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  Satellite Internet forum › Exede satellite broadband forum (was Wildblue) › Slow Satellite Ka band
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Slow Satellite Ka band

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Aug 27th, 2005 at 3:19pm  
I now have satellite broadband service using SURF BEAM model sm2000.  My service 1000kb ( download speed varies between 675 to 900 – upload to 95 kb).

The problem is that when surfing to different sites its take 5 to 15 seconds from site to site. Within a site such as CNN and many others it takes 5 to 10 seconds to go from web page to another.  This is no better than dial up.  Are there adjustments to be made on my computer or the satellite equipment?  I have DSL service at another residence with less advertised speed and it’s so much quicker going from page to page within a site.  Can you advise me on improvements required.



Bob Anderson   
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Eric Johnston
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Reply #1 - Aug 28th, 2005 at 10:13pm  
There is a new Ka band satellite internet service supposed to have started on ANIK 2 with coverage area comprising some 45 small spot beams covering North America.  See the map on page https://www.satsig.net/ivsat.htm   In the USA the product is called Wildblue; in Canada it is called Telesat, although Telesat may intend selling the same product under several other names.
It is the only Ka band service that I am aware of apart from experiments.  Are you in Canada ?

Best regards, Eric. wxw
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« Last Edit: Sep 20th, 2006 at 3:10pm by Admin1 »  
 
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Reply #2 - Aug 30th, 2005 at 11:01am  
Yes I'm in Canada.  My provider is called Explornet.  They replaced Lincsat.

I'm disappointed with satellite transmission.  Although the download speed is as advertised the surfing is no better than dial up.  I think its called the latency factor and it seams there's nothing I can do about it
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Reply #3 - Aug 31st, 2005 at 11:17pm  
It's unusual if you have so high latency

Ka-Band itself has apperead to reduce this problems.

It features very concentrated beams (thus the increased bandwidth on the same "pipe", and reduced latency, over the traditional Ku-band) with much higher performances, and smaller dishes.

You could check if other possiblities exist, in you having incorrectly configured equipment.
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Reply #4 - Sep 1st, 2005 at 1:11am  
Latency has little to do with slow page opening, especially given 95/900 throughput. If this is a universal problem - every single web page, every single time - it's generally a browser problem at the user. If it's a spotty problem, it's generally a slow server at the site from which the web page(s) is/are requested. HTTPS is also expected to be slower than HTTP, HTTP slower than FTP, SMTP lower than them all.

//greg//
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« Last Edit: Nov 17th, 2014 at 9:55pm by Admin1 »  
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Reply #5 - Sep 12th, 2005 at 5:17pm  
I am a network consultant for a customer using the DataBahn service www.thedatabahn.com .  We have found the service to be more or less unusable for our intended purpose.  The purpose is to have our client work from home (at lake cabin) using a vpn.  The only way that anything close to advertised speeds are attained are on ftp downloads of large files.  For any other use that requires back and forth communication between the hosts the performance would be better with a dial up modem.  The latency is terrible.  We have ping rates of 875ms compared with 30ms for other types of service i.e. cable, dsl.  I will list our problems below and you decide if this service will work for you:

1) Connection drops frequently for periods between hours and days.

2) Unless all you do is download large files, the user experience is slower than a dial up connection.

3) If you are fortunate enough to have a connection, the performance varies considerably from moment to moment.

4) Tech support is no help.  They will tell you everything is fine after they test ftp performance.

I strongly suggest that you get references and have an actual demonstration at a bonafide test site before you lay your money down.
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Reply #6 - Sep 12th, 2005 at 6:48pm  
* I am a network consultant for a customer using the DataBahn service

Hello there. I'm Chris.

* We have ping rates of 875ms compared with 30ms for other types of service i.e. cable, dsl.

This is satellite technology. Remember : The microwaves travel 36.000 km forth and then back.

With iDirect, for example, you reduce the latency to about 400-500 ms.

