Satellite broadband

[PDRD]

Hi.

Does anyone here have satellite broadband? is it good? Is it reliable? Who are you with?

Thanks
Phil

 

[leemason]

I don't have it myself but I know a couple of people who do have it. The main problem with Satellite broadband is the latency. This makes it unsuitable for applications like VoIP.

 

[PDRD]

Thanks. What speed internet does voip need?

 

[leemason]

It's not the speed. It's the latency. It takes too long for data packets to get to and from the satellite to make VoIP viable. You could have a 10Mb satellite link but this would still not provide the end to end latency required for VoIP. I seem to remember though that the broadband speed was about 3Mb up and 1Mb down on the satellite link.

 

[PDRD]

I wasn't thinking about the speed of the satellite for Voip. I was thinking out loud, that we could keep our BT broadband which is 0.5mb and just use it for voip and as a backup and then get satellite for internet use.

 

[leemason]

That should be possible - 500Kb is boarder line. How many concurrent VoIP calls would you think you would be making? The standard codec will take about 120Kb per call. You can use compression codecs with a number of providers. Try this test: http://myspeed.visualware.com/index.php. Make sure you choose G.711 as the codec as this is the most common used.

 

[mit74]

I had a customer with sat broadband last year. It was fairly fast to be honest but had nightmare reliablity with regular disconnections and poor performance. Also effected by the weather quite badly. They had no other choice though.

 

[SaltireTelecom]

I wasn't thinking about the speed of the satellite for Voip. I was thinking out loud, that we could keep our BT broadband which is 0.5mb and just use it for voip and as a backup and then get satellite for internet use.

Why were you looking at Satellite, We have a special broadband service which is designed for VoIP & High internet usage.

 

[mit74]

Why were you looking at Satellite, We have a special broadband service which is designed for VoIP & High internet usage.

because i suspect he's out in the countryside somewhere.

 

[PDRD]

Yes, out in the countryside with an internet connection of 0.5mb as posted above. Not much 'High Internet Usage' happens here, not for lack of trying.

Satellite seems to be the only option unless 4G routers can pick up a signal from further away than 4g mobiles?

 

[leemason]

What about Wimax? Do you have any providers locally? 4G routers can be fitted with external antennae get better signal. I just depends how far out you are and whether there is any 4G signal at all.

 

[PDRD]

Whats Wimax?

6 miles from a very good 4G area, the online checkers say no coverage here for mobile 4G

 

[leemason]

Wimax is wireless broadband. It is used in some parts of the UK where traditional wired broadband doesn't reach. There are not many UK providers but dependent on where you are there is an outside chance that Wimax might be available. There is a list of provider here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deployed_WiMAX_networks (there are not too many UK providers but it's worth a go).

 

[Raw Rob]

I've got TooWay satellite internet. It's rated at 20mbps although sometimes it does feel very slow due to the latency. Most of the time it is fine, but certain things, like Kashflow, seem particularly slow.
I use VOIP on it and it works ok. Skype actually works really well, but the other VOIP companies I have tried (including Voipfone) work ok but not wonderful.
Basically, the only reason I use it is that there is no other choice where I live, not even a standard phone line.

 

[leemason]

So VoIP works OK? I'm quite surprised. Do you notice any major delay when speaking to people on VoIP?

 

[seoswat]

If you were going to get satelitte then i would suggest TooWay.

They are the market leaders and only just last year updated to 20mb service.

The downside is as Lee Mason points out, the latency. This IS going to have an effect.

If you are just doing general web browsing, downloading files, even streaming movies then fine but for things like playing real time games, phone calls, video confercing you will run into issues

 

[Raw Rob]

Do you notice any major delay when speaking to people on VoIP?

No, not at all. I actually did an interview for an internet radio station over Skype the other day and it worked perfectly.
With other voip providers I have some very strange issues, including loud noises on the line and frequent disconnections, which I've not had time to troubleshoot properly, although they could be caused by the router (I'm using a Dreytek router which has sockets to plug a standard phone into, I really need to try using a softphone and see if I have the same issues.)

 

[leemason]

Skype has it's own proprietary codec which is agile to the connection type and tunes quality and packet spacing dependent upon the link. Other VoIP provider will use a fixed standard codec. I can understand that you will have had issues with standard VoIP codecs. I don't think it will have been the router as the Draytek routers are pretty good at handling VoIP traffic. I use them all of the time now.