Satellite Broadband Users Reach 1 Million And most of them wish they weren't satellite broadband users Monday Apr 12 2010 08:45 EDT Telecompetitor directs our attention to a new study from Northern Sky Research that indicates that satellite broadband customers in the United States just passed the one million subscriber mark. That number isn't much when compared to cable, DSL, wireless or even fiber numbers -- but it's a signficiant number for an expensive, heavily capped technology that sometimes even lacks the capacity to sign up new subscribers. Northern Sky Research claims that as more sophisticated satellite technology is launched, satellite broadband service should get cheaper, better and faster: quote:
NSR goes on to say they feel the satellite broadband access market is likely to improve with the pending launch of more capable broadband access satellites. Says NSR, "...the imminent launch of the second generation of high throughput satellites (HTS) like ViaSat-1, KaSat, Jupiter and even Hylas-1 will finally change the core economics of satellite broadband access services." By changing the "core economics," satellite broadband costs are expected to decline and make their retail service offerings less expensive, while also offering improved performance. At least that's the theory - we'll have to wait and see how this plays out in the market.
If that's true (a big if), it's good news for a technology that's considered the Rodney Dangerfield of broadband by the industry's own admission. Many satellite users face daily caps in the megabytes, and if those caps are exceeded they face being throttled back to slower than dial up speeds (sometimes as low as 14 kbps). Satellite users always seem to be looking off to the horizon for some hope; the latest glimmer is being provided by Viasat 1, which launches next year and is supposed to provide more capacity than all current commercial U.S. broadband satellites combined. |
2 edits |
Not BroadbandTechnically, If we look at per user capacity, Satellite should most definitely not be considered "broadband". I would pay for an ISDN circuit before this. | |
|  |  Duramax08To The Moon
Premium Member
join:2008-08-03
San Antonio, TX |
Re: Not BroadbandCheck out hughes net commercial all over tv. Its funny, they say high speed internet by hughes net, not broadband since it doesnt meet the requirements for broadband. Id rather have dial up then satellite if I were in that situation. | |
| |  powerspec88
Premium Member
join:2007-03-11
Lees Summit, MO |
to DataRiker
said by DataRiker:Technically, If we look at per user capacity, Satellite should most definitely not be considered "broadband". I would pay for an ISDN circuit before this. I keep'd dial-up till I got a 3G signal with Sprint for high-speed internet. I used satellite internet once and could not stand the 3-5secs just for the web page to start loading let alone the slow download speeds and caps. | |
| | | 88615298 (banned)
join:2004-07-28
West Tenness |
88615298 (banned)
Member
2010-Apr-12 12:47 pm
Re: Not Broadbandsaid by powerspec88:said by DataRiker:Technically, If we look at per user capacity, Satellite should most definitely not be considered "broadband". I would pay for an ISDN circuit before this. I keep'd dial-up till I got a 3G signal with Sprint for high-speed internet. I used satellite internet once and could not stand the 3-5secs just for the web page to start loading let alone the slow download speeds and caps. for the record at&t and Verizon has caps. In my area only Verizon actually bothers to provide 3G internet. 5GB cap is even worse than satellite. At least satellite only throttles your speed and doesn't charge you $51.20 per GB overage. | |
| | | | powerspec88
Premium Member
join:2007-03-11
Lees Summit, MO |
Re: Not Broadbandsaid by 88615298:said by powerspec88:said by DataRiker:Technically, If we look at per user capacity, Satellite should most definitely not be considered "broadband". I would pay for an ISDN circuit before this. I keep'd dial-up till I got a 3G signal with Sprint for high-speed internet. I used satellite internet once and could not stand the 3-5secs just for the web page to start loading let alone the slow download speeds and caps. for the record at&t and Verizon has caps. In my area only Verizon actually bothers to provide 3G internet. 5GB cap is even worse than satellite. At least satellite only throttles your speed and doesn't charge you $51.20 per GB overage. Just a FYI, I don't have a cap on my Sprint 3G service. I know there is a cap for all the providers now (unless you go with Millenicom which you can still get a unlimited data connection with Sprint or 10GB with Verizon). I would still take this over satellite any day. | |
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to DataRiker
said by DataRiker:Technically, If we look at per user capacity, Satellite should most definitely not be considered "broadband". I would pay for an ISDN circuit before this. i know people who live in the boonies and they have no other choice. I would think that's where 90% or so of their subs come from. | |
| | PDXPLT
join:2003-12-04
Banks, OR |
to DataRiker
Good luck trying to order a residential ISDN line these days. 'no longer available in most places.