UDgateway  also is very helpfull on this one. Traffic shaping, latency reducing, TCP/IP packets acceleration.

And please remember : a VPN connection always slows down an internet connection to 50%-80% of it;s capacity. Satellite connections are known to have bigger problems (low efficacity) than terrestrial ones.

UDgateway VPN also overcomes this issue.

I am affiliated with UDcast, but i am telling you as a friendly advice, not a commercial approach.

* 1) Connection drops frequently for periods between hours and days.

That is really ineffective equipment, smaller dish than the minimum required, bad weather, or bad HUB services. Not to be taken generally.

* 2) Unless all you do is download large files, the user experience is slower than a dial up connection.

Satellite connections are not particularly effective for applications that require low latencys : online games, db queries, large number of files upload/download by FTP etc.

* 3) If you are fortunate enough to have a connection, the performance varies considerably from moment to moment.

That's because the service is shared. Your performance depends on the rest of the clients, and their traffic performances. If you require steady performances, please go further with SCPC.

Or kindly ask your provider to change you to a more free channel. (IT depends if their company policy let's them do this)

* 4) Tech support is no help.  They will tell you everything is fine after they test ftp performance.

That depends on the company. It also depends on open number of ports, which type (TCP, ICMP, UDP etc), content ratio, etc.

* I strongly suggest that you get references and have an actual demonstration at a bonafide test site before you lay your money down.

In the industry today, you will very rarly encounter test accounts for two-way connections. But ... they are still there at some companies.

I'm glad if I helped..
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« Last Edit: Nov 17th, 2014 at 9:56pm by Admin1 »  
 
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Eric Johnston
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Reply #7 - Sep 13th, 2005 at 3:11pm  
Here are some of my thoughts on this subject..

Availability due to propagation effects:

Ka band systems suffer more from rain thermal noise and rain attenuation than C or Ku band systems, but are specifically designed so that the overall availability due to propagation is the same as for C and Ku band systems.  Rain mitigation techniques include variable modulation DVB-S2, downlink and uplink power control and large link budget margins.   Ku band services have for many years been provided with larger link budget margins to keep availability the same as for C band.

For both Ku and Ka band, it is possible to waste the link margin in bad pointing or excessively small dishes so the service only works in clear sky conditions.  So dish pointing matters a lot, particularly since the transmit beam is narrower then the receive beam.

Latency:

Latency due to the transmission distance applies to all geostationary satellite networks, regardless of frequency band, high or low bit rate, beam size or whatever.

Latency is evident by the initial delay before a file starts coming.   The time it takes while the file is actually downloading is then related to the bit rate.

A big problem has been that plain TCP/IP is not suited to satellite transmission since TCP/IP fragments transmissions into many small packets, each requiring to and fro acknowlwdgements.  To get round this, most satellite systems use TCP/IP acceleration, also called TCP/IP spoofing.  This involves rearranging TCP/IP packets into larger packages and compressing if possible.

Read:

https://www.vsat-systems.com/satellite-internet/acceleration.html

The result is a good experience for internet browsing via satellite.

VPN presents difficulties as it provides a private two-way pipe from one end to the other and within this pipe the format and meaning of every bit is unknown (secret).  Investigating into this two-way pipe to stop packet fragmentation and apply acceleration is therefore a problem.   The above references provide more information about how to solve the VPN problem.

For low cost home-office use I would suggest avoiding VPN and using normal email and ftp for file transfer.   If VPN is really needed, SCPC is a simple, but relatively high cost solution if only one person is using it and then only for a small proportion of total time.  For a remote call centre or continuous use, SCPC is ideal.  Clever software and hardware etc (see references above) is also a solution.

Non-optimum PC set up can significantly affect TCP/IP communications as can mis-operation and mis-configuration of the VSAT hub equipment.  Viruses are a severe problem as they can generate vast amounts of spurious traffic.  VSAT hub staff skills are far more important than the type of equipment used.

