Satellite broadband real speeds

markmagennis

I'm on a dialup in the middle of bleedin' nowhere (Glencar on the Sligo/Leitrim border) and I've been wondering about the real web browsing and file download speeds I would get if I switched to satellite broadband.

As far as I understand it, broadband speed is determined by the stated speed, say 2Megs, and the number of people you are sharing those 2Megs with (the contention ratio). Would I be right in assuming that the contention ratio for satellite broadband is 1/1 since you are not sharing the link with anyone else so that you actually get all 2Megs?

Also, what effect does the latency of the satellite signal have? Does it just mean that there's a small fixed delay before each request is served (one delay per web page or per file download)? Or is it more complicated thatn that? And how long are these delays? Seconds?

Do these issues vary from one satellite provider to another?

I'm thinking of getting a 1Meg one-way satellite service, such as Mediasat and SkyDSL. I can't imagine they won't be much faster than what I have at the moment (speed averages 20Kbps) and even simple web pages take a long time to arrive. I know these one-way services are only downloads and you need to rent a phone line and pay call charges for the uploads, but the two-way packages are too expensive.

I've tried the mobile Internet USB thingies from both Vodafone and 3 but couldn't get a peep out of either of them.

Thanks to anyone who can fill me in on the real situation, preferably from their own experience.

Mark

watty

You share the link on satellite with 1/2 of europe. Contention can be quite high. Satellite bandwidth is the most expensive bandwidth there is.

speed varies from 256k down 64K up (excluding contention) for cheapest to 10Mbps down and 2Mbps for very expensive. However you get more consistantly the speed you pay for than the mobile phone 3G /HSDPA network, which while "up to 3.6MBps", that assumes one person using the sector. Plenty of Mobile Data 3G users never see much more than 400k down and 70k up. Some experience dialup speeds.


I've seen the cheaper Astra2connect drop from 128k upload speed to 10k upload speed in rain. Uplink on it seems more sensitive to weather than downlink (different aerials at the satellite end). The Gilat systems use a different satellite and larger dish and thus should not be affected by normal heavy Irish Rain.

Digiweb has a couple of different Sat systems (neither is A2C) depending on how much performance you pay for.

The one way services if used about 6 hrs a day can cost more than two-way and need the phone connected the whole time. Contention on them can be severe. They are only TV card style download accellerator for dialup.

The proper 2 way systems have all kinds of tricks to minimise handshaking as each handshake is about 0.8 of a second. So there is almost 800ms delay when you change to doing something different or click on a link.

Ripwave and 3G mobile actually can have similar or even twice as bad latency, though both are typically 100ms to 250ms range.

Regular Broadband (Metro, Cable, DSL) is typically < 50ms latency

Really the one way services are not worth it, especially if you mostly use a mobile and could save then the dialup costs by cancelling phone line altogether (26 Euro a month before ANY calls).

The FAQ here http://www.digiweb.ie/business/broadband/satellite-broadband-faq.asp
does not gloss over any of the issues of satellite Broadband.

markmagennis

Thanks for all that information Watty. Satellite doesn't seem so great. Any way I look at it, it's either expensive, poor quality or both :-(

smellslikeshoes

markmagennis wrote: »

Thanks for all that information Watty. Satellite doesn't seem so great. Any way I look at it, it's either expensive, poor quality or both :-(

I presume you have tried O2 aswell? Even though they are pretty woeful compared to dsl they would definitely be a one up on dialup.

watty

Satellite works quite well if a professional package, but within the parmeter of 800ms+ latency.

Akrasia

watty wrote: »

Satellite works quite well if a professional package, but within the parmeter of 800ms+ latency.

so it's absolutely useless for games then?

smellslikeshoes

Akrasia wrote: »

so it's absolutely useless for games then?

Yep most gaming servers have latency limits and you would be kicked quite a lot for having a latency of 200ms or over, just wouldn't be possible to play almost any games at 800ms. And even games that it is possible to play with over 800ms like wow, it would be downright painful.

niallb

Both O2 and Meteor offer EDGE which operates at a lower frequency and has a longer
range than most 3G products. From the www.siteviewer.ie maps, they also both have
a mast high up just north of Glencar lake.

With a vodafone USB modem, if you don't get 3G, you fall back to slower than dialup speeds,
but with O2, if you can drop back to EDGE, it's still over 200k.

I've used a Vodafone connection for most of the last year, and in general very happy with it.
I use one of the older PCMCIA cards in a router with a small external antenna.

I'm 10 miles from the mast, and as more people in the area have started to use it,
it's gotten a little unreliable, but it's still faster than the (almost) 1Mb broadband I recently got from Eircom.
It doesn't work at all when it's foggy, but other than that it's been great.

I've had a billpay Meteor phone for the last few years as it's the only network with good
service where we live. I got a data addon (now available from €10 for 250MB) on my phone,
and use it with a bluetooth dongle for my laptop . That's well worth a shot.
Meteor are supposed to be launching a 3G service very soon now, so they'll
probably be introducing a modem product too, but I've had no problems using a phone
as a modem.
Hold off on the satellite for a while if you can!

Try the O2 first, as they'll let you give the modem back if it doesn't work for you.
If you can get someone with a meteor phone that supports EDGE - like the Sony Ericsson K550i
to call around to you, check and see if if they get a good signal, and if the 'E' symbol lights up.

Don't listen to people who say "It's not broadband!"
So what. It's not dialup!

Good luck,
NiallB

watty

However on O2 I get 170ms to 1000ms++, never seen less than 170ms.

Edge/3G/HSDPA is similar to dual Channel ISDN, but more latency. Similar to Ripwave also, which uses a related CDMA RF system.

niallb

I disagree Watty.
Dual channel ISDN is an excellent connection as far as latency goes,
but even EDGE will pull down data at twice the speed.
Do you know if you're receiving an EDGE or HSDPA signal with your own O2 modem?

