[Hidden-tech] Does anybody have HughesNet or DirecTV satellite webaccess?

[Jeremy Dunn]

I have not had this service, but several of my neighbors have had it.  I 
investigated it when only dial-up was available and did not find it suitable 
for my purposes.  It depends on your needs.

The speeds are ok, but the main limitation is latency, the time it takes for 
the signal to travel to the satellite and back.  4 earth-to-orbit trips each 
time = more than 100,000 miles = 2/3 of second.  Basically, it's sluggish. 
If you're typing on a remote-desktop system, very annoying to not see 
keyboard echo for nearly 1 second after a key is pressed.

It works well when you're transmitting large blocks of data; so-so when 
transmitting lots of small blocks of data; and doesn't do well when trying 
to work on remote systems.

Good:
* downloading large files
* web-surfing image-dense sites, movies, etc.
* sending or receiving email with large attachments

Not much better than dialup, due to latency:
* web-surfing mostly-text sites
* sending or receiving emails of average size, without large attachments

Poor:
* remote-desktop
* VPN

The satellite dish must be positioned very precisely by a professional 
installer.  One friend had an outage due to very high winds in winter, which 
required waiting until weather conditions permitted a technician to climb 
onto her roof and repoint the dish.  Generally, roof installations are to be 
avoided; but laws require that the antenna be positioned at least 4' off the 
ground since it has a transmitter.  Many people have the antenna installed 
on their eaves.  Must have a clear line-of-sight to southern sky.

If cable really did come so close to your house, you might consider asking 
your neighbors if they'd share their signal via WiFi or point-to-point 
wireless connection.  Having said this, they'd probably want to read the 
fine print in their contract, which might prohibit such usage.

- Jeremy


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "B. Melville" <bmelville.pgs at verizon.net>
To: <hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net>
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 9:47 PM
Subject: [Hidden-tech] Does anybody have HughesNet or DirecTV satellite 
webaccess?


>   ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
>   ** If you did, we all thank you.
>
>
> Out here in dial-up country, these services look very attractive. However, 
> I wonder if they are as fast as they say. HughesNet has 6 levels of 
> service, and the cheapest level doesn't look that much faster than 
> dial-up. I don't know how the speed of their cheapest 2 levels compares to 
> the speed of cable (which stopped 3 houses before us).
>
> Another concern is reliability. Our DirecTV service sometimes cuts out in 
> bad weather. I assume that the same would be true for satellite web 
> access.
>
> Does anybody have experience with either of these services?
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