Sponsored Links

Internet Dedicated Satellites, will it change things?

Will internet dedicated satellite improve sat BB?


  • Total voters
    29
  • Poll closed .
The technical limitations and specifications of the mpeg2 protocol are well known and are quite easy to work out the actual transfer limits on each transponder, which is how i was able to say the actual data limits of the satellite, a single transponder will transfer between 27 and 30Mbps.
Also reading the eutelsat specs, there are 22 transponders although only 20 can be operational at any one time, also 4 of those are for return path traffic, leaving 16 transponders.
 
Despite having ~16 workable transponders, every user will still be subject to the bandwidth management that is deployed on the service. Just because there is free capacity on a neighbouring TP, it does not alone guarantee that this capacity will be allocated to the existing demand. This is quite clearly the situation at present, as current members are not reporting full speeds, all the time, i.e. they are being aggressively managed, despite the spare capacity. As the service appears to still be relatively uncontended at present, does this not suggest that Eutelsat have already decided how they wish the system to perform ?

At least Netsystems open the tap fully open to all of its users, when they had the capacity available, during early days of product launch and during subsequent trials.

I feel that if Eutelsat were very serious about getting customers onboard, they would have 1) All the capacity available, so users can enjoy excellent speeds. 2) A free 2 day trial for new users to try the service, and 3) A firm commitment and guarantee to the users that they will not aggressively manage the bandwidth to the extent of other providers. (inc. terrestrial bandwidth hijacking !!)

Eutelsat have an oppertunity to secure a substancial market share, and "jack up" the currently poor, and unfortunately accepted, speeds and standards that exist in the 1 way market place at present.
Until they take steps to persue this, they will appear no different than any of the other suppliers currently exploiting this shrinking market.
 
I believe Web Buddy has already mentioned that the fundamental difference here is that broadcasting TV requires a bandwidth per channel which all users then "tune" into.
So for 1000 TV channels (sort of max for a 3 digit channel number) there will only every be 1000 streams of data.
Broadband via satellite requires that different datastreams are made available to each different customer (and there are ways that statistical multiplexing can maximise this - its used already in the telephone via sat scenario), but even so it chews through bandwidth at a massive rate compared to simple broadcast. So if thats the case then at 50:1 contention and every user having 500Kbps service you are looing at 10kbps on average per customer, or 100 customers/Mb so you'd need 10Gb/s transponder space per million customers, assuming the logic is correct. And thats only for the downstream. Happy to be corrected if I've messed the logic.
Its not that satellite is "wrong" for Broadband, but rather IMHO that it is not scaleable to the extent that terrestrial systems are, and thats not to say it may not prove vaulable in some cases.
 
Yes i did notice the comment about wanting to squeeze millions of customers onto a transponder, which i thought was funny considering they carry 30Mbps ish, which would be rather slow lol

Also remember that even if the satellite did have the extra frequency bandwidth to transmit at higher symbol rates, the dvb spec is limited really to 45,000 sym/sec, so all cards are built to that limit. and even running at that a transponder running at a cards limit would only carry about 40-45Mbps, but most stick to the 27,500 or 30,000 which seems to be the industry max to allow for variences etc.

So a satellite has to have transponders and not act like a single larger pipe spreading out contention like a usual isp system, and any spreading could happen but it would take the software to be able to retune the satellite card to recieve the other transponders, and the loss of signal of 10 seconds that goes with that. So only pracible at login etc
 
Gadget said:
I believe Web Buddy has already mentioned that the fundamental difference here is that broadcasting TV requires a bandwidth per channel which all users then "tune" into.
So for 1000 TV channels (sort of max for a 3 digit channel number) there will only every be 1000 streams of data.
Broadband via satellite requires that different datastreams are made available to each different customer (and there are ways that statistical multiplexing can maximise this - its used already in the telephone via sat scenario), but even so it chews through bandwidth at a massive rate compared to simple broadcast. So if thats the case then at 50:1 contention and every user having 500Kbps service you are looing at 10kbps on average per customer, or 100 customers/Mb so you'd need 10Gb/s transponder space per million customers, assuming the logic is correct. And thats only for the downstream. Happy to be corrected if I've messed the logic.
Its not that satellite is "wrong" for Broadband, but rather IMHO that it is not scaleable to the extent that terrestrial systems are, and thats not to say it may not prove vaulable in some cases.

The other thing to consider is if another company come along wanting Bandwidth for TV are they going to turn that down give the limited bandwidth it needs and the much greater revenue.
 
Sponsored Links
Not saying all providers are the same, but if you look at the SkyDSL available bandwidth checker at http://service.skydsl.de/monitor/index.html it shows bandwidth as 16mb split between 6 priorities, so 96mbit for the SkyDSL transponder. The checker shows quite a shocking trend on the fair usage priority of less than 0.5mb free during peak hours! 96mbit is a rough guess as to be honest I also thought it was around 40mbit per transponder.

