Another negative of Starband (or DirectPC) is that they both use (to the
best of my knowledge) a VPN. That is they encrypt and then decrypt all
traffic to and from your site. Your connection is actually to their
encrypt/decrypt server farm. This precludes any VPN's of your own (if you
use them). I do use a VPN and so any VPN traffic would have failed since
you can't tunnel within a tunnel. This according to their FAQ's and from
phone calls I made.
Does someone with the service know if this also restricts your ports?
They say in the FAQ's you can't play interactive online games, but I
assume that's because of latency, not a port issue.
Farrell Woods wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >
> > People,
> >
> > I know a couple of you had mentioned using Starband,
> > (If you haven't left due to flamewars).
> > I was wondering if it uses internal PIC(?) boards, or an
> > external box, similar to a cable modem.
>
> Depends on who you get it from.
>
> If you get it from Rat Shack then it's internal; works with windoze
> only. If you get it from the Dish people then you get a box that's
> a bit bigger than the average VCR. The box contains the sattelite
> transceiver; out the other end it's USB (!). Also on the back
> of the box is a TP Ethernet connector, but it's dormant. Their
> software package also works only with windoze. But there's
> a glimmer of hope.
>
> Now...the trick is that if you open the box (thus voiding the
> warranty) you'll quickly discover that the USB connection is
> actually a little daughter card that can be removed. Removing
> the daughtercard re-activates the previously dormant TP connector,
> which you then hook to your Linux box.
>
> Having said all that... The problem with Starband is latency. Where
> this nails you big-time is precisely with bursty, itinerant stuff
> like web/http traffic. Latencies via sattelite run at best around
> 250ms (not counting latencies through the 'net itself.) That adds
> up real fast, so part of the software package from Starband is
> a elaborate proxy, part of which runs on your PC and the other
> part at their NOC. The proxy has the effect of squashing multiple
> requests/connections so you don't take as much of a beating going
> through the sattelite.
>
> Anyway, there's a lot more interesting info out there. I'd suggest
> taking a look at http://www.starbandusers.com. They just posted
> some instructions on how to make Starband work with Linux (Mandrake 8)
> Dunno if this includes anything on the caching proxy software...
> Starbandusers also has instructions on how to remove the USB
> card and reactivate the RJ45 jack.
>
> FYI I'm not a Starband user myself but I've been looking at it
> as an alternative to Adelphia or DSL (Dark Side Link) after my
> house is built.
>
> Hth,
>
> -- Farrell
>
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