As to latency, most if the latency experienced in residential services is not due to the satellite round-trip delay. I was a Wildblue early adopter, and it was a decent service when it first was deployed. I could even run a VPN session with decent throughput.
Then one day everything changed overnight; they changed the scheduling algorithm and added a tremendous amount of latency; VPN slowed to a crawl. HughesNet is about the same
The point here is that most of the bad experience on satellite service today isn't inherent in satellite access, but due to business and deployment decisions of today's providers.
BTW, the caps (17 GB/month for Wildblue) is far higher than wireless internet providers (5 GB/month). | |
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zeddlar
Member
2010-Apr-13 10:21 am
Re: Not BroadbandHughesnet although not a godsend does not throttle pings. Been with them 8 years and still get pings of 550 to 700. | |
|
 pnh102Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium Member
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD |
pnh102
Premium Member
2010-Apr-12 8:57 am
SadWhat a sad milestone indeed. It was another poster here who said this, but I'd like to quote it... satellite is the only "broadband" service that is worse than dialup. | |
| | bill672
join:2004-09-02
Cambridge, NY |
Re: Sadsaid by pnh102: satellite is the only "broadband" service that is worse than dialup. I know some folks have had very bad experiences with satellite. But for most of us satellite is far superior to dialup. It's always on, doesn't tie up the phone line, doesn't seem to suffer from being shared by multiple computers in my home. Actual download speeds are not bad once they start. Latency is mostly apparent with web browsing, where there are a lot of separate small files being requested and downloaded to make up a page. It definitely slows browsing down. But when someone emails me 8 MB of photos, it used to tie up and eventually disconnect my dialup connection. Now it comes in as fast (1.2MB/Sec not in peak times) as a basic dsl connection. I couldn't go back to dialup, but I would jump at any alternative to satellite. | |
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mr weather
Premium Member
join:2002-02-27
Mississauga, ON |
LatencyThey can improve speeds all they want but you can't get around the laws of physics regarding latency: it's still a 50,000 mile round trip from the uplink/downlink to the bird. | |
| |  FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ |
FFH5
Premium Member
2010-Apr-12 10:35 am
Re: Latencysaid by mr weather:They can improve speeds all they want but you can't get around the laws of physics regarding latency: it's still a 50,000 mile round trip from the uplink/downlink to the bird. There are other technical sat solutions where latency is not an issue. But the expense is high. » Leo & Meo sats are the solution | |
| | 88615298 (banned)
join:2004-07-28
West Tenness |
to mr weather
said by mr weather:They can improve speeds all they want but you can't get around the laws of physics regarding latency: it's still a 50,000 mile round trip from the uplink/downlink to the bird. You know I know friends that could live with the latency and even with the fact that speeds are less than 2 Mbps if they would only not have fricken low caps. 200 MB-450 MB a day for Hughesnet is a joke. | |
| | Tige
join:2010-03-09
Greenville, SC |
to mr weather
I get so tired of seeing this, in all it's quaint little smug nugget of wisdom forms.
Yes, yes, yes we all understand the distance involved increases latency. If you read most of what satellite users say they want the service to return to what it was before satellite providers crammed subscribers onto a satellite and implemented traffic shaping which tripled the latency.
The tripling of latency, along with some restrictive caps made what was once a viable alternative into something that is marginally better than dialup.
