Cheap Broadband by satellite

jmcc

Originally posted by Muck
cool

these are all one way sats that will require FRIACO type products to to the úpstream leg .

Netsystem is reputedly unusable nowadays

Not surprising. There seems to be a muppet migration pattern with these services over the past few years. Initially they start out with loads of spare capacity and then the word gets around and the troughers sign up and the bandwidth goes to hell. Basically it is a bunch of muppets all running multiple ftp sessions that does in a service. If the service survives this onslaught, it will introduce a per mb or a timed service. A lot of services do not get a second chance.

You may need a multi LNB dish pointing in all sorts of directions to use all of these, it could be a big 1 - 1.2m dish if it has to cover a large arc to scoop them all up, say from 10 west to 30 east.

It really depends on where the sweet spot is (the point on the arc that you get the best reception from a few satellites). You may end up with one dish for Sky/Astra, another for Astra at 19.2 E and another for the ones closer to 1 Degree West. For people outside the cities, a few extra dishes may not matter but inside the cities, planning permission may be required.

Hopefully the choice will widen over the next year or two.

I am not so sure of this. (I'd like to see satellite making inroads but the uplink section is the problem and most satellite services rely on phonelines. The ones that don't have ripoff charges for their services.)The buy-in cost is high and it is competing against an ever growing hardline business that is slowly upgrading. The big surprises will be in the WiFi/FWA areas because the business model is a bit more controllable and understandable for the VCs.

Regards...jmcc

colin300

they have already told people about this if it starts to happen they will bring in the fair use policy. Pity the companies don't do something to the muppets that cause everyone else to lose out on the service. But anyway Silvermead are going on to a main transponder on 28.5east with a good bit more capcity then the one they were on. They seem to have done alot of research cause they seem to be doing everything the right way. Waiting till alot of people have the service then change transponders and allow for more capcity and are ready with the fair use policy to kill off the people that ruin it.

Dr. Dre

Originally posted by Muck

Netsystem is reputedly unusable nowadays

Indeed it is, for browsing anyway, downloading is still 30-40KBps.

...bunch of muppets all running multiple ftp sessions that does in a service.

Agreed.

Saruman

How about Netsystem I had them for a year and it was nice... i did not renew as i will get broadband at some stage so did not see the point. I hope i get it soon.. im waiting till people who ordered UTV start getting results.

Netsystem seem to have changed their service. when i had it, i had 350kbs no cap for €35 a month. Its different now though.

colin300

Their system has run to a complete hault from what I have heard. People have run it down by downloading massive files in the last year. I know their offers look good but for getting a bad service it should be. And now i believe it is capped. Or it isn't and they paid the price by not bringing in a cap.

nd

I'm acctually with netsystem at the moment. Speeds are usually about 25 kps and there is a 6gb cap per month.

Saruman

When i had the service i rarely got below 35kbs downloads. Latency is very high being that its Sat so no good for games but its fast for downloads.

John R

I am currently with netsystem, it was great for the first 6 months but then went quickly downhill, they oversubscribed the service and then blamed the users for the crap service that resulted. currently it is useable, far better than 56k alone for graphics heavy web pages, downloading and p2p. I have no confidence that this will be so in a few months time. Their customer service is atrocious and they are completely untrustworthy I reccomend they be avoided at all costs.

Capt'n Midnight

a) cos then others will join up and up goes the contention ratio..

b) seriously - wait till they open a second transponder..

colin300

just to let you know that the second transponder seems to be up and running on silvermead even though it doesn't say cause people signing up are getting the new transponder frequencies. People are saying this on their forums. Also if anyone is looking for a PCI card to use this service www.dvb-shop.tv are selling one for euro50 and its euro19 shipping not bad considering if you were to buy off ebay it would be about 60 to 70 pounds to get one then plus shipping. It may be an older version of software and it may not have pvr but you can still watch tv and if you download the dvb viewer software that enables pvr you would be flying. www.dvbviewer.com



Just another question how many are thinking of taking this up???
And who thinks its good value for money cause you are not metered?

Nuphor

Well, I for one definately will be. The stuff I ordered is gradually coming in as of today when I got a nice new Cambridge Quad LNB. The card should be here on monday. Incidentally, is coaxial cable pretty cheap? I'll need about, oh, 30-40m maybe.

I'll sign up just as soon as I know the new transponder is online for sure. I know it's being tested alright...

I'll only go for the 256k package as of yet though. 512 is a little out of my price range. Did I hear they were upping 512k users to 1 mbit?

Let's hope they up their 256k package too

colin300

you could probably get a role of coax cable from a DIY shop but remeber that it needs to be ct100. Price really depends on where you buy it. you can get 100 metre rolls of it for about eur20 so that will leave you enough cable tochange where your computer is in the future if you need to.

