2-Way Affordable Satallite Access this Year.

mechanima

That is a reliable insider claim from SkyTV.

What is more it is intended to be competitive and will presumeably be linked to UK provisions and Satellite TV in terms of pricing.

This in information only, I have no intention of sticking around to be flamed.

Mechanima

Shamo

Apart from the pings that wouldn't be too bad. A lot of people already have sky digital including me and if we could use the same dish for sky digital and satellite connection, that would reduce the costs a lot.

Is that possible or would you need a new dish?

Arboration

But I wonder, would a certain company be slipping brown envelopes under the table towards the Gov' not allowing sky to do such things ?

chernobyl

2-Way Affordable Satallite Access this Year.

No such thing.
Sky just dont have the birds to support a service aimed at a mass of home users.

2 way is for SME's and up.

longword

Originally posted by chernobyl

Sky just dont have the birds to support a service aimed at a mass of home users.

2 way is for SME's and up.

I dunno. Each bird is good for a gigabit or two downstream, not sure about the upstream, and they do have rather a large number of satellites up there. PIng times are always going to be the major killer for geo sats though. Equivalent of each packet traveling around the world half a dozen times.

chernobyl

A gigabit....well whooo!
A $2 Billion bird with 30 X 40mb/sec Transponders, good for about 4000 ppl..thats not good business at all.

America is the only place such a service can survive because building and launching Satellites only costs a fraction and you know you will have the demand straight away.

longword

Originally posted by chernobyl
A gigabit....well whooo!
A $2 Billion bird

Man, you're shopping for your birds in the wrong part of town
Including insurance and launch costs it should be in the low hundreds of millions, not close to the billion mark. The EU's entire Galileo GPS alternative project, with dozens of satellites, is only costing $3bn.

America is the only place such a service can survive because building and launching Satellites only costs a fraction

Ummm. Europe has a better track record with the Aridane 4 launch vehicle and cheaper launch costs from ESA's Kouru facility.

chernobyl

Well i actually intended "€" but regardless you are looking @ the billions of Dollars in order to provide enough bandwidth up there.

Satellites are a poor means to provide internet, in every sense of the word.

Show me the stats where the "EU" builds satellites cheaper than the Americans and the figures that show Vsat hardare is cheaper here than in America...please...

bottom line, i can see sky offering some form on Internet Content directly to the STB via Multicast but not a bi-directional system.

mayhem#

Originally posted by Shamo
Apart from the pings that wouldn't be too bad. A lot of people already have sky digital including me and if we could use the same dish for sky digital and satellite connection, that would reduce the costs a lot.

Is that possible or would you need a new dish?

You would probably need a different (bigger) dish or a different LMB seeing that you will be broadcasting.
You will also need a radio licence (150Euro p/a) because of this...

mayhem#

Originally posted by chernobyl

2 way is for SME's and up.

No it's not...

chernobyl

€150 per month is within the home users budget in Ireland [but thats only because we are being raped for internet access here, give it a year and Educom wont have too many calls from home users actually thats they was it is right now...lots of calls from "jim" in mayo mayhem#, looking for 24/7 access?) but the overheads to get into the game would be an instant turn off for any home user.

Also Educom have the worst "heres our service" presentation ever!

There are so many costs and then some more and they are almost afraid to say:

"this is what it will cost you x"

instead they have this:

"theres a cost x, for this"
"theres another cost y for this"

blah blah...talk about trying to turn a customer away.

dahamsta

I got a call from Educom recently[1], which was perfectly acceptable to me, since I had asked for information some time ago. The call was rather worrying though, because the "salesman" sounded about fourteen years of age[2], and quite obviously didn't really know what he was talking about. I mean, he knew the facts, but as soon as I asked him about something that wasn't on the website - which I knew already - he just clammed up, wasn't able to answer. It was a decidely unprofessional affair. Even if I had been interested in the service - or, to be more accurate, could afford it - I don't think I'd want to deal with a company with staff like that.

Please note that I'm not slamming Educom, they could be a perfectly professional company for all I know. I'm just relaying my experience.

adam

[1] Or at least someone purporting to be from Educom, he said carefully.
[2] Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it reminded me of some dodgy "hosting" company stories I've heard.

mayhem#

Originally posted by chernobyl
€150 per month is within the home users budget in Ireland [but thats only because we are being raped for internet access here, give it a year and Educom wont have too many calls from home users actually thats they was it is right now...lots of calls from "jim" in mayo mayhem#, looking for 24/7 access?) but the overheads to get into the game would be an instant turn off for any home user.
SNIP....

OK, fair enough, it's not cheap, but however it is the best value package for broadband available in this country at the moment.
Even with Eircom apparently making a move on with DSL I do not see DSL becomming available for people like myself who do not live in any of the larger urban centres. And believe me there are a lot of people in that situation. I have seen the "quality" of Eircom's DSL offering in Ennis and I can't say that I'm impressed.
Also while Educom might not be the best at the old customer service game, that's why they work with resellers. Contact any of them (including myself) and you will get all the information that you need...

mayhem#

Originally posted by dahamsta
I got a call from Educom recently[1], which was perfectly acceptable to me, since I had asked for information some time ago. The call was rather worrying though, because the "salesman" sounded about fourteen years of age[2], and quite obviously didn't really know what he was talking about. I mean, he knew the facts, but as soon as I asked him about something that wasn't on the website - which I knew already - he just clammed up, wasn't able to answer. It was a decidely unprofessional affair. Even if I had been interested in the service - or, to be more accurate, could afford it - I don't think I'd want to deal with a company with staff like that.

