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Power Requirements for Satellite Internet

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Scott Willing

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hey all,

Been thinking again about satellite internet, having made a trip to my
head office recently and been reminded what it's like to have a
broadband connection. Heck, even the hotel had plug'n'play highspeed.

Several times in the past I've looked into the sat internet thing and
been scared off, first by reading horror stories surrounding DirecWay,
and second, by the figure of 265W quoted to me as a power requirement.
(2.3A @ 115V)

I assume that these figures were just read off the power supply
(supplies?) for the gear, so actual power consumption would presumably
be somewhat less than that even during peak requirements. I am also
guessing that peak usage would be experienced during upload only, on
the assumption that these things don't broadcast unless they need to.

Anyone have a clue if these assumptions have any merit? Sat internet
isn't an easy thing to test-drive...

(Aside to Canucks: apparently Telsat is getting ready to roll out a
Canadian solution in July.)

Cheers,
-=s
 
S

Scott Willing

Jan 1, 1970
0
Scott,

I just terminated my Direcway satellite service (I've got a DW6000 system
for sale, now) and, using a Watts-Up meter, the average consumption was
about 240WH/day for the modem with it running 24/7. Of course, we were not
transmitting 24/7.


-- ron (off the grid in Downeast Maine)

Gotta love this newsgroup. Thanks very much Ron, that's exactly the
kind of data I was looking for.

May I ask what you thought of the service in general? The stories I've
read online are about evenly split between "swell!" and "nightmare!"

I kid myself that it's only when I'm moving large files that the slow
dial-up is a pain, but it's a lie.

-=s
 
S

Scott Willing

Jan 1, 1970
0
It might be about that, yeah, including the laptop. This email, by the
way, is from a satellite internet account ;-).

And bouncing off the DirecWay bird as it made its way to the group,
actually.


Absolutely, it's not. But I use it, I like it, and I don't find it uses
much power. I've got a few kill-o-watts kicking around here; I'll throw
one into the line and track it for a while if you'd like.


Attention fellow Canuck, err, actually, I'm in Quebec, so it might not
count ;-).
It's been available up here for a long time, amigo.
First it was an outfit out of New Brunswick (but they install anywhere)
called LincSat, and now, on the invoices I get, it says XPlornet.

http://www.lincsat.com/ which automatically directs you to:

http://www.xplornet.com/

DJ

Thanks very much for all o' dat, DJ, but that site is exactly where I
found out that they're rolling out Telsat in July. They've had
Direcway for quite some time, yes, but not Telsat, yeah?

Telsat is Canadian, right down to the orbiting hardware.

-=s
 
D

Derek Broughton

Jan 1, 1970
0
Scott said:
Been thinking again about satellite internet, having made a trip to my
head office recently and been reminded what it's like to have a
broadband connection. Heck, even the hotel had plug'n'play highspeed.

Several times in the past I've looked into the sat internet thing and
been scared off, first by reading horror stories surrounding DirecWay,

On alt.satelite.direcpc there's much growling about DirecWay's service.
Xplornet/Lincsat has been vastly better than I hear from there.
and second, by the figure of 265W quoted to me as a power requirement.
(2.3A @ 115V)

The first question I asked was "power consumption". Obviously it's a common
one because they actually knew off the tops of their heads. 45W for my
(older 4000) modem. That's reliable for a peak consumption - I haven't
tried to measure it over a longer term, as I only power up when I need it.
The new 6000s should be less, I would hope.
I assume that these figures were just read off the power supply
(supplies?) for the gear, so actual power consumption would presumably
be somewhat less than that even during peak requirements.

I don't know how they could have read those numbers - unless they read 2.3A
on the DC output side (that number sounds familiar - but maybe that's my
laptop power supply :) ).
I am also
guessing that peak usage would be experienced during upload only, on
the assumption that these things don't broadcast unless they need to.

Not quite. It talks to the satellite when you're not doing anything, but it
should be brief.
Anyone have a clue if these assumptions have any merit? Sat internet
isn't an easy thing to test-drive...

(Aside to Canucks: apparently Telsat is getting ready to roll out a
Canadian solution in July.)

Xplornet (my provider) provides Direcway and Telesat. Direcway has two
other Canadian providers (iirc, Galaxy and C-Com).
 
D

Derek Broughton

Jan 1, 1970
0
DJ said:
I've been wanting to upgrade my satellite internet to a wireless system
(so I could sit on the end of the dock of our lake with a beer and
write reports and justify it all ;-), but couldn't do it with the 4000
modem unless I had a "master box" running; the 4000 is a USB modem. My
home is off grid, and so we're rather energy conscious. Having a
computer running just to run the wireless LAN seemed silly, so I called
my guy at LincSat/XPlornet, and was told to "just wait a bit". This
seems to be why.