Nuphor

Sounds good. I was wondering whether digital used different coaxial cable than normal TV stuff.

The connectors seem to be different on the end going into the LNB too. Gonna be a fun weekend

colin300

no it uses the same stuff. the name of the connectors on the end of the cable is 'F' connectors all they are is you wind them on to the lnb.

Nuphor

Just to let you all now, I'm now connected with silvermead. While signal strength will be poor for Irish users until the 11th of August, it rocks.

It seriously does. I'm delighted with the service. I'd definately recommended to any rural peeps.

spongebob

giz more stats

BArra

i posted my stats in broadband ping and download speed sticky thread, ive got silvermead 512, and im delighted with it

Nuphor

Well, atm I'm getting a solid 40-45kbytes per second on pretty much all downloads (kazaa, http, ftp). Not bad for the 256k package!

I'll moving on up to 512 next month, just wanted to stay on 256k until the new UK transponder comes online. I get a 67% quality signal with the new transponder as opposed to 17-20% with the current one. They were having a few troubles with bandwidth over the week apparently, but everything has now been sorted.

God I love broadband.

BArra

nuphor,

what are the settings for the new transponder? or when u click the leaf is it the Silvermead UK/IRE, im on the Silvermead Europe one and on a 8% signal, cos the dish installer didnt align it properly and my modem was delayed so i couldnt test the signal, its still working though

getting him back out to fix it

Nuphor

what are the settings for the new transponder? or when u click the leaf is it the Silvermead UK/IRE, im on the Silvermead Europe one and on a 8% signal, cos the dish installer didnt align it properly and my modem was delayed so i couldnt test the signal, its still working though getting him back out to fix it

The settings for the new TP are:



However, it won't be online until Monday, at the latest. I get around 17% on a 60cm dish. It drops heavily after 9pm for some reason though, even if the weather stays constant. Odd. But, the new TP'll fix this.

Mr_Man

Hi,

just a quick question for people who are using this service. Are any of you using a router (instead of a modem) with the service, if you are which router ?

Thanks

M.

spongebob

Looks like there could be a number of new entrants into the VSAT market in the near future see this Article

wild_eyed

im excited,
i have sky digital at home here, will this dish do? and also what else do i need and how much does this stuff cost.
please help im a dildo at this stuff.

spongebob

you need a sat lurking near the sky one then.

remember sky dishes are deliberately small (the sky sat has a very high output) so you could need a bigger one for starters.

check in the satellite forum Here , the subject of multiple uses for one dish comes up there periodically.

M

BArra

for past 5 days speeds were halved, its crap, for 2 days its being cutting out on and off with isdn speeds, i wuldnt recommend anyone for it..

tommoroow ( monday ) , the UK/IE new transponder goes live which lets ppl with mini-dishes get a signal, its supposed to have more bandwidth and support more users, atm the current TP is over-suscribed i suspect and the service is ****, last week i was bursting from 2mb/sec, had the file instantly nearly, was great

i use a 85cm dish, dual LNB, and skystar2 DVB card, no router

its still a good service, im on 512 package, hope this new TP fixes things

BArra

Sky Satellite is located at 28.2East, and Silvermead use Eurobird 1 at 28.5East, close enuff but for some those degrees matter, ppl with mini-dishes can get a signal on the new IE/UK TP, thats a fact.

althought the lower the signal the more uncorrected blocks and if u have too many of those u lose lock

u might need to re-align the dish if ur currently on 28.2 @ Sky, but it would be worth testing first before u call in a dish installer to re-align it with a satellite metre and costing u a few bob

shinzon

How much is a router for this service, and someone posted earlier that this is crap for gaming is it or whats the story

Shin

RFHost

Any satellite service will not be usuable for gaming due to the latency involved. Don't forget the signal must travel 35,000km to the satellite and back again. Pings will be around 500ms +.

Nuphor

I manage to get a ping of around 385ms on average. It's not great, but you can with a bit of effort, try your hand at gaming with it.. CS actually works relatively OK with UK servers.



This Place here has a satellite ping test. (The normal "ping" cmd from a prompt will only use dialup)

This past week has seen eratic speeds what with the new TP getting ready. Speed issues are being sorted today, as they've found the problem. I should be moving to the new TP today or tomorrow. I'll let ye all know how it works out.

And Shin, Silvermead supply Pent@Office routers to use with the service. Check out their site: http://www.silvermead.net

shinzon

i was interested in this but it seems that all its good for is fast dl speeds, id be looking for a bb service that gives me good pings for games, not really interested in dlin that much to be honest

thx for advice

Shin