Best regards, Eric.   wxw
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« Last Edit: Nov 17th, 2014 at 9:59pm by Admin1 »  
 
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Reply #8 - Sep 30th, 2005 at 3:57pm  
One thing to note about latency is that it is not affected by the frequency band you use.  It is related only to distance traveled.  This is because EM radiation travels at the same speed (c/n where n is the index of refraction) regardless of frequency*.  So way up in this message thread when someone said Ka Band systems were designed to handle latency, not so.  They were designed because everyone had already bought the rights to the less lossy bands.

Traffic shaping, using nonstandard interface models, code layers and the like can all improve the performance of IP over a satellite connection.  I am sure there are great software packages that can improve IP performance.  However, putting such features only at the receiver isn't going to help as much as considering the entire link.  I would think link providers would include these features.  I doubt post-market software has much real room for improvement on a fixed modulation and coding scheme.  They're probably just like all the other "download accelerators" out there.  Snake oil.

*: In a dispersive medium this is not true.  Water is a dispersive medium.  (Rainbows illustrate this.)  However, this is a second order effect, and does not have a strong impact on latency when one considers frequencies above 10GHz separated by less than 5GHz (Ku vs. Ka).  Simply put, it's wrong but not that wrong.
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Reply #9 - Sep 30th, 2005 at 10:13pm  
Latency is no more than a means by which to express delays in that transmission time.  But I will grant you that there's little difference between Ku- and Ka-band transmission times, and therefore reasonably similar latency. What most satellite internet customers don't understand, that that these earthbound compression and coding techniques are simply to reduce the EFFECTS of latency - NOT the actual latency factor itself.

Sunfire's problems are almost certainly terrestrial. I'd expect the transmitter isolation is bad, the cable is substandard, or he's got a bad connector on the TX cable somewhere.

//greg//
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Reply #10 - Sep 30th, 2005 at 10:36pm  
In the C, Ku and Ka bands we are talking about similar carriers of similar information transmission rates such as 30 Mbit/s so there is no difference between the transmission rates for C, Ku and Ka bands.  

The transmission delay, due to the earth-satellite distance, is also sensibly the same for all three frequency bands.  

My experience of satellite internet terminals is a brief delay before anything starts coming but once started you get a full speed download corresponding to whatever bit rate you have paid for.  The exception comes during congestion conditions but this has to do with the hub staff skills and network dimensioning and has little to do with the technology choice or frequency band, whether it is LinkStar, Direcway, IDirect, Vipersat, Gilat, C, Ku or Ka band etc.  You can mess any system up if you don't set the routers up properly and don't manage the traffic.  Conversely all technologies can be made to work very well if you use them well.  Even Ka band works fine in rain if you have designed in the correct rain margins and not wasted the margin in dish pointing error.

Has anyone with a Wildblue or Telesat terminal got anything to say about how well it performs please ?

Best regards, Eric.
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« Last Edit: Oct 2nd, 2005 at 6:14pm by Eric Johnston »  
 
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Reply #11 - Oct 1st, 2005 at 1:24am  
Eric/bandospook

I edited that post to avoid digressing into and/or arguing theory not germane to Sunfire's question. l'm responding by email Eric. But since bandospook posted as a guest, perhaps you'll know how pass a copy on to him

//greg//
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Reply #12 - Nov 15th, 2005 at 10:30pm  
Are "hub staff skills" something one can expect to audit before selecting a provider? Are there service cues that indicate poor staffing?
After reading the litany of complaints against both Ka / KU etc I find myself questioning the merit of writing a reasonable feasability study to support a remote VPN installation in my rural setting. I have seen SLAs mentioned in product literature for KU band services however and was therefore surprised to read of sunfire's scenario. Given the depth of knowledge evident in this forum it's remarkable that the satellite internet product remains so poorly understood, communicated and serviced - when compared to normative broadband that is.

J. B.
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Reply #13 - Nov 15th, 2005 at 11:50pm  
My notion of 'hub staff skills' includes not just technical skills but also the ability of the hub staff to stop the finance, management, sales staff and customers all interacting with one another so as to cause a deterioration of service due to congestion.  

