Satellite Broadband Complains of No Respect in Europe, Too As Rodney Dangerfield of Connectivity Pushes for Subsidies While AT&T and Verizon busily lobbying the FCC to "reform" the Universal Service Fund by giving them a larger slice of it for broadband deployment -- satellite operators continue to complain they're being left out of the money buffet. HugheNet, ViaSat, WildBlue and Dish recently banded together to tell the FCC they're ready to help fill in many of the nation's broadband gaps, and that they're tired of being left out of the conversation. Except with high prices, slow speeds and very restrictive daily usage caps -- satellite is seen as the Rodney Dangerfield of broadband, and is left out of policy discussions for some very good reasons. In Europe, satellite companies are making the same complaints, insisting 10 Mbps (with lag) is good enough: Avanti’s HYLAS1 satellite went live on 4 April, beating Eutelsat’s KA-SAT to the punch by almost two months. Both HYLAS1 and KA-SAT are Ka-band satellites, meaning they can provide two-way broadband services of up to 10Mbps. . .Avanti’s chief operating officer Matthew O’Conner pointed out that 10Mbps is perfectly adequate for most day-to-day Internet applications, and only online ‘shoot-em-up’ games, such as Call of Duty, are really affected by latency. He said the emphasis that politicians put on headline speeds only exacerbates the digital divide, as operators are forced to focus on speed rather than coverage. Satellite operators here in the States continue to insist their next-generation of satellites will provide improved speeds, but part of the problem is that there's limited competition for these captive customers with no other options, meaning that even after these new birds users will continue to face the high prices and low caps than make satellite so laughable when compared to landline options. While satellite does have an obvious role to play in rural coverage, high cost, low caps, high prices and high latency mean it's never going to be a serious player, and any subsidies received should reflect that reality.
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  LinklistPremium
join:2002-03-03
Longport, NJ
kudos:5 |  Satellite's forte is coverage & not speed
So I see 3 types of broadband, all of which have a place:
Wired - for greatest speeds, lowest latencies, and most cost effective in areas where populations are dense.
Ground based wireless - for locations where it is cost effective to run backbone lines to an antenna farm, but not cost effective to run a wired connection to every home. Say in very rural areas.
Satellite - for areas that are mostly inaccessible to any kind of wired connections. Say for isolated users in mountains, deserts, oceans, etc where population density is close to zero. And even satellite can improve on latency and speed if LEO & MEO sats supplement GEO sats.
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|  |  dbirdmanPremium,MVM
join:2003-07-07
usa
kudos:5 | Re: Satellite's forte is coverage & not speed said by Linklist:even satellite can improve on latency and speed if LEO & MEO sats supplement GEO sats.
You are technically correct. Practically, though, it is ulikely to ever happen. Google Teledesic and read about the history of the one serious attempt, with deep-pocket backers. It should have gone live in 2002, but was abandoned when they discovered the financial cost exceeded their wallets (included Gates, McCaw, etc.)
Satellites are very expensive, and it takes hundreds to provide good LEO coverage. MEO takes dozens at the minimum.
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| | Reviews:
 ·DigitalPath
| Support video streaming like Netflix? Have you ever actually used a satellite isp? I had HughesNet for six very long years. They have a "Fair Access Policy" aka FAP, which allows 200MB, 300MB or 400MB daily combined download/upload ($40,$60,$80 respectively). You might get away with watching a few YouTube videos, never Netflix. And even then, it buffered during one small 5 minute YouTube. | |
| |  ThalerPremium
join:2004-02-02
Los Angeles, CA
kudos:3 | said by Linklist: It will never support the gamers who need very low latency, but it can support video streaming like Netflix and all normal web browsing tech.
It can? Hell, I've seen people get FAPed by simply downloading Windows patches. I wouldn't trust it to provide streaming media unless you're willing to put up with sub-dialup speeds for a few weeks. | |
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| | not surprising Reviews of satellite by users usually take the form "It's the best option if you can't get anything else". It's only natural that the "anything else" should get more attention when trying to expand broadband. I'll take anything else when I have that choice, although increased download allowance and less restrictive FAP would go a long way to easing the pain. | |
| | | Wildblue WB was fine for a while...but two months after I signed the contract they lopped 25% off my download limit. Did I see a price decrease?? You can stop laughing now.
A while later they changed the latency. It got to be so bad I couldn't check my bank accounts, make online purchases or use anything realtime like Flash applications. And then there was the whole FAP Cop annoyance.
