How good (or bad) is satellite broadband?

I live about four miles from the exchange and until recently enjoyed just over 1Mbps, but at the moment there is an intermittent fault, a quiet crackle, which was not present when the engineer called. At the moment the speed is down to 300Mbps, and it might drop out anytime. Probably it will worsen over time and I can fetch him back but I am just weary of the hassle
I was about to fork out for satellite broadband when I checked the postings on this forum, and they are not complimentary, describing it as as bad as dialup. Is that really true? The problem appears to be that successive pages load slowly and the advertised speeds only apply to larger downloads.
Is there a noticeable delay before the page loads, latency, or is it just slow due to contention.
How slow is slow? It is bound to be subjective, does it only feel slow if you are used to say a 4Mbps but not too bad if, like me, you think 1Mbps is fast?
At least it should not drop out.
Any other comments would be much appreciated.

Latency around 500ms, compared to use 30 to 40ms, so a page with lots of elements can take a while, and Geo location services still apparently show people as outside UK, so sometimes problems with iPlayer et al

I'd rather have 0.5 Mbps ADSL, than 4Mbps satellite

It works, but it can can be a pain with the various usage allowances that kick in, even on the unlimited products

Post deleted by billford

Edited by deleted (Tue 07-Aug-12 18:35:30)

That is really helpful. If there are say 10 servers used then it could take 5 seconds? If I understand correctly that seems (comparatively) reasonable. On my 0.3Mbps connection the BBC.co.uk page took 12 seconds, which seemed quicker than most, I have been loading various pages linked to Google News and it took 20 seconds or more each time.
Bearing in mind that it should be more reliable than a long 'phone line it is quite tempting.
thank you

A colleague of mine (Norfolk way) is in a similar situation to you and has had satellite now for quite some time. He has recently upgraded to one of the nextgen satellites (that can offer up to 10 Mbps).

Main things to think about really are, as Mr Saffron said, latency (prob fine for web surfing but a pain for real time interactive things such as gaming and VoIP) and allowances (those these are increasing gradually as the sector gets more competitive).

Thank you for that. I have decided to give it a go, not because I expect it to be great but it should be an improvement on a very long phone line. Just have to live with the delay, at least the connection should be stable. It is not cheap but I'm hoping to use VOIP and save the cost of line rental. Then it would actually be slightly less than the existing broadband and phone package. Still I expect if it is that simple it would a marketing ploy.

Are you absolutely sure you can't get a 3G signal on any networks where you are?

Latency can still be poorer than a fixed line, but VOIP is fine, and if it works well it's quite speedy.

http://speedtest.net/result/2116939089.png

Skype voice on satellite was fine, a small delay as epxected but for normal conversation tolerable.

Absolutely certain. We barely get 2G, and that is a very poor signal, there is a ruddy great hill in the way, I've used it but had to go outside. It is pretty sparsely populated around here (Mid Wales) and the Offcom website shows that 3G is only transmitted in the towns, which is understandable.
If VOIP is of useable quality then that makes satellite broadband an affordable option in rural areas. The dish can be supplied for £100 (though you can pay a lot more) and the self install version has a beeper to help line it up.
I will post again when it's up and running, clearly different people will have different views so I will try to be objective.

Is there not still a subsidy from the Welsh Assembly Government so you don't have to do the self-install if you don't want ? Used to be up to £1000 or so.

E.g. have you looked at
http://wales.gov.uk/topics/businessandeconomy/broadb...

Given the choice between satellite or a line of sight wireless link to nearby premises with decent land-based broadband, the choice is easy. Bill Ray at The Register wrote a couple of articles on how he did it, can't find them right now, but worth a look.

I'm not sure most people would class satellite VoIP as usable. Older readers may remember when transatlantic telephone calls went via satellite, and whilst it may have been OK for limited usage, emergencies, etc, it wasn't exactly satisfactory let alone comfortable.

We have just had Tooway Direct install Tooway 18 (18MBps download and 5 or 6 upload).

We are in a rural area with max 1MPs download and 240KBps upload through telephone line . The copper wire broadband crashed many times a day, when neighbours on zilch. No 3G.