Referring to my post above on 13th Sept, I would suggest you avoid VPN unless it is really essential.
 
Best regards, Eric.
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Reply #14 - Nov 26th, 2005 at 2:15am  
Quote:
*

* I strongly suggest that you get references and have an actual demonstration at a bonafide test site before you lay your money down.

In the industry today, you will very rarly encounter test accounts for two-way connections. But ... they are still there at some companies.

I'm glad if I helped..


ahhhh, why I did not find this topic and this forum before buying databahn!
From the first day that I have the service, it has not worked, and the support that they give, hmmm is terrible.
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Reply #15 - Dec 4th, 2005 at 9:37am  
OK, I have an Xplorenet system (Ka) in Canada's West coast, where it rains 272 days a year on average. I have the 512/12k kbs package. Before I bought the system, I did see it working at the place that I bought it. The ping there while playing Everquest on a Southern California Server was 230. Liveable, after the fact when the guy installed this system explained to me that Latency has more to do with the System set-up and Computer configuration, right from the Operating System that is used to the Network Configurations set up in that system.
I tend to aggree that OS's do have a lot to do with bandwidth. And an old set-up should use old equipment. A new set-up should use new equipment, try-it just for the heck of it, you will see that Bandwidth and Latency can be dealt with. Cheers
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Reply #16 - Jan 3rd, 2006 at 5:38pm  
I'm a new Ka band customer with Xlpornet.com in Canada. I've had the service for just five days but I am quite happy with it. They key was that my expectations were set appropriately by my local reseller. They had a working system set up at the slowest rate (512K down, 128K up) for me to play with at their store. I tried some big web pages at home and at the store and saw improvements of about 6 times.

Yes, there is a lengthy delay before a web page loads. Ten pings of yahoo.com yields 730 ms average. Actual data rate via speakeasy.net/speedtest is 470 Kb/s downlink. Keep in mind that this is compared to my modem speed of 26 Kb/s out in the woods where I live.

I only plan on using the service for web browing and e-mail. I'm going to try VoIP just for fun--I'm not expecting it to be usable. I have no need of VPN access.
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Reply #17 - Jan 21st, 2006 at 6:22am  
Quote:
VoIP just for fun--I'm not expecting it to be usable. I have no need of VPN access.


We've ben running KA at our store in Sechelt BC and experimenting with Voip ,Vonage works well, and security cameras running on KA being acessed remotely from the security guys house.  This, although the equipment was a little more involved than we needed to serve our clients needs, and a little tooo pricey, it also worked well.
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Reply #18 - Jan 21st, 2006 at 5:49pm  
I am interested in what type of security cameras you were using.  I want to hook one up to a direcway system

I would appreciate any feedback!
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Bob Anderson(sunfire)
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Reply #19 - Jan 23rd, 2006 at 11:17pm  
I first posted this problem in August.  Today it seems to be worse.  My download speed is no better than dialup.  I downloaded a 4MB file and it took about 15 min.  Not just once but 2 other times.  Going from page to page on CBC website takes from 4 to 7 seconds.  This AM it took 83 seconds to go from my desktop to my homepage (CBC).  Not unusual.  Any other site I go to going from page within that site takes much longer than when I'm on the CBC site. 

What's the solution ?  Mr Johnson suggested increasing the max connections - what is max connections?  What can I do to tweak my system? 

Bob Andersaon (sunfire)


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Reply #20 - Feb 3rd, 2006 at 7:17am  
I would like to clarify a couple things.
I work for Xplornet and there is a few things I see over and over again.  Telesat is not the Canadian WildBlue. WildBlue is a reseller for Telesat as is Xplornet in Canada.  Anikast is Telesat's name brand sold in both Canada and the US.  As it stands, These are the only 2 companies that re-sell Telesat services.
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Reply #21 - Feb 3rd, 2006 at 2:38pm  
Quote:
These are the only 2 companies that re-sell Telesat services. 


