Posts Tagged ‘satellite broadband’
One of the primary concerns of people who find themselves signing up for satellite internet may be what kinds of internet activity they can engage in while using it. Satellite internet is for those who live outside the normal grids for cable and DSL broadband. It is available in places no other high-speed service is, and so is a welcome solution for those who have only been able to get online using a slow dial-up connection.
While fast, though, satellite internet is not ideal for all forms of internet activity. The signal from your computer must travel nearly 45,000 miles before it arrives back again with the information you wish. This creates what’s called latency, that is the time-lapse between the point where you request the information and when it arrives. Normally, latency is as little as half a second, so that is not a problem for regular web-surfacing. I does create problems for those interactive sorts of activities that are designed to take place in real time.
VPNs and VOiP are examples of things that don’t work well over satellite internet. You can still use them, but will experience delays and difficulties. The same is true of any live-streaming video: you will get the video, but it will choppy and broken up. Serious gamers will also find themselves at outs, because multi-player “twitch games,” or any other game that requires real-time responses will simply not respond to you quickly enough. Real-time equities trading is not a good idea, either.
Finally, it is not recommended that you attempt to download large amounts of material over the internet. If you are willing to pay extra, then you can purchase a premium service that provides faster speeds and may allow you to engage in some of these activities at least, with acceptable, if not spectacular results. Those who purchase satellite internet plans, though, should be aware that while it is a huge step up from dial-up, their online activity may still be rather limited.