I get ADSL on Thursday and will be glad to be rid of the awful disappointing world of satellite broadband!
 
ukneilw said:
Not saying all providers are the same, but if you look at the SkyDSL available bandwidth checker at http://service.skydsl.de/monitor/index.html it shows bandwidth as 16mb split between 6 priorities, so 96mbit for the SkyDSL transponder. The checker shows quite a shocking trend on the fair usage priority of less than 0.5mb free during peak hours! 96mbit is a rough guess as to be honest I also thought it was around 40mbit per transponder.

I get ADSL on Thursday and will be glad to be rid of the awful disappointing world of satellite broadband!


Unfortunatly Satellite suffers three significant problems, Limit Bandwidth, High Costs and High Latency. In the medium term none of these issues are solvable.

A lot of problems have been caused by various ISP;s who have continually oversold it and made claims that cannot be delivered.
Satellite can be suitable in a some cases particularly where nothing else is available but one needs to be aware of the considerable limitations of it, be it for Business use or Home use.
 
The simple facts are that in the past satellite backbone providers have not been able to provide enough bandwidth to meet the demand, and they simply lost out dearly in lost customers and revenue, but like many a new technology, the race is on to improve it, ie who can add the most bandwidth per satellite and make technological improvements will profit from it greatly, that non can denie!

Don't forget you are talking about a satellite here, which is a damn advanced piece of kit. If you think that something as advanced as a satellite cannot be improved with technology then you must think nothing ever will. :confused:

Just like copper phone lines were never originally designed for distribruting broadband & either was satellite, Gadget mentioned the tv being able being much more cost effective, because TV takes alot less bandwidth but the TV uses Multicast (broadcast) Bandwidth which satellites have always been designed to distribute and in the past have mainly consisted of almost just Multicast. So if you have satellite that is designed and optimised to distribute mainly Unicast(Internet) bandwidth at a very large scale, you can in effect turn the tables and start to offer Unicast bandwidth near the the same scale as the multicast bandwidth, this is why an internet dedicated satellite makes so much sense.

Eutelsat have not just launched an internet dedicated satellite at a massive cost (mostly in research), to have the same sorts of bandwidth available as any old satellite that bundles other TV, Tracking, broadcasting and a whole range of services, there is obviously an improved performance which they are serious about, otherwise why would they bother launching it?
 
micronet said:
So if you have satellite that is designed and optimised to distribute mainly Unicast(Internet) bandwidth at a very large scale, you can in effect turn the tables and start to offer Unicast bandwidth near the the same scale as the multicast bandwidth, this is why an internet dedicated satellite makes so much sense.

Now I like the sound of that - when can I have it? :drool: :laugh:
 
Simple thing is even eutelsat cant change the mpeg2 standards, And well since you didnt ask for it but you want the results the data rate your actual transponder that your using for your service, will carry after error correction etc, is 34.990323Mbps to be precise... Not exactly massive bandwidth hey? and old 45Mbps line would fill that with 10Mbps left over, Never mind talking about the big 622Mbps bt pipes, all the 16 tranponders would need are 4 OC3 (155Mb) ATM links, and a smallish isp like plusnet have 10 of them and the 622 Mb pipe. Now compare your bandwidth.
 
Sponsored Links
Hi Pwablo. There's a name I remember. ;)

Dear Micronet.
As someone who has suffered great expense by shelling out lots of cash to satellite ADSL providers, I am loathe to suddenly rush out and start filling your pockets also. I currently subscribe to SatDrive, and sadly this once proud UK company, is being dragged down by a huge subscriber base. This problem is not entirely of its own making as it shares BW with the German company SkyDSL. The point I'm trying to make here is that over-subscription by money-grabbing providers (NOT SatDrive I hasten to add!) results in a service that during the week barely reaches v90 speeds and last weekend the sub 10kbps made my 14k4 Pace Microlin look positively sprightly!
I have subscribed in the past few years to Europe Online, Netsystem, Silvermead, and currently SatDrive. In ALL cases, whether their own fault or not, over-subscription has been the death of these services as originally marketed to the subscribers. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice to say we were all offered cream and were delivered ever more watered skimmed milk. I think as a result of SkyDSL's greediness, I'm currently on a water diet (Currently 26.6k bits/sec). Night speeds are better, but then I too like to sleep along with a fair proportion of the population.
New TPs have been promised by all suppliers at one time or another... SkyDSL promised a new one for "Early 2004." Well, it's now June.
Forgive me for being cynical, but I've heard it all before. Every single time I have been let down by satellite ADSL suppliers. To use the dairy analogy again - we all get milked. Then the sat companies either fold (some before they even get started (broadband!Everywhere) or they move on to more gimmicks- night packages, ever more draconian capping regimes (SkyDSL/SatDrive) and all cases, the only ones that ever win are the satellite companies and their bankers.