Maybe, but Hughes is offering 6000 series modem upgrades to customers in the
US, so I'm hoping we get the same deal (soon!).
I also use the satellite for VoIP phone (Net2Phone) and was told that,
shortly, service and speed would greatly improve, and the new service
would be better suited to wireless and VoIP.

I can't really see how it could help VoIP (how's that working for you? lag
times not too annoying?). You could double the upload speed but you'd
still have the same latency.
 
B

Bruce in Alaska

Jan 1, 1970
0
Gary said:
Hi Scott,
I had Starband service for several years, and thought that it was
fairly good and fairy reliable. We had very few weather related
problems with it. It consistently met its claims on download speeds
when downloading large files. When browsing the web it was poor --
really not much better than a dialup. This is presumably due to the
latency inherent in the 40000 mile path distance, and the fact that a
typical web page involves many request/answer pairs. If I am
remembering correctly, the advertised upload speed is only about 100K
bits/sec, and mine never came close to meeting that -- so if you have
large files to upload, this would be something to check on. I changed
to radio Internet as soon as it was available here in the valley, and
it is far better and cheaper as well.

Gary

I have been running the StarBand System since its inception. Since I
generate all my own power, my system qualifies as "Off Grid". I have
a Trace 2624 that provides all the power for the modem, routers, Servers,
and network infostructure. My speeds vary as Starband loads and unloads
the Cluster/subcluster that I am on. I have better speeds after 5Pm and
before 8Am daily. I also have increasing speeds as the week progresses.
Mondays are the pits, bit better on Tuesdays, and by Wed things usually
are running nicely. Weekends are wide open with Sunday evenings running
in the 1.2Mbs range. One must remember that latency on Sat Segments
is the limiting factor, in most cases. Every DNS Lookup takes 2 Sec,
and that adds up, on todays WebPages in Http. Same problem with VoIP
Apps. If you can get over the latency delays, you will do ok.

Bruce in alaska
 
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Scott Willing

Jan 1, 1970
0
Well, it was better than dial-up. I did have a few months of problems
which were fixed when I got the installer to come out and repoint the dish.
Apparently DW support didn't have a clue that that might be a problem.
Their teaching was that if you have a signal, and you have a "green light",
the signal has to be good. But I must have been right on the margin
because service improved considerably after repointing.

There are occasional problems with secure sites, but this became less and
less of a problem over the year and a half I was using the service.

My dish was not easily accessible to clean off snow build-up, so that would
be a problem. Thunderstorms would also occasionally take it down.

All in all, it was much better than dial-up for downloads (upload speed is
similar, but I don't do much of that). I did maintain dial-up for a
backup, though.

If you need a public (or static) IP address, you will need to go with their
business package.

If you download more than about 170MB at a time, you download speed will
slow way down. I only hit that limit a very few times.

We had a wireless ISP start up. Download speed is similar, upload speed is
faster, reliability seems better, and the price is 1/2 of what DW is
charging. And the power consumption is about 1/2. So I switched.

Good luck with your decision.


-- ron (off the grid in Downeast Maine)

All very interesting and valuable information.

My preference would certainly be for terrestrial wireless, but the
population is so thin in my area that I have doubts that it will ever
become available here.

-=s
 
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Scott Willing

Jan 1, 1970
0
The system that was put in that, hopefully, will make money for its owners,
has about a 15 mile (distance from tower) definite service area and a
potential of 22 miles. The unit can accomodate about 50 users, but I don't
know what their costs or break-even point is. The charge to me is
$35US/month. The unit is on a 190 ft tower (to avoid necessity for
lighting which kicks in hear at 200') and is solar-powered with a back-up
generator.


-- ron (off the grid in Downeast Maine)

Ah, that's a lot better coverage than the stuff I've researched on the
'net. Maybe there's hope for wireless yet.

To receive anything land-based, I'd probably have to put up some kind
of tower (I'm in a wee valley, no cell service). I'm thinking about
doing that to collect some wind data anyway.

-=s
 
S

Scott Willing

Jan 1, 1970
0
Wi Max is the next great hope for us. Sort of a WI FI with 30mile
coverage. coming soon !

Yeha! But I'll believe it when I see it. The one thing I can say about
sat internet is that I don't have to wait for it to come to my area.

And I'm near certain that I'll have to put up a tower to receive any
terrestrial signal... though as I said I've other interests in doing
that anyway so I don't consider that a show-stopper.

-=s
 
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