A question about DSL, dial-up, cable & satellite

[learninmypc]

I'm very familiar with dial-up since I spent my first 10 years on it & loved it.
I then graduated to wi fi/DSL.
Ok, my question is why do I hear so much bad mouthing about Satellite being so slow? How can it be so slow when the signal travels thru air?
I can understand DSL, Dial-up & cable being slow because it travels thru wire, but not satellite.TIA

 

[fimbles]

Satelite broadband has high latency due to the signal being bounced from earth to space and back again. ( around 22 miles). Other conditions such as weather and line of sight can also affect performance.

Edit : 22 thousand is correct

 

[learninmypc]

Satelite broadband has high latency due to the signal being bounced from earth to space and back again. ( around 22 miles). Other conditions such as weather and line of sight can also affect performance.

Thank you for your reply. Guess I get to find out what latency means.(y)

 

[Cinders]

Um, I think that's more like 22 thousand miles each way. Latency is the amount of time it takes the signal to leave the dish on the roof, go to the satellite and then return to earth at the ground station where the signal is decoded and then sent down a wire to its final destination. Satellite internet is probably OK for just regular browsing but it's terrible for gaming, all that extra traveling the data has to do to get to it's final destination can add roughly 150-220 ms to your ping.

 

[learninmypc]

Um, I think that's more like 22 thousand miles each way. Latency is the amount of time it takes the signal to leave the dish on the roof, go to the satellite and then return to earth at the ground station where the signal is decoded and then sent down a wire to its final destination. Satellite internet is probably OK for just regular browsing but it's terrible for gaming, all that extra traveling the data has to do to get to it's final destination can add 150-220 ms to your ping.

I can't argue with either 22 miles or 22.000 miles but I'd say it depends on how high up that satellite is but either way, its a long way up there. I guess it would be smarter if I contacted a satellite ISP & see if I could find out how high up there their satellite is.
Anyway, I thank you both for your responses. Have an awesome day.

 

[Cinders]

It's 22,000 miles. I used to work for Dish Network. They are a satellite internet service provider. OH, the word "ping" is just another term for latency.

 

[learninmypc]

Ok & thanks. I've heard both the words latency & ping mentioned in here but never knew what it was so thanks.

 

[mopar man]

All of the information in this thread is correct. However, friends of mine HATE satellite even for browsing the web!

They are apparently very slow (even for just browsing) and they go out way too often. My friend who lives close to me stated that every time we got cloud cover, boom, no internet or it was intermittent.

 

[DelJo63]

It's 22,000 miles. I used to work for Dish Network. They are a satellite internet service provider. OH, the word "ping" is just another term for latency.

PING is a tool used to measure latency. The tool ping uses a protocol {ping what else} to send a packet to the remote end and measures the time to receive the return - - much like doppler radar or sonar in water.

DSL and Cable service have dissimilar bandwidths for download (ie from the server to the pc) and upload times,
frequently ~10/1 ratio. Satellite can get much worse as most of the time, the upload side is done over a landline
and not directly to the satellite. Satellite services is deployed where DSL and Cable do not have service, such as rual America.

 

[learninmypc]

Thanks, I enjoy learning.(y)