Your information conflicts with that provided by TeleSat themselves. See https://www.telesat.ca/telecom/ka.htm.

Also, WildBlue provides coverage -  if not service - on both sides of the border. See my map at https://www.wildblue.cc/wbforums/attachment.php?attachmentid=98&stc=1&d=11328953....
Only beams 1/2/3/4/5/6/8 are not designated as being assigned to one of the five WildBlue gateway terminals.
These gateway assignments are illustrated at
https://www.wildblue.cc/wbforums/attachment.php?attachmentid=99&d=1133213470

//greg//
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Reply #22 - Mar 14th, 2006 at 6:08pm  
Hello all,

Tho' I don't use satellite service myself (live in town, decent cable internet) I do get the opportunity to work on a number of satellite systems for my clients in eastern Montana.   I've found the performance on these systems from different providers to be quite acceptable with one big caveat.

I'm going to presume that most participants in this forum are already aware of this, but the point is always well worth reminding people about.  Make SURE that your computer system(s) are clear of malware.   Don't trust that your current AV software is sufficient to perform the job; it quite likely is not.   There are many resources readily and freely available on the internet to assist in this effort, use a mix of these resources to ensure that you've removed all instances of malware.   Not saying that this is the be all, end all of how to do this work, but this is a decent set of intructions and is fairly complete: https://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35407

When on of my clients encounters performance degradation, invariably the issue is NOT with the satellite service but with some trojan or piece of spyware or some other form of bandwidth leech.   The impact that these forms of malware can have on a connection is quite remarkable.    Removing this "stuff" generally makes a much happier client Wink.

Tony
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Reply #23 - Jun 14th, 2006 at 9:02pm  
Where can I check my upload and down load speeds, I have wildblue installed and woluld like to see my speeds.
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Reply #24 - Jul 17th, 2006 at 9:52pm  
Quote:
Where can I check my upload and down load speeds, I have wildblue installed and woluld like to see my speeds.


You can go to websites such as www.testmy.net or to www.speakeasy.com

I reply to the post about malaware, I would like to echo what you are saying. I had a client that wasted a lot of my time. I was installing one of the first wildblue's so I was not yet familiar with normal opperations. I had a cutomer who I just could not get good speeds for. I quickly realised he had problems with his computer and told him he needed to correct this. I get a call not to long after. He had bought all new computers and was still haveing a problem. He told me Wildblue sucked. So I went there to check my install and to troubleshoot. First thing I notice is that he still has his old computer hooked up and he never fixed the viruses. I took this computer off, but to no avail, all his computers still very bad speeds. Then after an hour and a half of troubleshooting my connections I tell him that the install is perfect, after asking some more probing questions I find out he ghosted all his new machines with the one with the Viruses. POORLY MAINTAINED COMPUTERS CAUSE FOR A POOR USER EXPERIENCE, Please do not blame your providers. Wildblue, Direcway, Databahn, Idirect, ect...  That is not to say that some providers cause there own problem with over subscribing.... and I don't think I need to mention who that is, everyone already knows.
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Reply #25 - Feb 11th, 2007 at 2:49am  
when you say it takes 10 to 15 seconds to load sites like cnn.com on satellite and could get there just as fast on dialup you are wrong. dialup would take about 25 seconds to load the page completely. wildblue is fast. i have it mystelf also sell and install it. i had to suffer dialup while installing in texas for a month or two. no will dialup even be close to wildblue. VPN will not work well with wildblue or hughesnet and that is because of latency. also they do not support it.
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Reply #26 - Feb 11th, 2007 at 3:07am  
Quote:
I would like to clarify a couple things.
I work for Xplornet and there is a few things I see over and over again.  Telesat is not the Canadian WildBlue. WildBlue is a reseller for Telesat as is Xplornet in Canada.  Anikast is Telesat's name brand sold in both Canada and the US.  As it stands, These are the only 2 companies that re-sell Telesat services.  


