satellite internet

[MAIZEE]

Hi, I am trying to find out more about satellite internet and wondered if anyone on the forum has it,

Lois

[Scooby]

Hi, I am trying to find out more about satellite internet and wondered if anyone on the forum has it,

Lois

 

Sry not sure what you mean, are you talking about a wireless dongle?

[Robbo]

Hi, I am trying to find out more about satellite internet and wondered if anyone on the forum has it,

Lois

 

Expensive and most are download only, (you upload via phone line).

[jelunga]

Expensive and most are download only, (you upload via phone line).

 

Yes, there was a German company offering it to UK but to upload you need a phone. I think it could work via a mobile though. I also thought it expensive, but it was a while ago I priced it. May be cheaper now.

 

K

[Roger Gunkel]

Hi MAIZEE, you will need deep pockets if you want satelite internet connection. The download speed is much faster than upload and the lineup of the dish is vital, so no moving about. Costs are about £700 for equipment and installation (you can't use an existing dish) then you will have to pay about £50 per month for about a 4Gb limit. There is also a question over whether you may need a radio transmission licence as it is basisically sophisticated wireless transmission.

 

If you still want to know more, here is a link to an installation company Link

 

Roger

[MAIZEE]

Hi MAIZEE, you will need deep pockets if you want satelite internet connection. The download speed is much faster than upload and the lineup of the dish is vital, so no moving about. Costs are about £700 for equipment and installation (you can't use an existing dish) then you will have to pay about £50 per month for about a 4Gb limit. There is also a question over whether you may need a radio transmission licence as it is basisically sophisticated wireless transmission.

 

If you still want to know more, here is a link to an installation company Link

 

Roger

 

thanks Roger, its mainly for gaming online as other internet options are fast enough to cope unless you know otherwise. We are gong to be continuously cruising and don't want our 12 year old to feel he's been dragged away from the usual things a 12 yr old does these days.

Lois

[Guest wanted]

thanks Roger, its mainly for gaming online as other internet options are fast enough to cope unless you know otherwise. We are gong to be continuously cruising and don't want our 12 year old to feel he's been dragged away from the usual things a 12 yr old does these days.

Lois

 

Maybe you'll find that the life aboard will be stimulus enough? as a twelve year old I would of loved to of had the adventure! you are indeed best placed to decide as I don't have kids but I'd hold back and see how quickly he adapts.

 

good luck

 

[MAIZEE]

Maybe you'll find that the life aboard will be stimulus enough? as a twelve year old I would of loved to of had the adventure! you are indeed best placed to decide as I don't have kids but I'd hold back and see how quickly he adapts.

 

good luck

 

 

well thats what were hoping as at the moment the stupid game situation is all he's interested in. But as parents our heart strings are pulled as it is us who are making the decision to continuously cruise and we feel a tad guilty. We can see the wonders of the world out there for him but he doesnt quite see it that way at the moment.

Lois

[Guest wanted]

well thats what were hoping as at the moment the stupid game situation is all he's interested in. But as parents our heart strings are pulled as it is us who are making the decision to continuously cruise and we feel a tad guilty. We can see the wonders of the world out there for him but he doesnt quite see it that way at the moment.

Lois

 

As is the way! still it sounds like you are offering a load of options for him, can only be a good thing. good luck with the internet stuff, can't help I'm affraid, were dangling on a dongle.

 

Rob

[Roger Gunkel]

MAIZEE, I think that if the main use of an internet connection is for online gaming, then a satellite connection is probably not going to do the job. I don't think that the monthly limit will be enough unless you pay even more for a higher allowance and even then as online gaming is two way, the upload speed may be doubtful. If you take into account the horrendous installtion and hardware costs it is going to be an expensive risk.

 

The monthly allowance for £50 is very similar to what you would get for £15 from a 3G dongle and the upload speed of satellite won't be a lot different to the dongle. Although I enjoy gaming, I don't play online, so am not sure of the speed requirements, but I would certainly try a dongle before you invest in anything else. You can also get a contract dongle which may give you a greater monthly allowance.

 

You may get others answering who gan give you more accurate information, but I think satellite would be a big mistake.

 

Roger

[Guest]

I suspect however that dongle speeds and coverage will 'hobble' any serious on line gamer, I could be wrong but there seem to be more on here who have internet woes than those who are satisfied (unless we just don't hear about the happy dongle users).

 

I would have thought generally on line gaming would require a consistent and pretty fast signal - something I've never found whilst out boating (admittedly only a few weeks per year)

[Robbo]

thanks Roger, its mainly for gaming online as other internet options are fast enough to cope unless you know otherwise. We are gong to be continuously cruising and don't want our 12 year old to feel he's been dragged away from the usual things a 12 yr old does these days.

Lois

 

Latency is the key for on line gaming not speed, and anything over wireless has poor latency. 3G in good signal areas may be okay depending in the game.

