|
Mar 15th, 2008 at 10:42am
As a CTO of a satellite ISP, I would like to defend VoIP over satellite here. First of all, VoIP works over satellite and works with great success. There is a recommendation standard called G.114:
Links over geosynchronous satellites produce a one-way delay that falls in the range of 150-400ms, and that is considered as an "acceptable" worldwide standard. It's actually around 280-300ms in average. Yes, it isn't as good as calling your neighbor on a local telco but it works surprisingly good. I mean it.
Robert, I also highly disagree with you saying that using VoIP over satellite is "barely intelligble". Most probably you were a victim of poor quality of service. When QoS isn't set up right or if the link has no CIR (and that's very common today) - you get poor VoIP quality. Sometimes small VoIP packets are getting jammed with large packets carrying HTTP traffic. As bandwidth is pretty much limited due to high costs, the negative effect of such is highly increased. There are lots of other underwater stones of running VoIP over satellite. If the satellite link has been especially engineered to carry toll free VoIP traffic, you will have crystal clear sound and will get used to the delay rather quickly. Upon my experience, both parties get used to a "satellite" delay within a few first seconds of the conversation.
At last, I'd like to mention that BusinessCom currently services a number of VoIP carriers over satellite links. Those are companies, from very small to very large ones, redistributing VoIP service further to their end customers located in remote areas. Businesses are quickly growing and there are myriads of happy end subscribers now being able to call with reduced costs and exceptional quality of service.
|