RDP over satellite

The typical example where satellite latency drastically affects performance is given publicly as online gaming.
However more generally relevant and a weightier argument surely is its effect on home working. Typically a worker from home will remote onto their desktop (or is that only me?)
Fairly old posts across the internet (2006ish) state that remote desktop across satellite is just a non-starter due to latency.
Can anyone confirm that that is still the case - that remote desktop over satellite is still just impossible?

It will work but yes latency will be a killer, i.e. following a mouse track if its windows will be a pain. Similar for remote linux sessions where you end up having to guess what you are typing.

Not impossible, but something best left to emergencies, have used it over transatlantic links many years ago (150 to 200ms) and so long as you did not rush would be ok. Raise that to 800ms and will be a pain.

Gaming is used as the example usually as its the one people most easily understand.

In reply to a post by SLAMDUNC:

The typical example where satellite latency drastically affects performance is given publicly as online gaming.
However more generally relevant and a weightier argument surely is its effect on home working. Typically a worker from home will remote onto their desktop (or is that only me?)
Fairly old posts across the internet (2006ish) state that remote desktop across satellite is just a non-starter due to latency.
Can anyone confirm that that is still the case - that remote desktop over satellite is still just impossible?

It's doable but not pleasant. I certainly wouldn't say it's viable for doing everything.

I work from home and do not RDP into my desktop as I don't have one. I believe this is a fairly common thing now. If employers allow staff to work from home they generally supply a laptop and VPN access to the corporate network.

In my case most of what I access is 'in the cloud' anyway and I believe that's where things are increasingly going. I've not heard of using RDP to a desktop as a substitute for being in the office if I'm honest. Seems inefficient.

Well, it's a VPN then RDP onto (powerful) desktop. No point distributing 16GB RAM laptops to staff when they just need a browser on the family laptop to get onto their secure, configured machine at work.

Anyway thanks for that - although inline for a SuperfastEssex satellite upgrade in 2016 no way will I be taking it up.

Company I used to work for had a satellite connection and used RDP heavily.
Their solution was to install a basic <1Mbps ADSL and route all RDP traffic over that to reduce the latency. Any other traffic (browsing, downloading etc) was routed over the satellite.

A number of companies use thin clients (either citrix style or VDI) in which case you are RDPing on to a server that is running your instance of a virtual desktop. That isn't good over high latency connections.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

have used it over transatlantic links many years ago (150 to 200ms) and so long as you did not rush would be ok. Raise that to 800ms and will be a pain.

ADSL over Atlantic then leased line at head office was okay for a me a couple of years ago. You could feel that it wasn't quite as responsive but not enough to be an issue.

Well I foud something official - the BDUK satellite trial page
http://www.primetech.co.uk/bduk-satellite-broadband-...
has (slightly optmistic?) information about useability.

Some of those schemes promote the idea of just one satellite dish in a village, shared across all the houses using wireless. So each person gets a share of the bandwidth. This keeps the costs down.

I personally think the idea is very poor, but clearly better than no internet connection at all.

I wouldn't try it. Working on servers over in Australia and Singapore with a ping of 1000ms is just a non starter, satellite is similar.