Broadband Satellite Internet Technology by VSAT |
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Broadband Satellite Internet Technology The "No Spin" How It Works A number of satellite broadband internet providers will provide mind numbing detail about the complexities of how high speed internet via satellite works. Although the technology at a micro level can be intricate, most users just want to know from a reliable source whether they can do what they need to do with a satellite internet connection. Since VsatUS is not obligated to any provider, we aren’t motivated to shower you with a lot of unnecessary techno babble. There are some technical things covered here that you should be aware of. The types of activities you engage over the internet will dictate what a good satellite internet company will recommend and what will actually work in the field. Latency In the simplest terms, latency is the “lag” or travel time a data request makes during the trip up to a satellite – back down to earth to the Internet Providers Network Ground Station – out to the WWW to the website or page which was requested and back again through the IP Network Ground Station, up to the satellite and back down to your remote dish ……whew!…..a round trip of some 96,000 miles taking the better part of a second to as much as 2 seconds before the page you requested appears. The offerings for true IP Business Class Service are based on standards compliant IP connectivity for end-to-end transparency and compatibility and provide faster speeds than shown above. The less expensive consumer products utilize the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) standard which was originally developed for one-way Television transmission. DVB works well if all you need to do is email and browse the net. For the things many Corporations, Government Agencies and individuals connected to corporate office need to do, like VPN, VOIP and Video Conferencing, the data conversion logjam produced by consumer grade DVB produces too much latency for it to successfully work. Nearly all of the consumer satellite internet providers utilizing DVB technology compound the problem by not offering very fast upload speeds. There are a myriad of acceleration and IP spoofing products (software and hardware) that Internet Providers have offered in a attempt to overcome the shortcomings of first generation DVB transmission in a vpn environment. These products are acceptable unless your activities include intense database inquiries and “chatty” programs like Oracle, Lotus Notes, and accessories like the Calendar in Outlook. Try remote printing with a HughesNet, Wildblue or Starband setup in a VPN tunnel sometime if you want a load of frustration! Rain Fade Even the most reliable satellite communications technology can sometimes be out-matched by the forces of nature. It's a phenomenon known as rain fade or rain attenuation - a weakening of the satellite signal as it passes through raindrops. The Causes of Satellite Rain FadeAny satellite communications system network operator using a Ku-Band system (12/14 GHz or higher frequencies) will face the effects of rain fade at some time. But to understand why this weakening occurs with Ku-Band transmissions, you must first understand the causes of satellite rain fade. Two of the most common causes are listed below.
Scattering can be caused by either refraction or diffraction:
These different reactions ultimately have the same effect - they cause any satellite system to lose some of its normal signal level. Don't expect to lose your satellite signal every time it rains, though. Rain outage will only occur during the heaviest rains (convective and stratiform are the most predominant types) with only a small portion of the transmission path experiencing attenuation. In fact, of a typical satellite transmission path measuring 22,300 miles, less than .02% will be affected by rain fade.
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