Satellite Internet...anyone use it?

[Champion Jack]

any comments?
In less than a month I'm moving to 90 rural acres and it looks like Directway is the only choice besides dial-up.

[MichaelHarris]

1. I don't but

The download speeds are fine but upload suffers. Online gaming also suffers because of the long ping times. Upload speeds won't matter much unless you plan to host a website.

[AndyTiedye]

2. Not Good if you use a VPN

Satellite internet uses compression, and some protocol shortcuts. None of that works
if you use a VPN or any other flavor of encryption, and things get really slow.

Anything highly interactive will be painful (games, terminal emulators, X applications).

Web browsing or email shouldn't be too bad.

[Champion Jack]

4. Ok I realize that I'm a little slow here, but, what is VPN?

[IronLionZion]

5. Virtual Private Network

from webopedia:
Short for virtual private network, a network that is constructed by using public wires to connect nodes. For example, there are a number of systems that enable you to create networks using the Internet as the medium for transporting data. These systems use encryption and other security mechanisms to ensure that only authorized users can access the network and that the data cannot be intercepted.

If you don't know what it is, then you probably don't use it!

[Champion Jack]

10. Thanks, you're right , I can't see needing that any time soon

[Champion Jack]

3. OK...I don't on-line game, and

don't plan on hosting a web server (wouldn't have a clue anyway)
Sounds like it may work, I'm just wondering if anyone here has had any actual experience good or bad with the system.

[MichaelHarris]

7. It will work out great for you

as long as you don't decide to host a giant website. Alot of people go the dish route for the same reasons you will. As compression technology grows, (shrinking data before its sent and unshrinking it as its recieved) Dish systems will become better and better. Their problem is based in what is called ping time. Ping is one computer sending like a handshake or hello to another computer on a network. This becomes a factor in Sat internet because before the "ping" can occur it has to go up to space, then back down to the network. This is what makes gaming so hard, this latent ping time. Hope some of this helps and doesn't bore you to death.

[Champion Jack]

8. Thanks! That helps

[woofless]

6. We live out in the boonies

and when the Dish network guy came out to get us set up I posed the question to him. He was very critical of satellite internet. He said the cost was prohibitive and the service spotty at best. We use juno dial-up at $10 a month and let it go at that. Speed is not essential in this house.

[Champion Jack]

9. I could probably live with dial-up as well , although,...

I am spoiled by this big city high speed cable. The spouse, however, does website work and will need the speed.
Thanks

[MichaelHarris]

11. If you decide

to go with the dish thing or think about doing a small website don't hesitate to ask me. I spent a few years training people in the Microsoft tech support division and I kinda miss helping people.

[Champion Jack]

12. Cool! will do, Thanks