satelite internet

[Part-time]

My internet is through xplornet.
It uses a dish and is suposed to be a "high speed" but I find slow as malases in January.
The techs say all is working right, but it is because on the "latency"... about the distance to the satelite.
It is seriously no better than my old dial up was so I'm wondering how they can advertise it as high speed or is it just mine that is exceptionaly slow because of the area that I'm in?
Any other satelite internet users out there?

 

[nwcove]

Re: satelite internet

what kind of numbers do you get on speedtest.net as compared to what they advertise?

 

[angus63]

Re: satelite internet

If you are looking to compare, I have HS cable Internet, and my ping is 25 ms, download is 15-20 Mb/s and upload is about 2 Mb/sec on an IPad. Faster off peak hours. I was surprised that my smartphone on 4G LTE is the fastest at appx 40 Mb/s download.

 

[roscoe]

Re: satelite internet

It should work at the same speed, regardless of season. The satellite is geostationary to the earth.
The latency delay should always be the same, as the distance between your dish and the satellite is a constant.



What is geostationary satellite? - Definition from WhatIs.com



Does your speed change thru out the day? Late night?

 

[nwcove]

Re: satelite internet

mine is hs wireless.... tonight,ping at 52ms, download at 2.21 Mbps, upload at 0.25Mbps. ( advertised at 1.5 down and 0.25 up)

 

[Part-time]

Re: satelite internet

Well Bubba.... sound like I'm pretty much in the same situation you were in.



I'm suposed to get 3.5 mbps
The techs tell me it's just speedtest that is unacurate...

 

[nwcove]

Re: satelite internet

those are bad numbers! if you have good cell service in your location, i'd look into that for an internet option.

 

[Part-time]

Re: satelite internet

those are bad numbers! if you have good cell service in your location, i'd look into that for an internet option.

Most cells have a hard time getting one bar in my yard. a big zero in the house.
I'm to far from civilisation for cable.
And the phone lines don't suport dsl.
Untill the late 90s we still had party lines out here.

 

[nwcove]

Re: satelite internet

we only got the "hs" wireless deal here three years ago ( antenna on a pole..not cellular)....other than that it was dial up. no cable or dsl options. id still look into the cell option tho, the brother inlaw lives just a few mins from here and couldnt get a good enough signal for the same thing i have, bad cell phone service also at his location, but he got a couple of cell providers to come in and assess his situation.....now has good reliable web service via cell tower. maybe worth calling about......its free to have them say it wont work!!

 

[Part-time]

Re: satelite internet

I was told that the only tower available to me is to old and doesn't work with the cell internet...
except the bell turbo stick, but it only works outside and they charge $50/month for 1 gig.
I tried it.
And because the signal is so week it keeps disconecting.
Everytime it reconects it uses 800-900 kbs of data.
If I was on the internet for 15 min I could end up reconecting as much as 10 times.

 

[nwcove]

Re: satelite internet

yikes!! but id still call other providers. towers are being put up/and upgraded everywhere . its a competitive market. but if you are in a "dead zone", your stuck with what you have.

 

[Part-time]

Re: satelite internet

Well.... I called and canceled my service so sometime soon I won't have internet at home.
I'll just get my i-boats fix when I go visit my parents or my brother.
I'll be moving come spring anyways so I'm just going to wait and see what is available in the new location...

 

[rbh]

Re: satelite internet

I have two things to suggest, first the internet-if you have line of site to a person you know that has DSL there are a lot of wireless hops you can get, cheap (point to point Ethernet radio)

Cell sucks, try a cellular gateway
It will allow you to use the cell remoted from your home and use it like a POTS line, the max cable length is about 1000-2000 feet depending on the MFG.
So traditional phone in home, 22-24 GA tel cable out to the max loop length plugs into the cell gateway and cell plugs into gateway.
Power = 2 12vdc batteries and a ac-dc inverter, charge when required
Build shelter around to keep the bugs and snow of the equipment.

