[NTLUG:Discuss] Re: High Speed Internet "in the sticks"

[Bug Hunter]

On Thu, 3 Oct 2002, Kipton Moravec wrote:

> Yesterday I went to Metro-net and played with a Starband (two way satellite) system for a while, just surfing the internet.
> 
> It is not as bad as I thought, and better than regular modems. 
> 
> Most websites came up quickly after about a 1-2 second pause.   The only websites that were noticeably slow, were the ones with pages that had a bunch of different files for icons, and buttons.  The more individual items on a page the more noticeably slow it was.   I thought MSN.com would be slow because of all of the stuff on the page, but it popped up like my cable modem.  Perhaps because it is accessed so often, they have it cached better.
> 
> On pictures I did not see the slow picture build like I see when using dial-up.  They were pretty snappy.
> 
> After playing for 15 minutes, I think it is better than dial-up, but not as good as cable modem or dsl.  I have not tried IDSN.
>  
> Kip
> 
<snip>

  That is because many of these systems use streaming software to provide 
the datapackets for the pictures assuming they won't get lost in the 
middle.  Some of the software takes note of the garbled packets and asks 
for those to retransmit.  Most normal TCP/IP transactions require packet 
to packet acknowledgment of the deilvered data. 

  That is where the 1 to 2 second lag typically comes in.  It takes about 
1/4 to 1/3 second to get a packet round tripped through the satellite. 
(just calculate the speed of light going through 35,800 km up and 
35,800 km back down, 270 milliseconds, add equipment delays and get 320 
milliseconds)  The rest of the time is the server on the other end storing 
the data up for the stream.

bug 

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