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Satellite Broadband ???

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by jklein 1 view

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Anyone have any experience with Satellite broadband for Internet access? My company is moving and we can't get DSL in our new location. Fractional T1 line charges are high and we would like a cheaper solution.

Good or bad experiences?

I'm having difficulty finding a vendor or provider in Fairfield County Conn. Any suggestions.

Thanks

7 replies

by jholzy

Soley based on my personal home satellite I would highly recommend NOT going that route. I know there are some commercial options available but the cost of these options are somewhat cost prohibitive unless your company has deep pockets but moving to an area that doesn't have DSL available leads me to think that they don't. T1 might be your best bet based on cost concerns. Hughes (DirecPC) has been a nightmare since I signed up 3 months ago. I am able to access their network only about half the time and most of that time is slow... lucky to see 40kb transfers and very slow via ftp and ssh. Starband took 3 months prior to that to finally decide to send the equipment (3 weeks after I cancelled my order!)

Keep in mind that satellite is a reletively new technology [available to the masses] and has a long way to go to be a viable option and the ride will be bumpy as they iron out the problems. Unless the commercial versions are considerably better in speed, dependability and bandwidth costs I would not recommend it.

by admin

sattelite internet access is unhappy. Business class is expensive.

Have you tried IDSL or ISDN options?

by jklein

We had ISDN before DSL was available in our area and were not satisfied with the 128K speed.

We do all of our research via the web as well as use POP3 e-mail. DSL was perfect for us. Oh well.

Thanks for the advise.

by ebob

If you have ISDN, then you can get multiple BRI, or even a PRI (same BW as T1 - 1.544Mbps).

I have had a few installations using a Cisco 3620 or 3640, and their 8-BRI ISDN cards. Then I just added BRI as I needed them, and reconfigured the IOS to treat all of these ISDN links as an aggregate BW.

8 * BRI = 1 Mbps

Pretty affordable in my part of the world with BRI at $100 each per month. In the installations I have done, the ISP is a local call, so there's no additional usage costs. TheISP does have a charge per ISDN port that is populated. Costs are different in other parts of the world, so you'll want to check into this.

There does come a point where a plain old T1 is cheaper than aggregate ISDN. You can either keep ISDN as aPRI, or simply go to straight T1. In general, for performance, I would recommend straight T1. Maybe keep some of the ISDN for a backup.

You'll find at this point that the modular routers (like the Cisco 26xx and 36xx series) are great as you add and swap modules.

by techsailor

I looked at it last year as an alternative to cable for at home. For home users at least, downloads were limited per month so if you use a lot bandwidth, it might be more expensive than T1.

If I remember correctly, uploads were over the regular phone system, so that's 56K. OK for most surfers at home, but not if you send a lot e-mail or attachmments, etc.

by eric

I have recently deployed two way satellite by Optistreams in a 25 user environment. This product had minor startup issues and has been stable now for 3 months. We see speeds in the 400kbs at the desktop with over 1mbs at the Optistreams server. Normal rain has not been an issue with performance. Streaming media works fine over teh system.

Equipment cost were around $3,000 with an MRC of $299.00. Check out the Optistreams site.

Eric

by ssingh

Has anyone tried business class satellite internet thru Verdisys? I am exploring this option which seems a little bit cost effective than Optistream's.

Sanjay

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