homerguy
join:2004-01-24
Webster City, IA
|  Possibly using VOIP with Satellite
Out here in no-man's land we have no high-speed internet. We decided that we were going to try and stay away from satellite (mainly because of the cost) and are stuck with dial-up. Thinking about VOIP, I'm wondering that maybe if we start using Direcway and (Vonage) VOIP it would balance off the cost a bit.
But how bad is a satellite normally with VOIP? Does it cause a delay in seconds or just reduced quality? Sorry if I'm repeating a previous post but I unsuccessfully searched already.
Also - we have a directv receiver and according to Packet8, VOIP still can't carry data. What would we have to do (if anything happens)? Do you think that it would be a wise decision to do this?
Thanks,
-homerguy |
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Simmer911
Premium
join:2005-01-12
Chelsea, AL
| I belive the same problem arises with sattelites if you wanted to do VOIP as it would if you wanted to do gaming. There is a delay in relaying packets from earth to the satellite. You cannot play multiplayer online games because of this. I would think the same would be true for VOIP over satellite. Sure you might get it to work, but there would probably be noticeable delays in trying to talk with people. I do not think it is worth the effort unfortunately..
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TALKABOUTVOIP.COM VOIP FAQ's Questions Answers Professional Help |
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Gericurlswrl
join:2003-05-02
Franklin, OH
| reply to homerguy
I'm not an expert (but I play one on tv), with upload speeds on internet satellite of up to 100 kbps (Starband), I don't think it's conducive to VoIP's requirements. Direcway only offers up to 50 kbps upload! Most of us have 384 kbps up, and can attest that it affects voice quality if we are on the phone and uploading at the same time.
»www.starband.com/residential/index.asp
»hns.getdway.com/packages.html |
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Test99
Premium
join:2003-04-24
San Jose, CA
 ·DSL EXTREME
 ·InPhonex
| reply to homerguy
It seems that people who haven't used satellite voice communication constantly bring up the issue of latency, while people who have actually used satellite voice never do. In practice latency is usually an issue only if the VOIP provider has set timeouts in their system that are too low for satellite use.
The real-life issues with satellite VOIP are bandwidth and jitter. VOIP typically requires anywhere from 30 to over 100 kbps in each direction, depending on the codec used. My reading of typical Direcway and Starband upload speeds is that they are probably too low for VOIP. But users report a wide spread of upload speeds. A few report quite high speeds that should be more than adequate for VOIP. And some of the more expensive offerings may provide adequate upload speed.
I'm waiting to see if »WildBlue.com delivers on its promises. If their nominal 256 kbps offering turns out in practice to be anywhere close to 256 kbps it should be more than adequate for VOIP.
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FWD 50775 |
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M00T
join:2005-01-19
Vienna, VA | reply to homerguy
»www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/CCSR/Softwar···2004.pdf |
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Carl
Premium
join:2004-07-21
Krotz Springs, LA | reply to homerguy
If you want VOIP on satellite, go with Starband because VOIP will eat up DirecWay's FAP pretty quickly....
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Carl Smith, formerly known as crstec. |
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Sly
Premium
join:2004-02-20
Johnson City, TN
clubs:
·Packet8
·Callcentric
 ·Comcast Formerly ..
| reply to homerguy
VoIP works fine with Satellite. You have more than enough bandwidth to make it work. The only thing is that you will have a quarter second delay in the conversation. That's not too bad really. Some cell phones when roaming will have a delay worse than that. Worst case scenario is that you will have to add a minor pause after you speak so that the other person can have a chance to respond without you "over talking" each other. |
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rom72
join:2004-03-16
Metuchen, NJ | reply to homerguy
I deal with many Direcway and VoIP user. I have to say from my experience most of them have audio issues like the one described in other comments. |
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Test99
Premium
join:2003-04-24
San Jose, CA
·DSL EXTREME
·InPhonex
| said by rom72  :I deal with many Direcway and VoIP user. I have to say from my experience most of them have audio issues like the one described in other comments. Please tell us more about your experiences with satellite VOIP.
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FWD 50775 |
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rom72
join:2004-03-16
Metuchen, NJ
| reply to homerguy
really goes back to same issue: a lot of packet loss, too much packet loss in general for a good use of VoIP service.
Ran many ping plotters on direcway customers and they really dont look good.
Even with a compressed codec like g729 quality is not gonna be good.
Latency issue from 1/4 second to a few second delay.
fine for some people but taking a big bet. |
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M00T
join:2005-01-19
Vienna, VA
| reply to homerguy
If you guys really want to understand why SIP does not handle satellite connections very well, please look at this link:
»www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/CCSR/Softwar···2004.pdf
It is very informative and can shed a lot of light on the subject.
This document can give you a good understanding of sip in general:
»www.iptel.org/sip/siptutorial.pdf |
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homerguy
join:2004-01-24
Webster City, IA
| reply to homerguy
Thank you for all of your comments.
It seems that satellite wouldn't be such a good choice after all (until better speeds come??). We can stay here with dial-up I guess. Too bad we are only a mile out of range for this small-town run fiber network and have a patch of trees just in the way from both nearest WISP towers.
Thanks again -
homerguy |
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Test99
Premium
join:2003-04-24
San Jose, CA
·DSL EXTREME
·InPhonex
| reply to rom72
said by rom72 :Latency issue from 1/4 second to a few second delay. That's really interesting. A delay of a few seconds is way too much to be explained by the satellite latency alone. I have seen similar delays on terrestrial links.