 

But he's 12, he'll get over it and will be good for him. Just let him drive! :-)

 

Now does school work with CCing?

[Scooby]

I suspect however that dongle speeds and coverage will 'hobble' any serious on line gamer, I could be wrong but there seem to be more on here who have internet woes than those who are satisfied (unless we just don't hear about the happy dongle users).

 

I would have thought generally online gaming would require a consistent and pretty fast signal - something I've never found whilst out boating (admittedly only a few weeks per year)

 

I am big into online gaming myself but a lot older if your wanting him to carry on gaming the best your likely to offer for CC is a 3 dongle until things improve, i do play Call of duty 4 on my pc it runs it fine but nowhere near as good as it did in my house

 

Example its all about ping speeds with online gaming and using same equipment as before in house was getting 40 ping now i get about 130, which is obviously a lot worse but still playable in most areas, its the best your going to get when on the move....

 

Just be careful you get enough usage allowance, i had 5gb usage and went over it, so got 15gb now...

[Chris Pink]

well thats what were hoping as at the moment the stupid game situation is all he's interested in. But as parents our heart strings are pulled as it is us who are making the decision to continuously cruise and we feel a tad guilty. We can see the wonders of the world out there for him but he doesnt quite see it that way at the moment.

Lois

 

Then maybe if you get PAYG internet your son will realise how much it costs to connect and the need to ration resources. To simply give him unlimited access will do neither of these.

 

After all he can always go and have a day in a gaming cyber cafe.

 

A friend of mine has satellite broadband in wild west wales because that was the only way and that's the only time it's viable (I looked into it). The main issue would not be cost it would be that the alignment of the dish was super critical and almost impossible to achieve on a narrow boat without some kind of automatic tracking a la BBC mobile set ups.

[Grace and Favour]

Or - get a piece of kit that will give you all the TV you want - and youngster too

Oyster Dish

 

 

(Though I feel that £3,400 hardware cost is a trifle on the expensive side)

[matty40s]

My daughter (11) knows she has to adapt to reality when she comes on board with me,

if she wants to charge moby and ipod/dslite etc , it has to be done before she comes down, or when we are cruising.

However, she has also decided that computers and tv are pretty boring when down on the boat, and rarely bothers with them, preferring to move her muscles, steer, do locks, climb hills, trees, go to London, play tiddleywinks etc.....

kids do computer gaming because parents can't be bothered to spend time doing something else with them.....

[Guest]

kids do computer gaming because parents can't be bothered to spend time doing something else with them.....

 

Our kids used to play a lot of computer games (Roll on Sonic the hedgehog on the Sega Mega Drive...) but we played them with them too.....and loved it.

 

I think now the games that are available just don't interest us oldies....

[Roger Gunkel]

Our kids used to play a lot of computer games (Roll on Sonic the hedgehog on the Sega Mega Drive...) but we played them with them too.....and loved it.

 

I think now the games that are available just don't interest us oldies....

 

If you like those sort of games and having a bit of family fun, you should have a look at some of the games on the Nintendo WII. My son bought his girlfiend one for Christmas and when we went to visit we all had great fun with it.

 

Roger

[Guest]

If you like those sort of games and having a bit of family fun, you should have a look at some of the games on the Nintendo WII. My son bought his girlfiend one for Christmas and when we went to visit we all had great fun with it.

 

Roger

 

Indeed - we have a WII (Doesn't sound right!!) and they are good fun.

[Grace and Favour]

I bet they've got a special edition at Balmoral & Windsor - - called Royal WII

Indeed - we have a WII (Doesn't sound right!!) and they are good fun.

[ditch paddler]

well thats what were hoping as at the moment the stupid game situation is all he's interested in. But as parents our heart strings are pulled as it is us who are making the decision to continuously cruise and we feel a tad guilty. We can see the wonders of the world out there for him but he doesnt quite see it that way at the moment.

Lois

Hi MAIZEE, we have done excactly the same as you are about to our son is just coming up to 12 years old and we where suprised how quickly the playstation and wii games that he had allways played on quickly became less apealing and now only really uses them on very wet/cold days and the fact they are not online does not seem to be an issue.

[ThePiglet]

Hi,

I have direct experience of two-way satellite broadband. In my opinion it's only good as an absolute last resort.

Latency for gameplay is key as someone else has already said, the ping times I saw on that (BT supplied) kit was horrendous, > 1,300 ms.

The transfer rate downstream is good, but the typical usage allowances are poor value.

 

If you don't get an automatic tracking dish then it will become the bain of your existance trying to align it, these are significantly more touchy than a Sky dish.

 

Try a 3G dongle first, it might not work in a few places but it's nothing compaired to two-way sat comms.