 

[JB]

Re: satelite internet

Cell sucks, try a cellular gateway
It will allow you to use the cell remoted from your home and use it like a POTS line, the max cable length is about 1000-2000 feet depending on the MFG.
So traditional phone in home, 22-24 GA tel cable out to the max loop length plugs into the cell gateway and cell plugs into gateway.
Power = 2 12vdc batteries and a ac-dc inverter, charge when required
Build shelter around to keep the bugs and snow of the equipment.

What the devil does that mean in Engish, rbh?

 

[rbh]

Re: satelite internet

What the devil does that mean in Engish, rbh?

Sorry JB, have a look at this.

Phonelabs - Dock N Talk, Universal cell phone Docking Station, cable and bluetooth enabled connection


This is actually a bit of a life saver for a couple of customers (way out in the mountains), we integrated this unit with an old switch board to give them the ability to remote their incoming lines from the top of the mountain where there was cell reception, to the valley bottom (1.5 km) where there is no signal.

They just gotta remember to charge the batteries :facepalm: and yes there is solar and wind chargers.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: satelite internet

The satelites sit at 22,000 miles above the earth and the last time I checked radio signals still travel at 186,000 miles per second so the trip up and back takes a shade over 1/10 of a second. (120 milli-seconds) While that is a lot more than cable and DSL folks see it's not all that bad.

Depends on what latitude you are at. Middle Latitudes of the US are around 1/4 second. Maybe if you lived at the equator, your latency would be what you calculated but not where you live.

The true latency us actually double that. Let's say you want to visit a website. Your request goes up and then down. The the info gets sent back to you in the same manner. 2 round trips or 1/2 second in the middle of the US.

Th OP's latency is going to be quite a bit more since he is up in Canada.

 

[Part-time]

Re: satelite internet

It's considerably more than a couple of seconds.
If it was just a few seconds of wait and the page would pop up I could live with that.
But it's not the case, it's just wait for what seems forever...
Watching a you tube video is imposible and if it is a page with pics it will take up to a min or two for the pics to load...

 

[Tim Frank]

Re: satelite internet

Quote Originally Posted by bruceb58 View Post
Depends on what latitude you are at. Middle Latitudes of the US are around 1/4 second. Maybe if you lived at the equator, your latency would be what you calculated but not where you live.

The true latency us actually double that. Let's say you want to visit a website. Your request goes up and then down. The the info gets sent back to you in the same manner. 2 round trips or 1/2 second in the middle of the US.

Th OP's latency is going to be quite a bit more since he is up in Canada.

Say huh? Distance is distance and the speed of light is a constant. 22,000 miles at the equator or 28,000 in canada is not really going to make much difference in the time it takes for a radio signal to travel the extra 5,000 miles.


Edit: Just a follow up, I choose a server in Canberra Austrailia ans ran a speed test. Roughly 10,000 miles (as the crow flies) both ways and according to the report there were 23 "hops" from my farm to the server. Ping time - 182 milli-seconds. (0.18 seconds.)

You might want to recheck your math.

Quote Originally Posted by Bubba1235 View Post
The satelites sit at 22,000 miles above the earth and the last time I checked radio signals still travel at 186,000 miles per second so the trip up and back takes a shade over 1/10 of a second. (120 milli-seconds) While that is a lot more than cable and DSL folks see it's not all that bad.

...22K miles....twice, at 186000 MPS is not "just a shade over 1/10 of a second"....it's closer to 1/4 second...and with the double trip as Bruce points out, it comes out to....about 1/2 second....exactly what Bruce said.

 

[roscoe]

Re: satelite internet

Depends on what latitude you are at. Middle Latitudes of the US are around 1/4 second. Maybe if you lived at the equator, your latency would be what you calculated but not where you live.

The true latency us actually double that. Let's say you want to visit a website. Your request goes up and then down. The the info gets sent back to you in the same manner. 2 round trips or 1/2 second in the middle of the US.

Th OP's latency is going to be quite a bit more since he is up in Canada.

But it should be relatively constant, as the distance does not change from season to season.

He has stated that it has gotten worse this winter.

 

[Part-time]

Re: satelite internet

It was just ckecked yesterday.... again.