Satellite Internet for Gaming? 131
SphericalCrusher asks: "I have been using Comcast high-speed internet for the last three years. Before that, I used Bellsouth DSL and then random dial-up services — but I have to say that overall, I love Comcast the best. Now that my parents are moving, to a new house some 12 miles away, and having no money for my own place, I'll have to move with them . The thing is, the road that it is on is pretty far off the highway, and after calling all broadband providers in the area, I've found out that broadband is not available at my new location. Charter Cable Communications covers the entire area of Summerville, Georgia except mine and neither Bellsouth or Alltel offer DSL. Now, I'm forced to either go back to dial-up or try out a satellite broadband service, which is what I want to do. Has anyone here had any success in gaming online with satellite internet?"
"After purchasing the modem and cords off of eBay for DirecWay (now HughesNet), I'm ready to get satellite internet (we had everything else we needed at the new house). However, has anyone here used satellite and actually enjoyed it? I play a good bit of online games, such as World of WarCraft, Quake IV, and F.E.A.R. and I know gaming online with those will not be the same (the satellite is 25,000+ miles from Earth) because of latency issues. Will the high latency seriously affect the overall download and upload speeds?"
high bandwidth, but high latency (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Get a fucking apartment (Score:3, Insightful)
For some people, in some parts of the world, that may seem like an easy solution to the problem but this isn't the case in general; personally, I live in Calgary where (because of the oil boom) it is not uncommon to pay $1100 per month for a bachelor suit or $1500 for a two bedroom. If you are (like me) a well employeed software developer you can afford to live on your own (or with a roomate) but the vast majority of people who work Retail, manufacturing or other low paying jobs can not afford to live on their own. There are people who get by simply by having 4 or 5 roomates in a house in a house in a poor area of town, but this is hardly a decent solution for many people.
Don't assume that people have as easy of a time making ends meat as you do
Cost (Score:3, Insightful)
In short, NO! (Score:3, Insightful)
Speed of Light = 299792.458 kilometers / second
Geostationary satellites are at an altitude of ~35786 kilometers.
This means that just for the radio wave to travel to and from the satellite, you are adding around 238 milliseconds. That is just one way, the return trip is another 238ms MINIMUM.
This doesn't account for signal conversions, modulation, demodulation(the preceeding are mostly negligable), latency from the ground station to the host, etc. You would be lucky to EVER see under 580ms ping using satellite.
Even the providers do not recommend gaming.
Link: http://www.wafa.ae/en/vsat/aboutsatinternetpg2.as
My terminology may be a little different than others are used to, that is because I am a Satellite Network Controller in the Army and use the military terms.
Why not cell phone broadband? (Score:3, Insightful)
This will beat your satellite broadband in terms of usability.
Re:Speed? No. Latency? Yes. (Score:2, Insightful)
Better solution is to find a neighbor who CAN get cable, you pay for it, and set up a wireless bridge with a couple of 21dB directional antennas. With good line of sight, you can get a mile with no problem and about $200 in hardware. Even further if you pay more for better antennas.
Re:Get a fucking apartment (Score:3, Insightful)
By doing that, he's saving $7200 plus food, which is significant.
Even moreso when you consider that you're going to have to work an aditional ~30% just to pay the taxman.
Dorm life is fun, but when you're kept up every night by the douchebag in the next room, the assholes who think it's fine to light up a smoke in the stairwell and set off the smoke detectors for the entire goddamn building every fucking 3 weeks, have a drunk stumble into your room one night because his key fits your lock - to say nothing of numerous hit and runs on cars in the parking lot, rapes, stabbings, or a honest to god gunfight over a drug deal (not shootings but gunfights, involving several people shooting at each other, and most of those bullets going straight through 10 sheets of sheetrock), it begins to get old really fucking quick.
Oh, yeah, and the crackheads that break a $130 car window to steal loose change and the methheads that try to mug you until you show them something made of metal that fits in your hand (which, btw, may be a felony to carry on campus). All of this happened while I was at the dorms in portland state university.
Fuck that, what a waste of money.
Learning a trade or bettering yourself, absolutely, do that, just realize that paying for dorms has some drawbacks.
Sprint and verizon will terminate your contract if you begin to use their data service "excessively". No warnings, no appeal, but it gets you out of their contract.