Mailing List os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com Archived Message #911

From:	"Lewis G Rosenthal" <os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com>	Full Headers Undecoded message
Subject:	Re: [OS2Wireless]Re: Satellite Internet Access
Date:	Wed, 21 Mar 2007 22:36:22 -0400
To:	OS/2 Wireless Users Mailing List <os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com>

On 03/21/07 11:06 am, Al Heath thus wrote : On Tue, 20 Mar 2007 19:41:39 -0500, Sam Lewis wrote: >>This subject comes up from time to time. >> >>I am using Starband right now.... I don't want to spend >>the money on new Satellite setup just to end up in a worse position if I >>can help it. >> >>If anyone has information or opinions I would like to hear them. >>Sam >I see commercials on local TV all the time for HughesNet >[http://www.hughesnet.com]. I have no idea if it is good, bad or >indifferent. >Carl When visiting my sister's house, I use her Hughes Net satellite connection as other than dialup, that is her only choice for connectivity. One thing to consider is the latency on satellite connections. From what I recall, pings to yahoo.com were in the 2000 msec range versus the 10 to 15 msec range I get here at home with my cable connection. But, once the satellite filled the pipe with a block of data, it came down about like a low end DSL connection. What really impacted me was telnet sessions to remote hosts ... due to the latency between keystrokes. As you typed ahead, the echos would burst back in bunches as packet contents were accumulated. But web surfing and email was fairly acceptable. ICMP, unfortunately, isn't a fair comparison or performance test for sat links. Due to the fact that sat links typically use BST (Boosted Session Transport) instead of TCP (or ICMP), there is tremendous overhead in converting packets to BST to go up, and then again converting them back when they come back down. As you noticed, Al, browsing and email are fairly good (assuming good weather and no sun spot activity). The main issue with sat service is the relatively low power uplink converter used. This is the single biggest complaint I get form clients on sat links (the downlink is acceptable - even my brother was geting upwards of 900Kbps on the downlink - but the uplink is almost below dialup - I've seen 16Kbps going up). For some things (VPN's for example) this simply isn't acceptable. There are some commercial providers (Skycasters, for example) who resell time on SES Americom birds, and use fairly good equipment, but the monthly service fee is commensurate with the QoS. -- Lewis ------------------------------------------------------------ Lewis G Rosenthal, CNA, CLP, CLE Rosenthal & Rosenthal, LLC Accountants / Network Consultants New York / Northern Virginia www.2rosenthals.com eComStation Consultants www.ecomstation.com Novell Users Int'l www.novell.com/openenterpriseserver Need a managed Wi-Fi hotspot? www.hautspot.com ------------------------------------------------------------

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