Instead of satellite improving performance over the past few years it has moved backwards. | |
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why are speeds so slow?we all know the latency issues, but why is bandwidth so low? surely we could have faster satellite speeds by now...i havent heard of any significant upgrades to sat broadband in 5+ years. maybe if a company takes this model seriously and invest in some newer technology or something we could surely make this much better.
there's not much room to get worse...but the potential seems like it's never even been attempted | |
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Re: why are speeds so slow?I know the popular opinion is that the sat providers are just milking everything they can but that's not the case. It takes years to build and deploy and it's very, very expensive compared to any other delivery method. There is no easy way to upgrade what is in place. Most of what is up there now was deployed before sites like Hulu and Youtube were mainstream. | |
| | bill672
join:2004-09-02
Cambridge, NY |
to Somnambul33t
said by Somnambul33t:we all know the latency issues, but why is bandwidth so low? surely we could have faster satellite speeds by now...i havent heard of any significant upgrades to sat broadband in 5+ years. The Hughes.net board here on dslreports is full of explanations for this. The most common idea is that it's all about "contention ratio," which I gather is a term for the number of users that are put on a single satellite transponder at the same time. They say that the more expensive higher-tier plans have lower contention ratios, and users get better service with less peak-time slowdown. I moved up from a $60/ mos. plan to an $80 plan years ago and did get better service. I've read that those willing to pay over $100/mos. get uniformly predictable speeds. I can't vouch for any of this. So, what the article we're commenting on says is that maybe there will be an abundance of satellite transponder bandwidth available in the future and we'll get better service. Latency can't get below a certain level, which I've read might be a ping time of 500ms. But I rarely have pings less than 800-900ms. So, there's room for improvement there, too, possibly. | |
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1 recommendation |
swallx
Anon
2010-Apr-12 9:47 am
Dialup is honestly worse..I am stuck on sat, thou I have been considering a T1 (which isn't really broadband either now) But with on dialup I manage to get "maybe" 21.6K on a good day. In most places where its sat or dialup the phone lines are so poor that dial-up isn't an option.
T1 will run me 422 a month, and to be honest if it came down 100 more dollars, It would be a no brainer. Yes I would pay 322 for good internet, but I wouldn't move out of the country for nothing. | |
| bill672
join:2004-09-02
Cambridge, NY |
bill672
Member
2010-Apr-12 10:17 am
Download capsI have used Hughes.net for over five years because there's no other choice. (It's so much better than dial-up, in my experience, that there's no comparison. 3G is newly available to me, and I might switch.)
It's true that the latency is noticeable. But most of the other complaints about satellite are, I think, due to the overcrowding that HN and other providers have allowed. At uncrowded times of the day or night, I usually get the promised 1.2 Megabits down.
The caps are daily, I think mine is 400 MB a day. But, one advantage over 3G is that there is a cap-free period in the middle of the night, from 2AM to 7AM. During this period you can download as much as you want. I usually download system patches and other large files then.
Do any of the 3G companies offer that. I've thought about switching to 3G, but how would I handle system upgrades or other large files? | |
| |  io chico
Premium Member
join:2003-12-30
Marble Falls, TX |
io chico
Premium Member
2010-Apr-12 10:58 am
Re: Download capssaid by bill672:The caps are daily, I think mine is 400 MB a day. But, one advantage over 3G is that there is a cap-free period in the middle of the night, from 2AM to 7AM. During this period you can download as much as you want. I usually download system patches and other large files then. Oh, I forgot the joy of getting up at 12am, so I could reinstall an OS or download one to play with. Then sleeping next to the machine so I could apply all the updates. Then at 8 am, out of the free time, to have a reboot tell me I need to download more. My HN was 200MB daily for $59.99! Hughes is, in fact, better than nothing, but the freedom of being able to download, watch a movie, stream news, is truly Freedom. One million satellite subscribers is only proof that we need to extend true broadband for all Americans. | |
