Anyone know anything about Satillite Internet?

[Sigurd]

Yeah i was looking into Directway a satillite internet service through direct tv. I cant get DSL or cable by my house and i dont want to play on my ISDN when PS comes out, so i was wondering if anyone knows some Pro's or Con's of Satillite internet. It claims it DLs at 400kbps and uploads at 128kbps. Just want some backround info before i fork out the greenbacks thx.

[Navaron]

All I've heard is bad things.

[Beorin]

You really dont want it for gaming purposes.

the lag on it is _horrible_.
like 6-10k ping times.

Roughly.. you're looking at:
200-350 ping for dial up
80-150 for dsl
40 - 100 for cable
6000 - 10000 for sat.

--Beorin

[Sigurd]

holy crap, so than why does it say it has such fast upload and DL speeds?

[BLuE_ZeRO]

It's not bad but it's not really a gaming connection. I knew a couple people who had it and it was just plain crap in game.

[powdahound]

Ping is crap on satellite. Think about how far up and down it has to go. :) It's also very weather sensitive.

I'm stuck on dialup too, I know how you feel. It's just not a gaming connection though. Better 56k modem protocol is coming out though. :)

[Sigurd]

man, that really bursts my bubble, i thought i could finally get high speed internet. Oh well back to waiting for DSL

[Beorin]

Its great for general usage.. downloading stuff.. web browsing.. ect.

just its pings suck.
also remember, even though its a two-way, your uplink is about equivelant to a 33.6k or so in bandwith.


--beorin

[Venom]

my friend had sat internet for a while. it was good on sunny days but as soon as there were a few clouds the signal went to hell and it pretty much stopped working :(

[powdahound]

Originally posted by Beorin
also remember, even though its a two-way, your uplink is about equivelant to a 33.6k or so in bandwith.


Nah, only the older ones. They have two way sat now. It used to be that your upload was still via a modem, but that has changed for some of them.

[Marsman]

I have a friend that has it. Upload and Download speeds are comperable to Cable modem service in this area - aprox 800-1000 down - 128-256 up but....
As others has mentioned, the ping is not good for gaming. 600-900ms is not uncommon for Sat system pings. If all you are doing is browsing the net and downloading - it's fine. It's also quite a bit more cost than other services. (like $80/month) Weather does affect it but it depends on how much signal you are able to get. With a good strong signal, only really heavy rains affect it for a minute or so until the downpour passes through. Most of the time it hangs in there pretty well.