If what you say about unicast BW is true, then that would be fantastic, but I can't see how the economics work out. The cost of transponders and a few hundred people downloading even a mild 5GB a night will soon bring the system to its knees and you financially along with it.
The result? Caps, caps and more caps.
Ah data caps, and BW caps. That's what life is all about. :mad:

Me? I'm helping my local council to get cable installed. No caps. No BT. No satellite dishes on my walls (currently 4!) and no overpriced satellite services beamed at a captive and desperate audience- me.
Personally, if my bid for cable fails, I'm sure BT's Milton Keynes extended trials will give me some kind of limited broadband at a cost far below that of a satellite delivery. Failing all of the above, Im going to move to a bigger house in an area that has cable.
 
Satellite internet technology works fine (just another dvb streaming like a tv/radio channel... it's all zeros and ones), the only problem why it does not take off is because of the cost... basically it's very expensive technology and then we see either stupid bandwith limitations like 1 or 2GB per month or high cost that only businesses can afford... this cannot compare with normal dsl and what people can afford... the future will be wireless, even normal land dsl connections will have to drop the price to survive, imagine 8KM non line of site technology... the technology is here in the uk at cheaper cost than land connections and is only a matter of time before people realise they are paying over the odds for broadband (£23=1MB).

The only balance I see for the satellite is for services which offer shared downloads, such as eon(file streaming)and some other companies where you can allow everyone else with the service to also receive the same downloads, which basically are in a queue, so when for example a whole cd(700MB) in the queue is sent to one user everyone else will also be able to recieve it as a shared download and this is when you see download speeds up to 10MB per second... (a normal dvb pid is around 2MB streaming, normal dvb cards can only sustein 10MB maximum) when you downloading multiple streams your hard disk space can fill up with crap very quickly(few hours)... and your machine cpu will allways be at 100%, possibly with a large amount of corrupted data due to cpu overload with data.

The bad thing about statellite is high pings(around 1000ms), which means you cannot enjoy online gamming... only downloads.
 
Hi Suzi, Still fighting the cause, I'm glad to see. :smilet:

Eutelsat have not just launched an internet dedicated satellite at a massive cost (mostly in research), to have the same sorts of bandwidth available as any old satellite that bundles other TV, Tracking, broadcasting and a whole range of services, there is obviously an improved performance which they are serious about, otherwise why would they bother launching it?

Just about all of the other suppliers seem to survive, by providing a restricted capped product, to the majority of the residential subscribers at present. You said yourself that they were serious about making massive profits, and there is no guarantee that Eutelsat dont have ambitions to achieve this in the same manner as any of the others, except on a grander scale.
 
I'd like to be optimistic about dedicated satellites but the truth is....I'm not. A dedicated satellite only postpones the inevitable that anybody that's used satellite over the last few years already knows - the service degrades over time.

No amount of bandwidth tinkering will ever increase the finite amount available. The only solution is to launch another bird. And that, generally speaking, is far too expensive. Easy to employ a BMP and slowly reduce the speeds to everyone, whilst continuing, of course, to sign up ever more subscribers.

If I sound a little cynical it's the result of seeing the same scenario played out again and again on my PC. First there was Europe Online, then Netsystem, then Silvermead and now Satdrive.

All that a dedicated satellite will do, as far as I can see, is take a longer time to degrade. For me, as at time of writing this (3pm), I'm getting a spine-chilling 2.5 KBytes/sec off Satdrive. Only the fact that it works better in the wee small hours keeps me using it. Time was I used to get 20KBytes in the day. And that time was not that long ago, either.

Of course, it's all roses in the beginning, with any sat provider. Just be aware that the honeymoon won't last. In other words, make the most of it while you can.

Now this last is just a personal observation and I'm sure I can't be the only one to think this. Resellers should be very careful what they promise in terms of speed, guarantees, customer service et al. Certainly in respect of two of the services I've used there have been endless promises of upgrades and new software, none of which materialised. People remember promises and broken promises will get you more flack than anything else. Flack, and badwill. Just something to think about before you make wild claims, that's all.
 
Sponsored Links
Top
Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Vodafone UK ISP Logo
Vodafone £24.00 - 26.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
NOW UK ISP Logo
NOW £24.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Plusnet UK ISP Logo
Plusnet £25.99
145Mbps
Gift: £50 Reward Card
Large Availability | View All
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+
Gigaclear UK ISP Logo
Gigaclear £17.00
200Mbps
Gift: None
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Hey! Broadband UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Youfibre UK ISP Logo
Youfibre £23.99
150Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Sponsored Links
The Top 15 Category Tags
  1. FTTP (6026)
  2. BT (3639)
  3. Politics (2721)
  4. Business (2439)
  5. Openreach (2405)
  6. Building Digital UK (2330)
  7. Mobile Broadband (2146)
  8. FTTC (2083)
  9. Statistics (1901)
  10. 4G (1816)
  11. Virgin Media (1764)
  12. Ofcom Regulation (1582)
  13. Fibre Optic (1467)
  14. Wireless Internet (1462)
  15. 5G (1407)
Sponsored

Copyright © 1999 to Present - ISPreview.co.uk - All Rights Reserved - Terms  ,  Privacy and Cookie Policy  ,  Links  ,  Website Rules