| | |  antdudeMatrix Ant
Premium Member
join:2001-03-25
US |
antdude
Premium Member
2010-Apr-12 3:10 pm
Re: Download capssaid by io chico:said by bill672:The caps are daily, I think mine is 400 MB a day. But, one advantage over 3G is that there is a cap-free period in the middle of the night, from 2AM to 7AM. During this period you can download as much as you want. I usually download system patches and other large files then. Oh, I forgot the joy of getting up at 12am, so I could reinstall an OS or download one to play with. Then sleeping next to the machine so I could apply all the updates. Then at 8 am, out of the free time, to have a reboot tell me I need to download more... Can't you find another source like at work or school, to download these patches and then install locally? That is what I used to do. | |
| | | | bill672
join:2004-09-02
Cambridge, NY |
Re: Download capssaid by antdude:Can't you find another source like at work or school, to download these patches and then install locally? That is what I used to do. I Could always drive to the library, I guess. But I usually wake up once or twice during the night, so I find it easy to just start a download and then go back to bed. In the morning the DL is usually completed and I can finish the install process. | |
| | | | | bsoft
join:2004-03-28
Boulder, CO |
bsoft
Member
2010-Apr-12 9:43 pm
Re: Download capssaid by bill672:said by antdude:Can't you find another source like at work or school, to download these patches and then install locally? That is what I used to do. I Could always drive to the library, I guess. But I usually wake up once or twice during the night, so I find it easy to just start a download and then go back to bed. In the morning the DL is usually completed and I can finish the install process. You should get a download manager that allows scheduling. The better ones will also restart a download if it fails and can pause downloads if they don't finish by a certain time (so you don't blow your cap). | |
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| | bill672
join:2004-09-02
Cambridge, NY |
to io chico
said by io chico:One million satellite subscribers is only proof that we need to extend true broadband for all Americans. I agree it would be good for the country if everyone had BB available. I've wondered why those of us who lack BB aren't given a chance to pay for it ourselves. Why is dsl, for example, available at one low price, or not available at all. I live in a place with lower population density than suburban communities. It seems fair that we should pay more for dsl service since the infrastructure investment would have a lower return for the phone company. But we can't pay more. Dsl is $20/month where that price is profitable, or not available at all where it isn't. Why not charge $40 or $60 a month where it's more costly to install? Many rural people are already paying that for inferior satellite service. | |
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| 88615298 (banned)
join:2004-07-28
West Tenness |
to bill672
said by bill672:I have used Hughes.net for over five years because there's no other choice. (It's so much better than dial-up, in my experience, that there's no comparison. 3G is newly available to me, and I might switch.) At&t and Verizon have 5 GB monthly caps( averages out to 167 MB a day ) and charge $51.20 per GB overage The caps are daily, I think mine is 400 MB a day. But, one advantage over 3G is that there is a cap-free period in the middle of the night, from 2AM to 7AM. During this period you can download as much as you want. I usually download system patches and other large files then. With a 400 MB cap how does one download a movie form itunes or Amazon during the day which even in SD is 1.5-2 GB? Someone is supposed to get up at 2 AM just to do that? Up the cap to 1 GB a day and extend the cap free zone from 11 PM pt 7 AM and then you might have something worth the price. Even on dial-up one can download over 550 MB a day. satellite should have a higher cap than dial-up. Do any of the 3G companies offer that. I've thought about switching to 3G, but how would I handle system upgrades or other large files?
No they don't and as I said anything over 5 GB in a month is $51.20 per GB. | |
| | | bill672
join:2004-09-02
Cambridge, NY |
Re: Download capsBF69 said:
"With a 400 MB cap how does one download a movie form itunes or Amazon during the day which even in SD is 1.5-2 GB? Someone is supposed to get up at 2 AM just to do that?"
Unfortunately, yes. You don't really have to babysit the download, just get it started, then go back to bed, most of the time.
But, with 3G it doesn't look like you could do this day or night, very often, with out exceeding the 5GB limit.
