Again, what site? I'm trying to help out here.....Very often new subscribers need to have some of the satellite-speak translated for them before they commit.
//greg//
WildBlue ViaSat1 the real scoop
- Thread starter Chris Conant WildBlue
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//greg//
WB announced in their intro seminars they would be supporting a proprietary VoIP system but that's supposed to be a later rollout.
I was looking at the new EXEDE site. It's gonna be a couple of months until I am able to change anything here. I also want to wait until the new bird is up for HughesNet to compare plans and see which one will give me a better deal. I am thinking about some major changes in my TV/internet around her.
Perhaps they have more than one. I went to Exede.com and got this. Then I put VoIP into the search box and got this. Or are they calling VoIP by some other name on that site?
Anyway, given the growing state of discontent over their "less for more" approach to the data cap issue, I agree with your decision to wait. Voice calls eat data too, especially if you intend to use VoIP as your primary telephone/fax connection.
//greg//
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Although i appreciate the "Artfully" thing i never have dodged anything in regards to latency. Remember me talking about the new gateways being half the battle? I guess i can expect anyone to go back through 15+ pages of content but. We are not having to send as much data in a lot of cases. As rubber hits the road our demo accounts and customer accounts are reporting in the area of half what WB1/Anik were/are/SB1. Speed tests are quite insane. And many from larger Hughes fans/dealers...
Hope this helps.....
I can't address online gaming with any hands-on experience, but you're probably right. First person shooters are going to suffer because of the great distances the signal must travel. Nothing on the ground can change the laws of physics. I can however address VoIP, and you're wrong. Latency really only affects the initial delay in establishing the stream. After that, it's essentially inconsequential (remember the locomotive principle).
This new 12/5Mb service essentially means which CODEC is used is significantly less material than that used with slower satellite connections. The real problem with VoIP via satellite has always been the disparate time gaps between voice packets. Traditionally, satellite VoIP has been offered as a value-added service. This mean the provider charges more to route the calls through a server called a VoIP accelerator. In this, Chris is right - it's a process performed on the ground. VoIP acceleration is a software process that evens out the time between packets to an acceptable usage level (read "one they can justify charging money for"). The questions that remain unaddressed however, are (a) whether or not Exede is actually going to use VoIP acceleration - and (b) whether or not they're going to charge for (acceptable) VoIP as a value-added service.
I do have to address the "insane speeds" statement though. Anybody who's been around this game very long knows full well that the first subscribers on a newly inaugurated satellite or transponder will definitely enjoy advertised speeds. That's because there's no server loading yet. Remember, this is STILL shared bandwidth. The satellite is designed with an advertised 100 Gbps transfer capacity. I realize that some of that capacity is dedicated to subscriber uploads, but I'll try to keep this simple. Divide 100Gbps by the advertised 12Mbps service per subscriber, and it becomes clear that only the first 8333 customers will get an unshared 12Mbps. And any time there are 8333 or fewer subscribers using the satellite simultaneously, they'll each still get their full 12Mbps. But as the number of simultaneous subscribers exceeds 8333, the less of the 100Gbps there is to go around.
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All satellite Internet systems have a built-in minimum "system" latency of 500 milliseconds, just as they all have a dish outside. But, we do successful VoIP all the time over satellite at 600 to 800 ms of total round-trip latency with commercial V-Sats. It's just that consistently low latency has not been a feature of consumer satellite Internet systems.
The issue with supporting VoIP has to do with a combination of latency and packet "Jitter" Packet delay variation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Assuming latency is kept low, then packet Jitter/QoS becomes a bigger factor. High latency can be annoying in a phone call, but high packet jitter/low QoS will dismantle VoIP. If WB can control this then they will be able to support VoIP. It's possible to do. Commercial V Sat does it all the time.
You're right about latency hampering gaming if you're referring to "high twitch" games and not Chess or Bridge. But I've not heard one satellite Internet company ever tout they would be a good choice for high twitch gaming. To me, the important stuff here is in comparing new WB to old WB, HughesNet, Starband or other V-Sat. If you already have Cable, or decent wireless or DSL, then any satellite Internet system will probably come up short.
Greg, we are 150GPS its HNS new bird that's 90-100
Not sure what we are doing on VIOP but suspect Q2 2012 supported end to end for QOS.
Oh yea, WB1 Augmented Beams in Nebraska are reporting stupid fast speeds..
oh wait, they have a lot of existing customers on them....
oh wait, they have a lot of existing customers on them....
I've heard that the cable/sat industry uses a figure of something around 30% to calculate how many people are online at the same time. That's not to say they're all doing the same thing, some are streaming video or audio, but others are just sitting reading Email or surfing the web, or typing up post replies like I'm doing now. Those are not bandwidth-intensive activities, and most of them don't need or notice 12Mbps burst speeds. Not sure what the sustainable total number of users is on Viasat 1 but WB says it will be 1 million users for their 12 Mbps service there. Will everybody get that all the time? Certainly not, but it will be interesting to see what happens as it loads up.
I remember having to stay up until 2 am to do the unlimited bandwidth and youtube. In my final days on satellite broadband I got too sleepy and could not stay up until 2 am.
I read that they plan on having 1 million customers on this satellite? In the past I have also read that the broadband industry plans on having something like 10% of the customers on at the same time. Even with only that many on at the same time everybody is not loading web pages at the same time.
At 30% usage there would be a fourth of the 12 MB bandwidth available if everybody was full throttle (if my math is correct). That would be 3 MB full throttle for them all or more than that if some are not downloading/video/etc.
You never addressed the latency issue, 'Chris'. Have they managed to make it useable for activities like voip, video conferencing, online gaming, etc?
Perhaps Chris has not, that's not info that management usually extends to sales staff. But I believe I have addressed myself not long ago. Originally Wildblue had normal (for satellite) lag over their consumer connections. 680ms or so seems to be somewhat of an industry average. But in 2006 they screwed the pooch with an ill-advised front end modification, which resulted in 1600-2800ms PINGS.
The new Exede service - which should be noted as under new ownership/management - seems to have remedied that situation. RTTs reported by early Exede subscribers seemed to have settled back to within satellite consumer grade norms. VPN has been addressed recently over at DSL Reports as having improved markedly over "the old WildBlue". VoIP hasn't been discussed in depth yet, but it's still early. And for the record, latency is not the major issue with satellite - it's the inconsistent time between packets. Usually that takes a VoIP accelerator to even out the stream (typically a value-added feature). Gamers however, will continue to be disappointed. There's just no way that first person shooters are EVER going to be satisfied with three digit PINGs.
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Pretty sure we stated it would work with Voip and VC but gamers? not so much... especially fast twitch....
I discovered the omission after it was too late to edit the error. This statement should have read; "And for the record, latency is not the major issue with VoIP via consumer grade satellite - it's the inconsistent times between packets."
//greg//
Here's a speed test from a few days ago, I've done 5, all test about the same. It's awesome, I no longer hang my head in shame when showing a custy how fast it is!
Faster than my DSL connection especially when it comes to the upload speed. I notice that it is not the 12 MB speed so I wonder how low it will go as more subscribers get onto the service.