wrong: wildblue has a liftime lease on certain transponders on anik-f2. wildblue does not resell telesats service. wildblue is there own isp. again they just use the anik-f2 bird not resell the service!!
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Reply #27 - May 20th, 2007 at 8:30pm  
So, I'm just researching sat. internet and getting the impression that I can probably figure on 5 to 10 seconds latency when web surfing.
Would that be correct on average?
I'm looking at an alternative to a very slow dial-up of 28k at home. No cable or dsl or wireless options.
I trade stocks so I do a lot of clicking through stock charts.
But I would not be downloading (as I understand it) large files. Just websurfing through news and charts.
During market hours my brokers websites use java for real-time streaming quotes/prices. Would satellite even work for that?
What I would really like to know is how many seconds I might figure will be the average latency period. (this is assuming the set-up is done right)
Can someone tell me the answer to that? I would be using Wildblue...
Thanks a lot for any help!
Russ
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Reply #28 - May 21st, 2007 at 12:11am  
Good grief, I hope you'd never suffer 10-15 seconds. More like 1-2, which is upsetting some folks that were relying on half second latency to support their usage patterns.

Sounds like one of the entry level satellite providers may work for you. But pay particular attention to their throughput limitations if you're going to do a lot of streaming. Get a good feel for how many megabytes you'd stream in a day, then bounce that against contractual limits imposed by the various providers.

//greg//
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Reply #29 - May 21st, 2007 at 2:53am  
Thanks for the reply Greg!
Smiley I was actually asking about 5 to 10 seconds; not 10 to 15 seconds Smiley
Boy I could handle 1-2 seconds no sweat! If I bought the 1.5 meg service and you're telling me that on the click of the mouse that after 2 seconds I'm downloading the page at 0.5 to 1.5 megs I'd be happy as a pig in a waller.
Is that really what you're saying? The 1 to 2 seconds I mean? I did see something about a 1/2 second latency somewhere in an ad I think, but that would be way faster than my expectations.
And I'm not concerned at all about upload speed. Don't do much other than email.

I'm googling "throughput limitations" to see what they are...

I'm also not quite sure what you mean by "entry-level provider"? Would that be WildBlue?

How would I best find out how many megs my streamer might cause in a day?
I've received 6,995,934 bytes today. A "heavy" day as I've been online all day. Is that close to 7 megs?
Would it work if I noted the bytes starting at 0 before I dialed-up and went online, then total the bytes after running the Streamer for 6 1/2 hours at days end?

I'm still googling "throughput limitations" for a handle on that term and not having much luck. If you'd be so kind I'd really appreciate a definition.
Thanks for everything
Russ
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Reply #30 - May 21st, 2007 at 4:23am  
Throughput limitations go by various proprietary names, depending upon the provider. One of the common acronyms is FAP (fair access policy), another is RUP (reasonable usage policy). I think you get the picture.

The originator of your stream should post the speed of the streaming data somewhere on the webpage from which it originates. If not, you could obtain the answer from whoever is listed as the webmaster for that site. Data streaming is less costly in terms of throughput than is audio or video streaming. 7 megs shouldn't be a problem with many providers. I believe Wildblue's first tier of service permits about 20GB (send and receive combined) per rolling calendar month. Hughes plans start at about 200MB/day. LinkStar on the other hand, starts at a miserly 2GB/month.

And yes, I consider the likes of Wildblue and Hughes consumer grade plans to be entry level service. If tech support is important to you, be prepared for disappointment. Business and Enterprise level service can be obtained from both, but at a premium. For the most part, obtaining satisfactory satellite internet access is simply another case of "you get what you pay for".

//greg//
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Reply #31 - May 22nd, 2007 at 12:42am  
Hi and thanks again Greg.
I just want to be sure you meant to say this in quotes;
"More like 1-2, which is upsetting some folks"
You believe I'll only see a latency of 1-2 seconds?
That info may be the most important to me so that's why I wanted to be sure and get your stamp of approval on it...
I just timed one stock chart and it took 15 seconds plus to be fully viewable on 28.8 Kbps
If my latency turns out to be 1-2 seconds and then zips the chart right in there in another 2 seconds I'd be so far ahead I'd feel I reached nirvanna. Smiley
Took me 8 seconds just to go from page 2 to 3 on this forum site...