[Hieronymus Bosh]

Hi all,

 

 

Ping ( is that quite the same as latency?... not sure.. try looking at speedtest(dot) net there is a secondary site there for ping...) is currently @ 190 ms for me on the boat, as opposed to @ 40 ms on Virgin 10 meg broadband on house landline) I think you will find that satellite will not give you the response times that most online gaming systems need. For example, I try and get into Second Life, and that is HEAVILY dependent on upload/download speed. Also.. if you are playing poker for real money, then its nice to know you aren't going to get "timed out" if you have a straight flush!!

 

hope this helps,

 

 

Martin.

[RupertG]

Hi all,

 

 

Ping ( is that quite the same as latency?... not sure.. try looking at speedtest(dot) net there is a secondary site there for ping...) is currently @ 190 ms for me on the boat, as opposed to @ 40 ms on Virgin 10 meg broadband on house landline) I think you will find that satellite will not give you the response times that most online gaming systems need. For example, I try and get into Second Life, and that is HEAVILY dependent on upload/download speed. Also.. if you are playing poker for real money, then its nice to know you aren't going to get "timed out" if you have a straight flush!!

 

hope this helps,

 

 

Martin.

 

Ping is usually a decent enough shorthand for latency (don't say that to a real network engineer, unless you want to learn more about TCP/IP packets and transmission technologies than any sane human can bear). Satellite internet as we know it has and will always have horrendous latency, purely because the signal has to get up to the geostationary satellite and down again before it can get stuck into the rest of the Internet. That's a round trip of around 45,000 miles - which even at the speed of light will take you half a second. (Take it up with Einstein if you've got a beef with that.) There's a chance that someone will build a very fast broadband network using satellites that orbit closer to the ground - plenty of people have proposed this: some have even tried - when things will get better and you won't need to aim an antenna at one spot in the sky, but frankly the economics of living on a planet with copious terrestrial wireless networks will kill that one every time.

 

Half a second of latency to gamers is a death sentence, carried out swiftly and mercilessly. Mostly, it's a lot worse than half a second. You're still just as dead.

 

3G is better, because your wireless signal has to travel at most a handful of kilometres. It's not THAT much better, because 3G and the Internet Protocol aren't really very good friends and there are a whole host of reasons why you won't get anywhere near to the theoretical latency, not least that mobile phone operators aren't actually very good at running data networks. Future developments will fix this, although what that'll look like and how much it will cost remain pleasurably unclear - you can still wind up an executive who's sunk multiple billions of dollars into one or other of the possibilities without too much bother. It's a hobby.

 

If I were a gamer (I'm not) and wanted to have low latency fast internet on a boat (which I will), the best I could hope for would be to have some high gain wi-fi kit and build up a set of places where I could get into an access point along my normal boaty pathways. This is not trivial, for many reasons, but is at least an entertaining way of passing the time.

 

Bottom line: you won't get serious multiplayer Internet gaming on a boat that's moving around. Other pastimes are available.

[mayalld]

Ping is usually a decent enough shorthand for latency (don't say that to a real network engineer, unless you want to learn more about TCP/IP packets and transmission technologies than any sane human can bear). Satellite internet as we know it has and will always have horrendous latency, purely because the signal has to get up to the geostationary satellite and down again before it can get stuck into the rest of the Internet. That's a round trip of around 45,000 miles - which even at the speed of light will take you half a second. (Take it up with Einstein if you've got a beef with that.) There's a chance that someone will build a very fast broadband network using satellites that orbit closer to the ground - plenty of people have proposed this: some have even tried - when things will get better and you won't need to aim an antenna at one spot in the sky, but frankly the economics of living on a planet with copious terrestrial wireless networks will kill that one every time.

 

Half a second of latency to gamers is a death sentence, carried out swiftly and mercilessly. Mostly, it's a lot worse than half a second. You're still just as dead.

 

3G is better, because your wireless signal has to travel at most a handful of kilometres. It's not THAT much better, because 3G and the Internet Protocol aren't really very good friends and there are a whole host of reasons why you won't get anywhere near to the theoretical latency, not least that mobile phone operators aren't actually very good at running data networks. Future developments will fix this, although what that'll look like and how much it will cost remain pleasurably unclear - you can still wind up an executive who's sunk multiple billions of dollars into one or other of the possibilities without too much bother. It's a hobby.

 

If I were a gamer (I'm not) and wanted to have low latency fast internet on a boat (which I will), the best I could hope for would be to have some high gain wi-fi kit and build up a set of places where I could get into an access point along my normal boaty pathways. This is not trivial, for many reasons, but is at least an entertaining way of passing the time.

 

Bottom line: you won't get serious multiplayer Internet gaming on a boat that's moving around. Other pastimes are available.

 

Pah, you think that's bad.

 

Try wifi on a Vermin train from London to Manchester;

37% of pings time out.

25% of pings > 2000ms response.