One if the IceInSpace crew is asking about sat service (in particular about VOIP) before he forks out the money. Any comments?

VoIP and SAT are not real good bedfellows but they *can* be made to play together. You just have to be prepared for a lot of fiddling as it is a fair bit of black magic to get it working and I don't think there are any hard and fast rules - every installation I've dealt with so far has been different.

A few things to keep in mind though.

1. Latency (pretty obvious)
2. Errors (not so obvious)

The <his place in FNQ> link for example becomes unusable during a storm as error count goes above the 27% threshold that TCP is capable of dealing with.

The other thing about TCP streams is that it takes them a lot longer to work out something is amiss so resends take longer. That means that your throughput turns to pot a whole lot quicker the moment you get errors.

On other thing that makes a difference is that compression over sat links is actually a *very* good thing.