Has anyone used satellite broadband, if so any experiences good or bad?

TS

Used to have an Aramiska satellite connection back in the days before BT had upgraded all the rural exchanges to receive broadband. Kept it for quite a while afterwards too as we were so far from the exchange that it was still worth keeping.

It was pretty decent. There was a very noticeable lag when browsing, and things like Skype or online gaming were near impossible, but once the page had started loading it was very quick. My Dads business has just gone back to using one recently as the BT landline connection was so unreliable and was affecting the business. The new satellite connection seems to be bery similar to the old one but with much higher bandwidth.

We had an older tooway system and for general browsing it was fine. Corporate VPN throttled it back really badly but otherwise a good solution if you’re in the midddle of nowhere.

I’m on Vfast, something like 14mbps. Its ace compared to BT’s 512kbps 🙂

Vfast is wireless is it not?

Haven’t got a clue.

I would hope it is wireless! Although a wired satellite connection would be quite cool 😉

I gather the data allowances can be quite low.

Thanks for the replies. Vfast seems to be a local wireless provider so wouldn’t work out here. No wired satellite connections around but that would definitely sort out the ping issue 🙂

My worry is the data and the way they throttle you back if you exceed it, or not even exceed it!

TS

We use Tooway at work as the work sites move around every few months. Ideal for instant broadband communications out in the sticks as long as you have power (and line of sight to the satelite). Saves waiting for BT to install a landline!

Pretty good connection speeds but as jruk says, the vpn kills it big time. Data usage wise, will depend how much you need, pretty sure Tooway have a variety of packages available.

Also if you go over your data allocation, can top up if required rather than upgrading the package. As far as i understand, in a similar way to mobile contracts you can upgrade to the next package up fairly easily but aren’t able to come back down very easily hence topping up can be useful.

What’s VPN when it’s at home?

Cheers
TS

vpn = virtual private network = the public internet being used as a carrier for your private network data
i had some use of hotstar-1 years ago. download speeds ok, but uploading was slow and unreliable, might have changed since then

Broadband satellites are geo-stationary so an orbit of approx 35,000km (above the equator) which equates to a round trip delay of something like 0.28 second. This will upset TCP a bit which will throttle back the data rate due to the latency, although there are ways to improve this.

You generally don’t get very high data rates unless you pay a fortune for them. They’re mainly used for applications like oil rigs, remote mobile phone cell sites where there really isn’t any alternative and the customers are generally well off!

We have one at work, it may be quite good, but our network systems are backwards and over complicated so what we see is pretty poor, phone can be quicker if it finds signal.

Capable of far faster, wider data capabilities, some of the stuff my dad deals with is satellite links for banks and embassies, but his dishes are a bit bigger than normal at Goonhilly.

As has been said above can be good if a bit expensive but latency is the big problem…

Hi – disclosure up front – helping to fund my way around the best endurance races in the word (Transrockies, Cape Epic, La Ruta etc) my day job is MD of Avonline Broadband.

We are UK’s largest provider of real 20Mbps satellite broadband. We been selling SB since 2002 (in fact our first ever sale was an Aramiska system).

Our newest services are fast, reliable, start at £25/month and three of our four packages now have UNLIMITED data bundles.

Web is http://www.avonlinebroadband.co.uk or feel free to email me at mark.wynn@avonline.co.uk at anytime.

Umm.

Interesting to read Mark Wynn because I’m currently paying Avonline £65 per month for the 20mbs unlimited service and along with constant drop outs, having to frequently reboot the modem, slower than advertised speeds (about 5mbs), frequently unobtainable (lines busy due to high call volumes) tech support and unanswered emails, I would love to know just how exactly you can say your new bb services are as fast as advertised or indeed are reliable… Furthermore, my neighbour is having exactly the same problems with their Avonline satellite bb connection and neither of us were amused to be fobbed off with different excuses for a recent 4 day downtime when the satellite went offline.

So, if you really do believe your own hype and would like your customers to be able to believe it too, perhaps you could provide me with the bb service promised and if you can’t manage this then compensate me for the service that I am not being provided with but for which I am paying heavily for.

Message for Sproglett/Doris.

My email above. Please feel free to contact me directly and I will be happy to help with your concerns. If you do want/ need help, we’ll struggle to help you on anonymous forums. My email available to everyone of our our customers s I’d be delighted to help. Mark

thats interesting mark

i run a nursery and its quite rural, our bt broadband is rubbish, and dont think we will ever get fibre routed to where we are

will check our speeds and think on

Coz – please feel free to email directly as above. Mark

We had it at my old work and staff houses.
P*sh poor IMO. We paid a horrendous amount (£320 per month!) for business unlimited, and if there was more than a couple of people on, it slowed to dial up ish speed. You could not reliably skype, or stream youtube etc without stuttering during office hours.
The staff houses had a £40 per month deal (cannot remember limits) and it was soooo slow, even at the start of the month before they exceeded limits.
So as a business, we were giving Tooway £5500+ per year for poor connections.
Heavy cloud or snow also affects. It used to go ‘down’ as a connection about once a quarter, for a good half day or more at times.
Having said all that, if it is your only option..

We do leaving in rural North Wales. The usual LAN line b’band was <1mb and not really usable. We now have around around >5mb. We can also cancel our BT LAN line which saves us a bit. Not sure if this is true though, but we find that poor weather affects the signal which we seem to have plenty of have here in rainy Wales. The ISP is AB internet and think it costs us around £25 pm.