Please note that I'm not slamming Educom, they could be a perfectly professional company for all I know. I'm just relaying my experience.

adam

[1] Or at least someone purporting to be from Educom, he said carefully.
[2] Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it reminded me of some dodgy "hosting" company stories I've heard.

See my last post...

longword

Originally posted by chernobyl
Well i actually intended "€" but regardless you are looking @ the billions of Dollars in order to provide enough bandwidth up there.

I've never had cause to buy myself a satellite. Maybe someone will get me one for Christmas. But I do know that you can buy one polarization of a transponder on a satellite, good for about 40Mbit, for around €200-300k. RTE owns one on an Intelsat.

You suggest that a gigabit would serve only 4,000 users. That's way off the mark. A respectable contention ratio is regarded as about 20:1, giving you more like 80,000 users. I agree it could never be cost-competitive with terrestrial solutions around urban areas, but it can be handy mopping up the rest.

Show me the stats where the "EU" builds satellites cheaper than the Americans and the figures that show Vsat hardare is cheaper here than in America...please...

Who cares where the satellite is made, or where it's launched? You buy the hardware wherever seems handiest.

Felix Randel

Does anybody see it as foolish going from one monoploy to another monopoly?

chernobyl

Does anybody else think your OT post should be deleted whilst this OT thread should be in Net/Comms?

Bandwidth for 2 way:256/256

Push Bandwidth: 30TP's @ 40mb/sec = 1.2GB
Reception Bandwidth: 1.2GB

1200/.256 = 4688 users whould coud get 256K access and considering that in England NTL will soon have many thousands with access to 1mb/sec for £50, who would want this service and most importantly who would be silly enough to make such a financially suicidal manovure?

Felix Randel

How is my post OT, im talking about sky, most of your post on the other hand seem to be talking about fairy tales.

Either which way this probably shouldnt be here.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Felix Randel
Does anybody see it as foolish going from one monoploy to another monopoly?

I'm not sure I understand this. Surely more satelite options would provide more competition and lessen monopoly power. The other companies would still exist to compete with it.

Felix Randel

Sky in this country has a virtual monoply when it comes to digital TV, There are allready signs of them abusing this monoply. Would it really be that great a thing to have them in a postion were they have a monoploy on rural broadband as well?

longword

Originally posted by chernobyl

1200/.256 = 4688 users whould coud get 256K access

Every single service provider, all the way from dialup PSTN modems up to even high speed leased lines, depends on the assumption that not all users will be using their full line capacity at all times. They take advantage of this by providing less bandwidth than is required to service all users at full speed. A good ratio for a residential service seems to be around 20:1. That means they share each megabit of access speed with 20 users and tell each subscriber they're getting a megabit of access. Ratios of 40:1 and higher are not unheard of. Before you ask, even though DSL is a point-to-point unshared link between you and the exchange, it is shared beyond that. So take your 4688 users, multiply that by 20, and you get a number you can work with.

considering that in England NTL will soon have many thousands with access to 1mb/sec for £50, who would want this service

Satellite is for those beyond the reach of ADSL and cable networks. Not the prime market, but an important one nonetheless. Note that cable is inrinsically a shared medium. NTL will use a single 40Mbit channel to serve hundreds of 1Mbit customers.

Felix Randel

40mbits will service exactly 1000 users on eircoms adsl.

SkepticOne

I think that if Sky were to come in and start offering satelite Internet, they would be competing in the general Internet access market not just the rural broadband market. This general market desperately needs genuine competition and Sky would be another player.

Instead of paying for metered PSTN and (where available) ISDN you would have the option of relatively cheap satelite for basic Internet access.

It is true that they would be the first on the scene for satelite access and therefore would have first-mover advantage but this might be what is needed to stimulate the market.

mayhem#

Originally posted by SkepticOne
I
It is true that they would be the first on the scene for satelite access

No they're not: http://www.educom.ie

dahamsta

Mayhem#, when you're pointing people to your own site to prove a point, you should make it clear that it's your /commercial/ site. Two words: soliciting, transparency.

adam

chernobyl

longword i found you post so funny as this logic has been the downfall of many many many *infinity* internet via satellite providers.


Actually longword, any bi-directional provider would work on the assumtion that each user would in theory use 100% of their bandwidth whenever they use the service.

longword

Originally posted by chernobyl
Actually longword, any bi-directional provider would work on the assumtion that each user would in theory use 100% of their bandwidth whenever they use the service.

I'm not in the mood to try educating someone who's clearly not listening, so I'll just back away from this one and leave a few URLs in my wake...

http://business.ntl.com/en/help/faq/faq_business_essentials.jhtml#ratio

http://www.broadband-help.com/glossary.asp

http://www.vnunet.com/Analysis/1125775

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t293-s2104242,00.html

Google would be than happy to furnish you with many more.

mayhem#

Originally posted by dahamsta
Mayhem#, when you're pointing people to your own site to prove a point, you should make it clear that it's your /commercial/ site. Two words: soliciting, transparency.
adam

Better now?

chernobyl

Im always in the mood longword, so this is an open invitation to anyone reading to tell longword of their own recent Satellite ISP experiences where the good ol 40/1 ratio did not work out too well.

Satellite ISP's are vastly different to Fixed line providers, there is no *fix* when the bandwidth runs dry, its "were finished" time.

Dustaz

calm down folks.

The only reason i didnt move this was that i think we need at least one satellite thread every once in a while to keep people up to date on the realitys of it as it applies to those seeking IOFFLs goals.

If it becomes a beardy showdown (and its getting there ) its going to nets/comms

chernobyl

[dahamsta trade mark] <img>black pot</img>[/dahamsta trade mark]

Well Mr.iMAC MOD, your almost as beardy as those Unix lovars....

Theres no animosity here, just an opinion difference.