Do you prefer satellite connection over wired networks ?

Hi everyone,
How do you rate satellite signals??? I think it will be really frustrating during bad weather. How often does you lost connection during bad weather?? Apart from this, what is the overall rating you will give to your satellite connection.
Do you prefer satellite connection over wired networks ?

C band is reliable and hardly affected by rain.  Ku band suffers during heavy rain.  Ka band suffers in moderate rain and fails in heavy rain.  To deal with the rain problem at Ku and Ka bands, engineers have developed techniques to minimise the problem. These involve increasing transmit power and reducing transmission bit rates during rain. As Greg suggests above, if reliability is important, use a dish twice the size and a transmit BUC amplifier rated at several times the normal clear sky operating power.

Geostationary satellites are around 35786km up and there will be a one way transmission delay of approx a quarter of a second (up and down added), called latency, due to the distance. O3b satellites, circling lower above the equator will have lower latency and uses this fact as a major selling point.

Satellite links are generally appropriate where there is inadequate terrestrial wired or wireless connection. Satellite terminals can be quickly installed, moved or removed, so are good for temporary applications and while waiting for terrestrial fibre routes to be installed. Military and maritime mobile are obvious applications.

Speeds on satellite can be very high, up to 20 Mbit/s on Tooway for example, but bear in mind that such apparently low cost services involve sharing the satellite capacity, so if 60 Mbit/s is shared amongst somewhere between 200 and 2000 customers, the bit rate you will get will be limited if more than a few sites are active simultaneously.

Satellite is not recommended for video download unless many people simultaneously receive the signal in multicast/broadcast mode. 

Broadband ADSL phone line for comparison, may provide 1 to 20 Mbit/s, depending on its length, but it provides a dedicated capacity as far as the local telephone exchange router node. At the local node you start sharing with others, but the cost of terrestrial fibre from then on is very low.  Video download works well if a video server is located at the local telephone exchange.