Greetings from the Satellite Expo

[Scott Greczkowski]

Hey guys,

Greetings from Memphis where it is HOT! Today was day one of the 2005 Satellite Expo and what a great and busy day. The SatelliteGuys booth opened up and was a success as was our introduction of the SatelliteGuys Girls.

We opened up the day at the booth with some technical problems, the Internet Cafe's internet was down. After doing some checking we figured it was a bad wireless router. Got the router replaced and all was well.

People were anxious to try out the WildBlue setups we had. I got to be honest I am a user of a dedicated 6 meg connection at my office. I could see the latency which by my tests was around 400ms. But thats nothing bad about WildBlue as all satelite based internet services have the same issue.

With that being said I was impressed with the speed, out 1.5 MB connection tested at or near 1.5 mb when testing things out at various speed test sites.

If you are coming from a dial up modem you will not notice the latency issues and will love Wildblue.

Starband another satellite internet company announced their new Starband Flyer which is self pointing dish for use by RVers. Now those traveling can have broadband no matter where they call home for the night. More details of the Starband Flyer can be found at http://www.starband.com/special/manualflyer.asp

One of the COOLEST things I have seen at the show is from RAYSAT, it is a special antenna you attach to the luggage rack and let's you watch Dish Netwrok or DirecTV while the vechicle is in motion. Now this technology has been around for a few years now, but what makes this product VERY interesting is this one can also do two way Satellite Bradband Internet while the vehcical is in motion! I will be bringing you guys more information on this way cool product, it is one of the coolest things I have seen so far at the show.

I didn't get to go on the floor much today with our technical issues and the fact there was a car accident outside the Agricenter which knocked out the power for 90 minutes did not help things.

If you look at the photo section at http://www.satelliteguys.us/photos you will notice lots of photos of our lovely SatelliteGirls with attendes of the show, many of these folks are SatelliteGuys members! Later on I will try my best to match some names to the faces.

Look for more photos and coverage to come, this expo has only just begun!

If you are in the area stop in and say hello!

Time for bed for me. Goodnight from Memphis!

 

[vandalous]

Note that there are a lot of other drawbacks to satellite-based internet. Sure, it's OK for basic web surfing and downloads are pretty sweet. However, that latency will kill just about any application requiring constant communication with a server. That's right: no telecommuting using Outlook, no gaming (unless you're playing Yahoo games or Guild Wars, which works ok over this connection), and wonky real-time updating (such as up to the minute stock tickers or fantasy sports scoreboards such as Yahoo's).

I've had DirecWay for 3 years and can fill you in on what you can and cannot do.

Hm, I wonder if these companies are doing the same thing that HNS does and bounces the signal from your earth-station to the bird and then to central Network Operations Center (HNS's is in Minneapolis) to process a page request. That's where all the latency is. If the NOC is impacted by weather, then expect drama with your internet connection.

 

[minorthr]

Scott,

Was there any sign of the new D* dish ?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

No no sign of a new DirecTV Dish, DirecTV and DIsh Network are not showing at the show, although I have seen a few DirecTV and DIsh Employees walking around with name badges under different company names.

 

[dmodemd]

Ok, so where did you get these girls and how much did they cost?

 

[Yota86]

The girl wearing the jeans, is a porn star named Brandy Taylor.

 

[DishExpress]

hey guys were hear in Memp,
check out the guys from dish incognito

 

[Liquidforce88]

Scott, I hope Wild Blue is able to perform under load, The system is not been tested yet. When we were in the Starband Beta testing, Starband speeds were 1500 to 2000kps.

 

[DataSatPlus]

Scott. Find out from the RaySat group on what the average upload and download speeds are while in motion as well as when parked. This may not be super high speed in motion however it will fill a niche. Also, ask them if they will have a marine version? we have potential customers with yachts and they are asking about that.
Cheers

Also say hello to Doc (Robert) Livingston for me if you see him or the other DataBahn crew!

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Down is 2mb sec and 128kb up. Same speeds when parked.

I will be taking a ride tommorow with the Raysat guys to see it in action.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Well another day of the show is gone. I got a chance to visit many of the booths and see some really cool stuff.

Got to meet a lot of folks today as well!

I will be doing more in depth writeups when I get back to my hotel room, but some things I saw here rocked.

The Internet Cafe ran great today it was amazing to see the Cafe packed with people, we even had the guys from SkyReport and SkyRetailer in the booth working on their stories for Mondays editions.

It is amazing that our booth has become the hot spot to hang out at the show.

As you might have noticed we have setup a live webcam and had fun doing a couple of goofy shots for everyone.

Tommorow is the final day of the show, there will be a huge party tommorow night after the show closes, this is where they will announce the location of the 2006 Satellite Expo. I don't know much about the location, but I hear it is quite Peachy.

More later!

 

[korsjs]

looking forward for the write ups.

 

[Stargazer]

The two-way internet and other mobile satellite technology seems interesting as its becoming a little more popular now but I have a question. Is it possible to use mobile internet using cell phone signals? I seen a while back where there was an antenna that you can put on your house and use your regular phones on the cell phone signal. Can you hook up a computer/laptop to it and take it on the road with you or at least to other locations? What kind of data speed could be expected? Perhaps this would be a nice alternative to the high costs of two-way mobile high speed internet.

Also if the transfer rate is not that great then could you at least receive high speed internet from the satellite and transmit using the cell phone signal? There are bound to be some good alternatives to keep price down and raise the popularity.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Todays write up can be found at http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=74688

Stargazer the speed question is answered above. 2 meg down and 128kbs up.

 

[Stargazer]

I meant using the cell phone frequencies with one of those outside antenna's where you can use a regular phone inside the home instead of the cell phone only take that cell phone antenna on the road with you. I dont know what they call them.