• Can I play internet games over Satellite Internet?
• Can I use Instant Messaging with Satellite?
• What about Usenet/Newsgroups..Do they work?
• [DW4000] Does Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) work with Satellite?
• Can I use VPN to communicate to my work through my satellite connection?
• Can I use FTP with Satellite?

Satellite gaming is affected directly by your ping.
On DRS, your ping will be in the 400-700 ms neighborhood.
On SRS, your ping will be in the 800-1200 ms neighborhood.

This has been my experience with online gaming over satellite:

MMPOLRPG
Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Everquest, Anarchy Online
These play well in DRS or SRS. Game play will be superior to a 24k dial up.

Shooters
Doom, Duke Nukem, Unreal, Tribes
These are playable in DRS if you play against dial up opponents only. They play very badly over SRS.

Real Time Strategy
Warcraft, Starcraft, Civilization, Pax Imperia
These are playable in DRS if you play against dial up opponents only. They play very badly over SRS.

Turn Based Strategy
These play very well in DRS or SRS and will be superior to a 24k dial up.

Yahoo Games
These play fine in DRS or SRS and will be superior to a 24k dial up.

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by PetDude

Yes. We aren't aware of any popular instant messaging services that don't work with satellite connections. That being said, there are a few caveats. None of the instant messenger file transfers seem to work with Hughes based satellite systems. Also, users running WIN98SE with MSN Instant Messenger have reported that after about 15 minutes of idle time, the MSN Instant Messenger shows that you are signed-on, but actually, you aren't. Other users will see you as "offline" and if you attempt to send a message you will have to sign on again.

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by PetDude

You can view and post to usenet newsgroups with satellite connections. The quality of the newsgroup service varies by provider. Direcway/DirecPC no longer provides included newsgroup access, but Earthlink provides very good newsgroup selections for free to their customers. You can also purchase subscription newsgroup services from many providers that will work fine with your satellite connection,such as Easynews or Newsguy, or simply use Google's free newsgroups for simple,web-based reading and posting.
We have found over time that some binaries will not download via NNTP from some posters. It seems the 3.0.x and 4.0.x versions of the software suffer this problem. Classic users on 2.x software have not reported this trouble.

Free (or nearly free) Usenet News servers:

• »www.individual.net
• »www.teranews.com (charges a nominal $4 setup fee)
• »www.yottanews.com
• »proxy2.de/news.php (list of free news servers)

More information about Usenet:

• »www.newsgroupservers.net/
• »www.geeks.org/~ed/Usenet_Servers.html
• »www.newsservers.net/free_news_servers/
• »www.geocities.com/flarbendenweyr···ers.html

Usenet Newsgroup:
alt.binaries.news-server-comparison

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by alphawave7 edited by seagreen
last modified: 2005-06-23 16:04:37

Yes! This is a very easy and inexpensive way to share your DW4000 satellite connection on your local area network. Make sure you read the tweak section of this FAQ for information on getting ICS client computers up to speed. Without tweaks, your ICS client computers will be very slow compared to the host. With a little tweaking you can have the same, fast speed on all your computers.

Win98 users An in-depth look at how to set up a network and use ICS to share a DW4000 connection click HERE.

WinXP users go here: /faq/8237

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by PetDude edited by seagreen
last modified: 2004-05-03 11:52:51

You are very unlikely to have success with a Consumer edition of a DirecWay product due to the lack of a unique public IP. You can, however, run a VPN client, or even a server on the Business Edition with a static, unique public IP.

Remember though, even if you are able to establish a VPN connection, it will be very slow. Since VPN packets are encrypted, the various tricks that are played to accelerate TCP connections on these high latecny systems cannot be used. Many people have found that their VPN connection is faster on a dial-up connection than on a satellite connection.

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by PetDude
last modified: 2005-03-20 18:13:18

Yes and no. As far as using your FTP client to download and upload to a server, you should have no problem. Note that most files will download in passive (pasv) mode.

You cannot, however, run a successful FTP server on a Consumer version of DirecPC/Direcway based system, including Earthlink. Since with these systems, you have no public IP address, there is no way to set up a server. The Business Edition systems have a static IP available which will allow you to run a (slow) server.

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by PetDude edited by seagreen
last modified: 2003-02-03 16:59:22