I finally started understanding throughput limitations last night after further study. Think I get it now.
I'm on hold now with WB waiting to get some answers on their 3rd tier 1.5Mbps including GB per month.
I wouldn't be able to tolerate restrictions of service on stock market matters. Not that I'm filthy stinkin' rich, but I wanna be. Smiley
And I'm far too busy to be watching/listening video/audio other than a very occasional video at thestreet.com

As to "Wildblue and Hughes consumer grade plans to be entry level service" and "you get what you pay for" what else is there? I'll ask WB about business level etc.

Ok, I just got off the phone with WildBlue. She gave me a limitation of 17,000Mb's for a the month.
Isn't that roughly 17GB's??
Think it was 6000mb's upload. That sound right?
And she quoted 2 to 3 seconds latency...

It's funny, I'm buggin' you with ignorant questions while at the same time I'm mentoring a friend on stock trading.
Aint the world and web wonderful things?!

Thanks a gigabyte Greg!!
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Reply #32 - May 22nd, 2007 at 1:26am  
Too many folks blame every microsecond of page delay to the satellite path. Not so. Now - a poorly performing satellite connection CAN actually cause such intolerable delays. But usually that can be adjusted out by a competent installer.

You first need to PING a responding server at your provider to establish then current lag over the satellite path itself. Several PING requests should be performed so that you can get a feel for how much latency the satellite connection itself is contributing to the overall delay - at that point in time. I stress that, because these entry level providers work on a bandwidth sharing basis. That is, the more satellite users are active on your gateway at any given time, the slower the individual connections will perform.

Once you know the satellite lag (a), then PING the server that provides your stock ticker stream. That will tell you how much lag is being contributed by the Internet beyond your provider - and how fast/slow the stock web server is responding (b). Then there's the time it takes to views the ticker stream itself (c). I'd expect (a) to be 1-2 seconds, but I'll defer to the tech support estimate of 2-3 seconds.

Delays (b) and (c) are beyond their control. But if delay (a) remains consistently over 2-3 seconds despite website or content, the connection almost certainly needs servicing. Most of the time it's a matter of poor antenna pointing. In other cases it can be a substandard or missing ground. Occasionally it's the satellite equipment itself. In any case, it's up to you to initially identify the problem, then it's up to the provider to fix it.

Wildblue has changed their FAP allowances yet again, I unfortunately threw that number out without checking their website. https://www.wildblue.com/legal/fair.jsp reflects the current numbers for consumer accounts to be between 9.8 and 22 GB per rolling month. Business/Enterprise accounts typically get more.

//greg//
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Reply #33 - May 22nd, 2007 at 3:18am  
Thanks again Greg.
I'll have to digest some of your post before I completely understand it.
But all this brings to mind the fact that I'm not even really up to date on what downloading is!
From what you folks here have written and what the WB girl said I'm now questioning if I understand what downloads are...

I've been online for 5 hours and my connection tells me I've sent/received a total of 9,154,838 bytes.
Isn't that roughly 9 megabytes?
Thinking out loud, say I'm online 9 hours and do 25 megs a day. 25 X 30 days = 750 megs so I'd be well within the limits correct?
I'm on hold now trying to find out how much the Streamer will add to the 6 1/2 hours the market is open...
Seems like I'll stay well within the limits of WB on the 17GB plan no?
TIA
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Reply #34 - May 22nd, 2007 at 4:41am  
Sounds like you'll be ok. But understand, the providers' throughput limitations include ALL use of the connection. Everything you receive (download) PLUS everything you send (upload) is metered against the throughput limit of the type account you sign up for.

