No ADSL or Cable available in my flat

[DentyCracker]

I've gone with ipviasat. Anyone have any experience with them.

[DentyCracker]

Oh, I'm in London collecting my computer, buying a monitor and modem at a computer fair

[az]

If you want gaming, don't. Pings are HIGH!

AZ

[DentyCracker]

Are they higher than on dialup? I think they are probably the same since a dialup is used for outgoing data. I suck so bad that ping doesn't make me better or worse. I simply cannot be without fast downloads for an entire year. I am preparing for the long journey home to Blackpool hopefully with my machine in tow. I need to buy a trolley tomorrow morning to put the monitor and PC on so I can better lug them around.

[DentyCracker]

Just to reiterate, no cable or ADSL available at my location. My choices are ipviasat or 2 way satellite linkup. ipviasat costs £20 per month and an ISP is around £14 for a total cost of £34. There is no obligation to buy a 12 month contract, I can cancel at any time. 2 way requires 36 month lease (I'll probably not be in this country in 36 months) but such is life.

[az]

Well... a geostationary satellite is ~36000 km above ground, so, not taking the greater distance because of arc into account, the signal, which travels at the speed of light, would tage approx. 120ms just from the provider's uplink to the satellite, and from there an additional 120ms to you - NOT counting the time your request takes over dialup (~50ms at least, or 240ms over satellite, if you go 2 way). This means you have at the very least 290ms ping - IF the server you're trying to reach is directly where the uplink is (very unlikely), dialup works flawlessly (unlikely), and not taking routing etc. times into account (not to speak of the greater distance the signal has to travel in reality, because the satellite won't be directly above the plink and you).

It MAY be, though, that only proxy-able packets are routed over the satellite connection, so games' UDP packets will go through dialup, which is a good thing for the ping - but then, you have only 56k down- and 36k upstream for games, meaning bandwidth-hungry games can pose a problem.

I'd personally go with ISDN. It's WAY faster and more stable than dialup, even though it's only 64k vs. 56k. - it's a digital line, thus you always get the 64k connection, unlike dialup, where you only get 56k under optimum conditions. Dialing is MUCH faster, the connection is much more stable and overall feels much better than dialup.

AZ

[Gurm]

Two way satellite isn't TOO bad, except for those pings. If you play games, you're just screwed all the way around with satellite. Just the way physics works, man. For streaming video it's awesome, for websurfing it's just fine (feels a little less snappy than your average kickass cable connection but ... it IS) but for gaming it's poop.

- Gurm

[WyWyWyWy]

From www.ispreviews.co.uk I think someone said min latency for those is 500ms (services and servers are good.)

But wooo haven't heard anyone has any experience with them, looks like they ain't so popular.

Are you sure you can't get ADSL? You're in London and if you are using a BT line I think you can get ADSL, no?

[DentyCracker]

I am not in London. I was in London yesterday picking up my computer which was at my friend's house. I am in Blackpool and ADSL is NOT available (or I would have been all over it). Cable ISP service is NOT available at my particular location (Blackpool Victoria Hospital residences). Two way satellite is too expensive and requires a long lease of equipment if u aren't going to buy the £2000 box. It is going to be either dialup or one way satellite. Online gaimng is not a priority. 512kbps downloads on the other hand is. I should get sorted by the end of the week. I'll keep u posted

[az]

I don't know what ISDN costs where you live, but I'd consider ISDN (instead of analog) dialup + satellite. If it's not too much more.

AZ

[DentyCracker]

I'll check to see whether I can get ISDN here. I doubt it very much. Upload speed is not important to me right now. Download speed and price is important. The problem is that I live on the hospital's property and they have certain rules and restrictions. I am not even sure I am allowed to have a direct phone line in to my room. I can get external calls by dialling 9 first. The thing is that I pay practically no rent (£100 for the year which is refundable), and no line rental. I am willing to take out a separate line for my own personal use, if that is allowed. Trust me, if I were in London I'd have ADSL already.

[az]

ISDN can be used whereever POTS can, though of course in your situation, where you share your phone line, I doubt you can get it (Don't even know if a modem would be allowed).

I had analog 28.8K, 33.6K, ISDN, and DSL, and I can say that ISDN feels MUCH faster and more responsive, is more stable and "dials" way faster than analog. All the analog lines felt much the same, ISDN was a BIG improvement overall, and DSL a big improvement with download speeds on top of that, but not much else improved significantly (though it's quite noticeable with bigger web pages as well).

AZ

[WyWyWyWy]

AFAIK ISDN is more expensive than ADSL and CABLE, simply because they are not unmetered service (IIRC many 0800 ISPs don't like ISDN, don't even think about 128kps).

Hmm... what about multi-link two/three phone lines? Although many (all?) 0800 ISPs don't physically support multi-link, I'm sure you can do a software based and I'm sure I've seen it. 56kps + 56kps + 56kps... not bad... wouldn't help for downloading large files though, unless some software is clever enough to equally distribute packets to each modem.

[dave m]

Denty, I hope I'm not throwing a spanner in the works, but if you're on hospital property, how are you going to mount a satellite dish for the download side of things?

Dave

[az]

Doesn't the hospital have a big pipe?

AZ