I've often clocked sustained download speeds of 120k+ with Vodafone's 3G.
This contrasts with 13.8k for dual ISDN, 7.3k for single channel ISDN, and 3-5k for analogue dialup.
Depending on where you are, and how many others are using the cell, your mileage may vary.

The OP may not have a problem with latency - no mention of games either.
To answer the latency question he did ask, you get a delay per item downloaded.
This delay is of the order of less than a second before the page or whatever starts to come in.
The first time you look for something, there's an extra delay while the system looks up its address - a few seconds.
You can skip some of these delays by running a DNS server locally so that lookups only need to
happen once. The easiest way to do this is to use a router rather than just the USB modem,
but get the thing working first.
In urban areas you're almost certain to get someone treating it like a DSL connection and running bittorrent or some other saturating anti-social application. This not only cripples the bandwidth for other users, but actually reduces the range of the service.

3G is not the same as a broadband product, and suffers really badly from thoughtless contention,
but if you're in a rural area with few enough "competitors", it can work really well - certainly better than dialup.

watty

Yes, I inferred ISDN has good latency (Better than HSDPA). Quite often dual channel ISDN is better than Edge/3G/HSDPA, the Mobile Internet may only have 70k upload when download is 700k. And read the 3 Thread, it can be lower than 120k.

I've "clocked" 200kbps on dual ISDN (no packet loss and compression running) direct dialup to a server.

If conditions are good EDGE/3G/HSDPA can be faster, but likely with higher packet loss and latency (poor for VOIP as well as games). It's fine for Web Browsing & Email, but not truely Broadband. Since even Dual Channel ISDN is "Narrow Band", maybe Mobile Phone system Internet should be called "Mobile MidBand"?

Of course EDGE or 3G/HSDPA is generally better than Analogue dialup, but I think we all agree it's misleading to call it Broadband.

On my own O2 modem I rarely see less than 400Kbps, so must generally be HSDPA rather than EDGE or plain 3G. But even at 700k with high latency, web page experience can feel slower than Dual Channel ISDN, no doubt a Router with caching DNS would help.

I've used 512K satellite system I have here for test that with its 840ms+ latency sometimes seems faster than HSDPA. It isn't portable though

niallb

Sorry to post so many figures here, and I apologise for the length of the post,
but I really feel that this could improve life for the OP, and is worth another try!
There is an O2 mast near him, though www.siteviewer.ie says it's not 3G enabled yet.

In this case I used the figures that will be seen in a web browser during a download.
These are generally displayed as kB (but can appear just as k).
Watty is using kb, which is confusing side by side, as it's like
comparing oranges and bunches of bananas.
kb (Watty's bigger numbers) would usually be the preferred unit to use.
I decided to use the numbers from a browser to try avoid confusion with the
speeds that internet connections are sold at.

You may see 200kb with the right data on a compressed ISDN connection if
that's the way you want to look at it, but it's still a 13.8kB data connection
if you want to compare it to the figures I used.
I'm measuring binary downloads for a consistent comparison.
Dual ISDN gives me 13.8kB per second - has done for years.
It's that 13.8kB I'm comparing to 120kB on Vodafone 3G.
Using Watty's units, we're comparing 200kb to 1.3Mb

A couple of observations:
I find EDGE much more responsive than 3G,
and have had surprisingly good test VOIP calls on it.
Again, it's not a generic broadband product,
and you wouldn't use voip on it regularly.

In addition, I was on Vodafone unlimited which specifically disallows VOIP
as does Meteor's EDGE package. This is one of the reasons I switched
to DSL when it became available last month, and also the fact that my
3G connection didn't work on foggy mornings, or dropped back to half
of dialup speed.

For uploading, my 3G connection is generally much faster than my new DSL connection.
This may actually be why bittorrent and friends affect it so quickly.
At the distance I am from the exchange, my 1Mb down/128kb up product gives
me about 800kb down and a rocky 70-108kb up. Vodafone usually gives me about
220-300kb up.

As Watty says, packet loss can be a real problem for 3G. The USB modems are a
really poor example of what's possible with it. All my good experiences have been
with a 3G router with a small external antenna. The spot that works well for me is tiny,
and there's no signal at all within 12 inches of the spot that gives me HSDPA.
So long as the antenna is there - stuck to the window - I'm fine. A USB modem
never worked in the house even at the table near the window. Stuck to the window
on a long extension lead, I got some connection, but nothing special.
Finally, moving the 3G modem while it's being used usually caused connection loss.

I'd suggest picking up a long USB extension lead and trying out the O2 modem
to see what you get. You've two weeks to get your money back.

markmagennis

niallb wrote: »

From the www.siteviewer.ie maps, they also both have a mast high up just north of Glencar lake.

Ah, that would be the Trosc Mor mast which is only about 2 miles from my house, as the crow flies. Trouble is, Glencar is a glaciated valley and whilst the crow can fly over the 200ft cliff behind my house, the mobile signal has a lot more trouble. The only place I can get a reliable mobile signal is within 4 inches of one of two windows. I'm on Vodafone though, having switched from 02 because I couldn't get a signal even in the garden!

However, things change, so I might try out an 02 data modem with a long USB cable as you suggest. I might even try the 3 one again if they'll let me.

Thanks,
Mark

Dysman

niallb,

that's an impressive post theter mate, can you tell me what would be your recomendation for a 3G router + antenna, how would it work on O2. I have the O2 USB dongle and am consistantly gettin up 200kb on Edge (DSL is a total non runner) but I can increase this to 2Mb when I use a VPN to a satelite one way system

Thanks