If there was any alternative, anyone using satellite would drop it in a heartbeat. | |
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| Jim_in_VA (banned)
join:2004-07-11
Cobbs Creek, VA |
to bill672
» www.millenicom.com offers unlimited data (no cap) via Sprint. No contract required. They also have a 10 GB plan with Verizon - again No contract | |
| | | 88615298 (banned)
join:2004-07-28
West Tenness |
88615298 (banned)
Member
2010-Apr-12 5:21 pm
Re: Download capssaid by Jim_in_VA:» www.millenicom.com offers unlimited data (no cap) via Sprint. No contract required. They also have a 10 GB plan with Verizon - again No contract 10 GB is a joke and also no way of knowing if they can even serve my area without me giving out personal information and waiitng for an e-mail/phone call. Sorry no go. If your company can't give me answer IMMEDIATELY without all the BS I seriously question the service. It's 2010 not 1980. | |
| | | | Jim_in_VA (banned)
join:2004-07-11
Cobbs Creek, VA |
Jim_in_VA (banned)
Member
2010-Apr-12 5:27 pm
Re: Download capscheck the coverage maps of Sprint and Verizon for your address - there's your answer. There is a forum right here at dslreports - » Millenicom for any other questions | |
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zeddlar
Member
2010-Apr-13 10:31 am
Re: Download capsYeah those maps are about as dependable as asking a turtle if he gets a good cell signal. They give you a general idea but you have to realize that alot of us that are on Satt are also in areas that either we know that cell service is unavailible or it is going to cost you that $300 to $500 dollar deposit to find out because even the local stores for these services will tell you "I dunno but can try it out and find out for a fee". | |
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wkm001
Member
2010-Apr-12 11:24 am
....and they all hate it.You can't change the laws of physics. It even take an electromagnetic signal a few seconds to travel 23,000 miles. Latency will always be high.
When I worked for a WISP we NEVER had a customer keep their satellite over our wireless. We were constantly asked, "what do I do with this $500 dish?" | |
| | mr weather
Premium Member
join:2002-02-27
Mississauga, ON |
Re: ....and they all hate it.said by wkm001:You can't change the laws of physics. It even take an electromagnetic signal a few seconds to travel 23,000 miles. The speed of light in a vacuum is 186,000 miles/sec. The round trip for a typical satellite signal is about 50,000 miles so that alone would take 300 ms or so. Not quite "a few seconds" but still pretty slow. Can't change that. | |
| | | bsoft
join:2004-03-28
Boulder, CO |
bsoft
Member
2010-Apr-12 9:46 pm
Re: ....and they all hate it.said by mr weather:said by wkm001:You can't change the laws of physics. It even take an electromagnetic signal a few seconds to travel 23,000 miles. The speed of light in a vacuum is 186,000 miles/sec. The round trip for a typical satellite signal is about 50,000 miles so that alone would take 300 ms or so. Not quite "a few seconds" but still pretty slow. Can't change that. It's actually worse than that - remember that the signal needs to travel to the satellite, then back to ground, then the response needs to travel to the satellite, then back to you. The absolute minimum latency you could ever see with satellite broadband (using geostationary orbit satellites) is 475ms. | |
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Broadband unbound, but yet capped and sluggish.The Term of Broadband on Satellite is a joke.
1st off good luck trying to do anything fast around prime time. Want to check your bank account? might as well be faster getting in ur car going to atm or the actual bank.
2nd any programs that need constant connection (TTL)will surely have issues. So forget most p2p, Cam, file downloading can even timeout due to it. Heck gaming as well.
3rd oversold which makes issue 1 even worse. more people they cram on a bird the slower it gets.
4th the cost now some will say its a satellite equip and pretty cheap for residental setup. But when u see verizon and comcast offering x speed for y cost and ur almost paying double or triple?
5th I dont know about wild blues tech support but Hughes tech support is utter trash.
If dialup was just a tad faster i think i'd never went with sat. 3g works for me now. | |
|  DrModemTrust Your Doctor
Premium Member
join:2006-10-19
USA |
DrModem
Premium Member
2010-Apr-12 7:22 pm
Most of them?How about all of them  | |
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Diddy11
Member
2010-Apr-12 11:10 pm
Fictitious Caps metI've spoken to many former Sat. users who were harassed for going over their caps routinely. A couple users actually shutdown their PCs for a week, and unplugged the "modem" and were still hitting their caps, according to Hughes and WildBlue. Wierd  | |
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Re: Fictitious Caps metBeen with Hughes for 6 years now never had that problem. And I've gone over my cap quite a bit. If anything Hughes has done more recently to help those who go over their caps with FAP tokens. If you accidentally hit your limit you get one free get out of jail free card a month. That's usually what happens with me I accidentally go over my limit maybe once a month these days.
Far as 3G. 5GB is a joke. Least on Satellite if you work it right you can pull lot more down than that. Now if they had a 20GB limit now your talking 3G. | |
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