Satellite is NOT broadband. There are so many nuisances involved that customers will do just about anything to get away from it, especially if they have kids. | |
| | PDXPLT
join:2003-12-04
Banks, OR | Re: Wildblue Yep. I was an early Wildblue subscriber, and initially the service was pretty good. The latency was near the theoretical minimum for geosynchronous satellite, which as the European exec said, is probably good enough for alot of uses. I could even run decent VPN sessions into work. I used to recommend WB to other rural friends.
(BTW Karl, WB doesn't have daily caps, it's a rolling 30-day cap. Still sucks, but it's not a daily cap).
But they didn't leave well enogh alone. One day (it was Nov. 17, remember it well). They changed their scheduling algorithms, and the latency became as bad as Hughsnet. VPN between slower than even VPN on dial-up, and yes alot of https: sites stopped working. The service is awful. The point being, for the latency satellite users complain about, it's less due to geosynchronous lag; the biggest factor is how the satellite companies have designed their system that they use for residential service.
I don't think the current crop of residential satellite offerings should be considered "broadband" and certainly shouldn't be eligible for USF funds. | |
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Reviews:
 ·HughesNet Satell..
| My 2 cents Fact is if the ISP companies would get off there butts and run the darn cable they would make the money back in no time.They could even charge close to the amount we pay for Satellite and come out looking good.
I have DSL ALL around me,North South East and West all within 15 miles and there are Hundreds of people in my area NEEDING Broadband over copper or Fiber.
The good news (For West Virginia) is Fibernet and Frontier are running and upgrading daily because I have seen them at it....Verizon sucks and they are legal thieves in West Virgina. | |
| | | | Re: My 2 cents Also I can see why Sat ISP's are eager to get in on the action.If no one else is going to help us out then they are entitled to the money to get the infrastructure up to snuff. | |
| | | | | Re: My 2 cents Same issue. Cable lines stop about a half mile from my house, there's no other providers. If Time Warner would just run the cable lines the rest of this half mile to finish our road, they'd have 15 guaranteed homes including mine that would buy into it.
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| elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA | said by Tweakbl:Fact is if the ISP companies would get off there butts and run the darn cable they would make the money back in no time.They could even charge close to the amount we pay for Satellite and come out looking good.
I have DSL ALL around me,North South East and West all within 15 miles and there are Hundreds of people in my area NEEDING Broadband over copper or Fiber.
The good news (For West Virginia) is Fibernet and Frontier are running and upgrading daily because I have seen them at it....Verizon sucks and they are legal thieves in West Virgina.
Fact is "hundreds of people" spread over 15 miles radius WANTING broadband over copper/fiber does not mean cable "would make the money back in no time."
Running and maintaining cable costs real money. Bucket-truck crews on per-diem from out of state for months on end. Are you and all of those hundreds of folks willing to contract to pay $100+/month for five years plus an upfront install fee of $2K? Probably not.
In another year or two or three LTE options will enter the fray, at the $50-60/month level. What cable/telco vendor is going to invest millions to wire your ultra-low-density farm town, only to lose their shirt when wireless offers something at half price? | |
| | | | | Re: My 2 cents Wireless offerings will always be subpar. They'll always be slower and come with UBB and caps. The government should force coverage to these placed even if it means subsidizing the cost like it did with the REA.
It'll also be more than a year or two before LTE options hit rural areas. The most urban areas will get it within 1-2 years and it'll probably be a decade before the rural areas without options see it. | |
| | | | | | Re: My 2 cents LTE? HA! I'm still on EDGE! | |
| | | | WHT
join:2010-03-26
Rosston, TX
kudos:5 | said by mlcarson:Wireless offerings will always be subpar.
Only if you don't make the distinction of mobile wireless and mobile wireless in a fixed location (both a cellular company offering), to true fixed wireless such as a WISP. | |
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·DigitalPath
| That was a silly statement. I junked my DSL arrangement and went with a fixed wireless ISP in 2002. There is no latency to speak of, the speed is faster than the DSL was, there are no caps, and my house is online 24/7 even if the computers (that's right... computers) are shut down. At any time of the day or night I can always achieve in excess of 1MBps uploads and 3MBps downloads, 24/7 and that has been plenty good enough for me (and the whole neighborhood). My DSL was $49 per month and my wireless is $39 per month. Through the use of my own wireless access points and ethernet hubs, I can turn a computer on anywhere in the house and it's online. Anyone can turn their computer on in my house or out in the yard (wireless is best) and they will power up online. This fixed wireless setup works equally well for gaming (I am told) but I, like millions of other computer end users, have been online since 1993 and have yet to play my first computer game. With all of the communications functions, movie and music duties that these computers perform (no caps) there really isn't any time for the gaming foolishness. | |
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| | vag16v
join:2001-07-27
hereandthere | Oh c'mon...like always..they'll choke LTE down so much and price it so its only for casual use that it won't be able to replace traditional wireline internet either. They start out with all the unlimited plans, but soon after realize its flooding they're infrastructure and have to start cutting everything back. LTE is all about capacity and not so much as speed. They'll be able to ram more people per site and be able to maintain a minimum speed a little better, but believe me...you won't be seeing any 5-10meg internet speeds on LTE that are common on cable and dsl platforms. | |
| | | | | I have satellite and would love to get broadband for $100 per month with a 2K buy in. Cheaper and better. | |
| | | | | | Re: My 2 cents I'm already paying $130 per month for Satellite and EVDO. Both have ridiculous caps and are unreliable. I'd gladly pay $100 per month for something that is fast and reliable. | |
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| | | said by Tweakbl:Fact is if the ISP companies would get off there butts and run the darn cable they would make the money back in no time.They could even charge close to the amount we pay for Satellite and come out looking good.