//greg//
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Reply #35 - May 22nd, 2007 at 1:20pm  
Greg I'd like to sincerely thank you for all the advice!
I've learned a lot.
The WB fair use link is an interesting read as well.
Final determination will be made after I get Ameritrade tech support to give me the numbers on the 6 1/2 hours use of the stock price Streamer.
Best!
Russ Ford
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Reply #36 - Jun 3rd, 2007 at 12:58am  
Hey guys, in perusing forums re: sat. int. it seems many of the problems people have are "installer" problems.
I live in a small rural county in CA.
With all the knocks I've read on WB support I'm wondering would I be better off getting the hookup through AT&T or straight through WildBlue?
Or is there some other choice?
TIA!
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Reply #37 - Jun 3rd, 2007 at 4:44am  
Unfortunately, getting a competent installer is a crap shoot. Too many of them are ROTV installers, who only do a few sat internet installs on the side. In my experience, the ROTV mindset is not compatible with sat internet installs.

I only know one installer in CA, but he fortunately ranks among the best. If you give me your ZIP code, I can find out if your Sonora location is within his service area

//greg//
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Reply #38 - Jun 3rd, 2007 at 6:05pm  
Hi Greg, it's 95370, Sonora CA
Sounds like if your guy is too far away that I'll have to do an interview process to find out how much the closer fellows know.
That ought to be a kick huh? Me, testing an installer for knowledge? LOL
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Reply #39 - Jun 4th, 2007 at 9:38pm  
I'll respond when I hear from my California contact

//greg//
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Reply #40 - Jun 7th, 2007 at 12:36am  
Quote:
Hi Greg, it's 95370, Sonora CA

You're in luck Russ. Steve Cimmarusti's service area covers Sonora 95370. Contact him through
530-333-0810 local, Georgetown
530-622-0610 local, Placerville
530-889-9339 local, Auburn
and/or blacksheep@wildblue.net

//greg//
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Reply #41 - Jun 15th, 2007 at 5:53pm  
Hi Greg, thanks much for the info.
Had my "problem" tree dropped yesterday.
After we last spoke I found a young husband/wife team located only 2 miles away.
I've interviewed them several times with lots of questions and I think they'll work...
They are specializing in only sat. int. installations and trying to make a name for themselves so I believe they'll do.
If there are ANY problems, I'll fire them and call your buddy.
Thanks again for the tremendous help you've been!
Russ
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Reply #42 - Jun 26th, 2007 at 12:35pm  
Hey Greg, just a quick update.
Got WB installed Saturday and it's been smooth sailing ever since.
The young Twain Harte couple did an excellent job.
Thanks again
Russ
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Reply #43 - Jun 26th, 2007 at 6:13pm  
If the installers would care to supply details of their work and an image of a typical installation I would be pleased to add them to my list of recommended VSAT installers in California, Sonora, CA.

If anyone else has installers to recommend elsewhere please tell me eric@satsig.net
wxw
Best regards, Eric.
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Reply #44 - Jul 8th, 2007 at 8:28pm  
Eric I just called my installers and left a message about your message.
I gotta tell you guys, so far. 12 days and I couldn't be happier!
Called my installer back a couple days after install, with a question and they DID call back to answer. Smiley

And, later on, I needed some help with setting up various emails so I called WB support and got a very friendly guy within 4 minutes of calling and we got my problem fixed.
It was a pleasure to fire AT&T and next Sat I'm getting Dish so I'll be pleased to fire Comcast! They've ignored us in Sonora CA since the inception of the internet and now, due to some bills in CA's congress it's going to be at least 5 years before they do squat for us.

Here's tip for you guys, Greg, helping me out.
Buy Jones Soda stock - JSDA. You can find me on the www.investorsvillage.com JSDA board.
You'll be richly rewarded in late 07 and all of 2008!
GL
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Reply #45 - Jul 25th, 2007 at 1:11am  
ok guys, I sent the installers a link to the board here and told to put them selves up for the list if they've the desire.
Everything works great for me still!
Thanks again for all the help.
Russ
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