Comment Re:Is this a two way system? (Score 1) 771
I have been a StarBand user for nearly 3?+ years now. I have nearly no other options, though community wierless is only two miles due east, I am behind a tall ridge that will require at least 100"+ tower to get a clear line of site. County Zoning can be a pain... but that is another topic, not to mention the expense...
Over all StarBand is better than nothing, but I would LOVE to be able to play a few first person games with my brother 80 miles away. The latency prevents that, it even makes terminal services uncomfortable though workable for short tasks. But be prepared for it to take a lot longer than it would on a 'good' connection. Not good for an emergency call, with the objective to fix (whatever) fast.
I have recently changed my 'SB gateway' box to a faster one (I think the orginal box has hardware issues-undetermined at this time, but things were getting slower and slower) The change did seem to make things seem better/more responsive. The new box is a 1 GHz, w/128Mg running win 2K server and doing ICS for our small home network (which includes Macs and one or two linux boxes). In the past six months the quality of service has seemed to improve a bit. Perhaps they moved users around on transponders to balance out resources(?).
I have yet made the time to try what GigsVT describes, adding a dialup connect in concert with the sat link. GigsVT, would you mind expanded on your working solution? Either here for all, or directly if you feel an open discussion would be unwarranted.
Perhaps your combo solution would work well enough and be realatively cost effective for CmdrTaco and a number of others...
Over all StarBand is better than nothing, but I would LOVE to be able to play a few first person games with my brother 80 miles away. The latency prevents that, it even makes terminal services uncomfortable though workable for short tasks. But be prepared for it to take a lot longer than it would on a 'good' connection. Not good for an emergency call, with the objective to fix (whatever) fast.
I have recently changed my 'SB gateway' box to a faster one (I think the orginal box has hardware issues-undetermined at this time, but things were getting slower and slower) The change did seem to make things seem better/more responsive. The new box is a 1 GHz, w/128Mg running win 2K server and doing ICS for our small home network (which includes Macs and one or two linux boxes). In the past six months the quality of service has seemed to improve a bit. Perhaps they moved users around on transponders to balance out resources(?).
I have yet made the time to try what GigsVT describes, adding a dialup connect in concert with the sat link. GigsVT, would you mind expanded on your working solution? Either here for all, or directly if you feel an open discussion would be unwarranted.
Perhaps your combo solution would work well enough and be realatively cost effective for CmdrTaco and a number of others...