I have DSL ALL around me,North South East and West all within 15 miles and there are Hundreds of people in my area NEEDING Broadband over copper or Fiber.
The good news (For West Virginia) is Fibernet and Frontier are running and upgrading daily because I have seen them at it....Verizon sucks and they are legal thieves in West Virgina.
Try living in the Southern Part of WV. We have no illusions about broadband saturation. It will not come to us. The mountains are to tall and the hollers are way to deep. Frontier will only wire what it neccesary to keep the state happy and the state does not give a crap about McDowell County. If they did they might force at least decent analog telephone service here, but no we dont have cable, our telephone system is outdated and it is not going to change. | |
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| | its coming to the U.S. soon... Supposedly viasat1 will bring similar speeds here. When that happens, I hope it provides a good option for those who don't have other high speed access. Wildblue is supposedly getting access to the new bird soon after launch & can sign people up by the end of the year.
Let's hope it works as advertised and nightmarish caps, faps, etc. become a thing of the past. | |
| | ThalerPremium
join:2004-02-02
Los Angeles, CA
kudos:3 | Re: its coming to the U.S. soon... Aren't they always saying "wait for (insert name here) satellite"? It's always a promise of better service to come down the road...and then they oversell the new hardware to new customers, which returns existing customers back to their current crappy Satellite plans. | |
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vag16v
join:2001-07-27
hereandthere | poor Satellite ISP's I'm sorry, but due to natural phenomenon (latency) and all the other shortcomings of satellite...those ISP's are NOT ready to fill in the gaps of the nation's broadband. They never will be. Residential satellite will always be just an alternative to dialup that is "always on".
Even managed circuits of 10megs symmetrical across satellite still feel slow to use because of latency. Once things get started, the speeds can be quite nice but in terms of peoples day to day browsing sat will always feel "slow".
All the upgrades planned will greatly help capacity, and some new stuff to help "fake" the feel of real high speed are being tested and always developed but the underlying experience will never change. For some people, its all that's available and they deserve to have it available and moving ahead as technology approves.
But for satellite ISP's to be trying to get in on the funding to get highspeed more available I think they should not be eligible on the same level as traditional high speed.
The money needs to go to wireline & wireless ISP's who are truly extending networks to get proper/real high speed access to underserved areas. | |
| | vag16v
join:2001-07-27
hereandthere
1 edit | Re: poor Satellite ISP's I need to edit/add to my post after reading what Deficit_Hawk posted right at the top.
The lower orbit stuff coming online now will really help with this whole latency thing. No doubt there, so maybe there is some merit to satellite getting better.
I would just be afraid the same thing could start happening as over here in Canada. Bell gets a bunch of money to extend their network into unserved/underserved areas, and what do they do? They use it to build HSPA cell sites and turn around and say that they've filled those gaps by now providing high speed HSPA data. HSPA mobile data is nowhere near at the point where is can be used for day to day internet as we do with traditional high speed. Shame on them for taking care of themselves first and selling us a bunch of crap with our own money.
Now they've built themselves a new cash cow on our backs and we're supposed to be happy about it. | |
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| | PDXPLT
join:2003-12-04
Banks, OR | Re: .... USF has many faults, but it is not a "government handout". The funds all come from the telecommunications industry itself, which is then redistributed to carriers supplying local telephone service to so-called "high cost" areas. Eliminate USF payouts and those contributions from the industry also go away; this would have no effect on the deficit. | |
| | | | | Re: .... USF funds come from the CUSTOMERS, who are billed by the telecom on behalf of the government for redistribution after taking their administrative cut. | |
| | | | | If it will have no effect on the deficit at least it will remove another useless tax on customers bills. | |
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