It was a leap of faith having read about the new Ksat satellite. We are absolutely thrilled. There is a slight lag but then everything loads fast. We can watch iplayer with good resolution and I can upload photos in large file size easily and quickly. Skype works beyond expectations, no noticeable lag at all and full screen excellent resolution picture on the video calls.

Wonderful! The package we went for is £55 pm http://www.toowaydirect.com/purchase/

Life revolutionised!
SNG Hampshire

You certainly chose the right package, and it is good that you can use VOIP. I chose the £25. package, with the same satellite, which is not so brilliant. I have just used the Skylogic speed test and these gives the Download as 7.7Mbps and the Upload as 2.1Mbps causing a delay of just over three quarters of a second.
With the cache cleared most pages take from 15 to 20 seconds to load, but in practice the text loads quite quickly, usually in 7 to 10 seconds, and surfing feels reasonably smooth. I have been told that satellite BB is equivalent to a ADSL connection of 2Mbps, which is probably about right. It is not perfect but I am reasonably pleased. It is a big relief not to need to watch for the connection dropping out, much less stress.
The installer provided a UK address for free (some don't) so the BBC iPlayer is fine and downloads are very quick after ADSL ,so no need to make a cup of tea.
With delay of three quarters of a second it is unlikely that VOIP, will work very well, I think the recommended maximum is half a second.
One other point for anyone considering ditching ADSL, the dish is pretty big, 30inches diameter, you may not want to put it on the front of your house, unless you have a mansion.

I am living in the region which is highly effected by rain clouds.
In this kind of areas, satellite broadband will never work efficiently.

Post deleted by MrSaffron

Adverts can be bought via the usual channels

Hi All,
You need line of sight, Toowaydirect have help on there website, ours was 30deg elevation by 169. If your internet is toobad there is a Smartphone Android APP "KA-Sat Finder". that's useful
We recently joined in September the 18mbs Toowaydirect Satellite Broadband feed, I agree with other users, it surfs about the same speed as 1.2 ADSL-2 line. 6sec to open a homepage, and 10 to open a never seen before page.

A usefull tip is opening first a complicated HomePage like www.talktalk.co.uk to be useful, the short uncomplicated pages sometimes time out initiating an Internet connection. I have also found this broadband is not happy with MS Outlook and iTunes, so I don't use them. We just use a Web based email, and iTunes well.

This type of Broadband is great for anything over 3mb, computer updates fly, Smart mobiles updating over WiFi is wonderfull, and full 290mb Smartphone upgrades done recently an absolute luxury.

We went for the Self Install dragging my neighbor into help I'm not good on ladders. The equipment is well made, But don't over-tighten the dish that it distorts.
We didn't use the purchasable router its a Cisco/Linsky e1200, instead went for the Tp-Link Wr2543ND. with good reason.

So Is it worth changing, for us yes, I think if you can get anything close to 1.9mbs from your exchange then perhaps not, Satellite BB is expensive, and the limited capacity soon goes when you find a use.

Thank you Forum, I eventually got to the right place.

Just self-installed Avonline's (Tooway) new unlimited 20Mbps satellite service. Only been running a day but pleasantly surprised by the ease of the install and the performance.

I got this for my business needs as I need to upload large files on a regular basis and the 6mbps upload ability (about 5mbps in reality) is great. For day-to day home internet browsing I still use my BT ADSL service (about 3.5mpbs down, 0.5 up.)

Got the satellite broadband on a 12 month contract by which time FTTP should finally have come to my area and I can stop the ADSL and Sat services - and buy some filler for those drill holes in the side of my house!

In reply to a post by chrigurndevon:

Just self-installed Avonline's (Tooway) new unlimited 20Mbps satellite service. Only been running a day but pleasantly surprised by the ease of the install and the performance.

I got this for my business needs as I need to upload large files on a regular basis

Nice bit of proactive work there.

Dear Chrigurndevon,

Would you mind me asking how you find the Latency for surfing??, I noticed you say you use your Bt still. We usually check our speed using the Satellite speed tester at:-

http://speedprobe.skylogicnet.com/lite

Our average is 720. Also what router did you use??

Thank you.