Here's my hypothesis about what is happening: When the Internet connection does not have enough bandwidth to accommodate all the VOIP packets, packets become backed up in the router. It can take up to several seconds before a packet is taken from the router's output buffer and delivered to the Internet connection. This leads to the phenomenon of stretched-out speech. If the speaker doesn't stop talking soon enough, allowing silence suppression to cut off the audio stream, the router's output buffer overflows, causing massive packet loss and a substantial break in the audio stream.
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FWD 50775 |
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M00T
join:2005-01-19
Vienna, VA
| reply to homerguy
said by homerguy :Thank you for all of your comments. It seems that satellite wouldn't be such a good choice after all (until better speeds come??). We can stay here with dial-up I guess. Too bad we are only a mile out of range for this small-town run fiber network and have a patch of trees just in the way from both nearest WISP towers. Thanks again - homerguy Until better "latency" comes. |
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homerguy
join:2004-01-24
Webster City, IA
| said by M00T :said by homerguy :Thank you for all of your comments. It seems that satellite wouldn't be such a good choice after all (until better speeds come??). We can stay here with dial-up I guess. Too bad we are only a mile out of range for this small-town run fiber network and have a patch of trees just in the way from both nearest WISP towers. Thanks again - homerguy Until better "latency" comes. So you mean that they can resolve the issue of traveling the distance it has to, and speed up latency? How soon would this be possible?
Thanks
-homerguy |
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M00T
join:2005-01-19
Vienna, VA
| reply to homerguy
said by homerguy :Out here in no-man's land we have no high-speed internet. We decided that we were going to try and stay away from satellite (mainly because of the cost) and are stuck with dial-up. Thinking about VOIP, I'm wondering that maybe if we start using Direcway and (Vonage) VOIP it would balance off the cost a bit. But how bad is a satellite normally with VOIP? Does it cause a delay in seconds or just reduced quality? Sorry if I'm repeating a previous post but I unsuccessfully searched already. Also - we have a directv receiver and according to Packet8, VOIP still can't carry data. What would we have to do (if anything happens)? Do you think that it would be a wise decision to do this? Thanks, -homerguy No idea really... I'm not a satellite engineer. Lemme check google (as I do for everything else I post here):
»www.peribit.com/solutions/applic···tellite/
• more efficient over-the-air interface – improving payload compression is critical to optimizing satellite throughput
• packet and web acceleration – addressing the limitations of latency is essential on satellite links
• Quality of Service – policing the congestion that will always be present on satellite links is key to enterprise-class performance
• reliability and availability – IT needs mechanisms to improve the availability of satellite links
• flexibility and scalability – satellite environments range in speed and network type, and IT needs a variety of deployment options to fit this spectrum
Peribit thinks that the problems can be reduced with improved compression algorithms (but i'm wary of such a solution... I guess we'll see one of these days) |
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Test99
Premium
join:2003-04-24
San Jose, CA
·DSL EXTREME
·InPhonex
| reply to homerguy
said by homerguy :Also - we have a directv receiver and according to Packet8, VOIP still can't carry data. Not sure what you mean by that. Are you saying you have a satellite Internet connection and you have tried Packet8 with no success?
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FWD 50775 |
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rsa0
join:2003-01-25
Birmingham, AL
·Charter Pipeline
| reply to homerguy
About a year ago, I have tried a satellite connection with some from this forum, Landline to Vonage box via a satellite connection. At the time he was in Jamaica. I have called him from a land line and I have to tell you that the quality was very good. Yes, it was almost 1 s. delay, but once you get used with it, is OK I guess. The latency is almost impossible to eliminate because of physical factors (earth->sat->earth). His bandwidth was 128k UL and 400k DL. It is true, when you talk, you shouldn't download. |
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rom72
join:2004-03-16
Metuchen, NJ
| reply to homerguy
I just hang up from another call to Direcway support in behalf of a VoIP user/customer of mine.
The tech at Direcway was clearly stating that no VoIP or gaming was supported by them. End of story!
In this particular case I had run the VoIP user a couple of test like pingplotter and ping yahoo.com -n 200
Latency was over 1000ms average.
To give you a point of reference, latency over 150ms start becoming an issue for VoIP(cisco website). |
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WhyADuck
Premium
join:2003-03-05
| reply to homerguy
One option you may want to check out is WildBlue - they are a new satellite Internet provider that should be offering service by now, or else very soon now. On their "Questions and Answers" page they say this:
33. What is the impact of latency? Can I play real-time Internet games or make Internet phone calls on your service?
The WildBlue system is engineered to help offset the impact of latency, which is the delay caused by sending signals from the earth to the satellite and back again. However, there is a delay of about a quarter second as the signal travels up to the satellite and back down to the ground. For most applications this latency does not affect performance, however, there are some applications like voice over IP (telephone service delivered over the Internet, also known as VoIP), or real-time interactive gaming, where latency will have a noticeable effect on performance over the WildBlue network, as it would on any satellite-delivered service. Well, it doesn't say it won't work at all, and you would get that same latency on any satellite Internet service, so it might be worth a shot. I knew someone who had Starband about three years ago and while it worked okay some of the time, he had a lot of problems (particularly when it rained, he would lose the connection completely) so I can't say I'd recommend them, and on the other hand I've heard that DirecPC has the much-hated "Fair Access Policy" that penalizes people that actually try to use the service they are paying for beyond what DirecPC considers "normal" usage (again, that may be old information, I'm not sure if it still is a problem for users). But WildBlue says they'll also have a FAP (see Q&A # 17) so who knows whether theirs will be better or more restrictive than DirecPC's. |
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