Satellite Broadband

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Satellite Broadband

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Anyone familiar with this or have any experience? Moving from the flat which was right next to the exchange and getting between 8mb-10mb/s, I now barely get 2mb/s ADSL at the new house. Satellite speeds seem remarkably high but the prices are also a lot higher than I would expect to pay for an equivalent GBN service.
 
Used this many years ago, when the only other alternative (a mile from a major town...!) was ISDN. Very fast; and reasonably reliable... -- although would often lose connection during bad weather.... I presume it's better, now -- if Sky TV reception is anything to go by.... (Also, the dishes are a lot smaller....) :eek:

Some of the farmers around here use it: download speeds a guaranteed 20Mb; uploads at 6Mb. There was some moaning about data caps for the cheaper packages, though.... :(
 
From memory, downloads are fast, uploads are at phone line speeds (essentially it's a one way system).

Huddersfield can't be that far removed from civilisation, surely? I was pointing out the issues in living in that part of the world to a friend, but broadband speeds didn't feature!
Yeah, thats how it used to be - you needed a phone/ISDN connection too, which dealt with the requests and uploads, then the satellite sent it down.

I'm guessing now, that would be replaced with ASDL up and satellite down?
 
I'm not actually in Hudds, I live on the outskirts of a little village called Emley. Flockton exchange is the one we're connected to and is a fair few miles away.
I know it used to be the case that satellite uploads were on the phone line so am assuming that these are now DSL, not sure how they can achieve 6mb though when the line can't handle 2mb down, I'll do some more investigation.
Thanks for the replies :)
 
Modern Satellite broadband is actually pretty good. Upload speeds are vast improved the only problem I have with it is latency. This makes online gaming & VOIP / Skype impossible unless you get the more expensive packages that combine ADSL into it also.

I've got a SMB who's using a company called Onwave who are using 4 bonded ADSL's combined with Satellite and they get 40mbit down and 20mbit up with the ADSL circuits to serve time critical protocols such as Skype and their VOIP.
 
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Ok, so I'm thinking about going for it but keeping the ADSL as well for gaming as it's just impossible to watch videos on YouTube in anything above 480p without having to wait ages for it to buffer. No problem for 30 second cat videos, but anything longer and I get grumpy :(

My new question is though - is it possible (in Win7) to make certain applications use a specific network connection so that I can have them both connected to my PC, have the satellite as the default connection but then force games to use the DSL connection?
 
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Surely just bonded adsl would be enough for you?

ADSL + satellite = costly no? Plus you'd need an expensive router to deal with the two links, and then yes you'd need to set up routing protocols to decide which traffic goes down which link.

Sorry not set up routing protocols (lol), more set protocol-based routing.
 
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It might but as I'm tied into a contract with my current provider I can rule it out.

Edit: Saying that, that would involve 2 lines, getting BT to install another line, paying 2 lots of line rental etc.
If the satellite option turns out to be acceptable for gaming, then I could cancel the phoneline completely when the ADSL contract ends.
 
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It might but as I'm tied into a contract with my current provider I can rule it out.

Edit: Saying that, that would involve 2 lines, getting BT to install another line, paying 2 lots of line rental etc.
If the satellite option turns out to be acceptable for gaming, then I could cancel the phoneline completely when the ADSL contract ends.

As Chris has said latency (and cost) might be an issue here. I still think you'd be cheaper and better getting 2 ADSLs and getting them bonded by the ISP if they offer it. You won't get the speeds of your Sat + ADSL but it won't be as expensive.
 
Price wise, I tend to disagree. To get even half the speeds offered over the satellite I'd need 4 bonded lines!!
I'm looking at £35 a month for the sat service, with about £200 for the hardware and installation/activation. Using Eclipse as an example, they want £120 a month for an unlimited service on 4 lines, plus £250 installation/activation charge. That's a big fat nope.

Edit: My ISP is the Post Office.
 
Price wise, I tend to disagree. To get even half the speeds offered over the satellite I'd need 4 bonded lines!!
I'm looking at £35 a month for the sat service, with about £200 for the hardware and installation/activation. Using Eclipse as an example, they want £120 a month for an unlimited service on 4 lines, plus £250 installation/activation charge. That's a big fat nope.

Edit: My ISP is the Post Office.

Ok, what about your combination technologies then? Can you get a quote for adsl + sat inc. hardware etc? Would you know how to set up the routing for the different protocols so you could send games down one link and other stuff down t'other?
 
That was my question when I bumped the thread ;)

I wouldn't be looking to combine them, but I would want them both useable on my PC so that I could use the satellite as the default connection for web/torrents/media, and force EVE, Steam, etc to use the ADSL connection.

I'd probably just turn off the WiFi on the DSL router so all our mobile devices would also use the sat broadband, leaving the DSL purely as a gaming connection.
 
ADSL bonded is an option you can bond upto 4. However cost is a lot as you need to pay your line rental on 4 lines!

And yes if you invest in a gateway firewall such as a Sonicwall TZ-205 you can set up a load balanced WAN link. You could also prioritise gaming / voip etc to go over ADSL and other stuff such as http / YouTube to go over SAT.

The cheaper TZ-105 may do it too but I'd have to check.
 
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