On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 16:10:04 +0800, Big Chiz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > you might inquire also at www.indigo.com.ph, havent used it though > > On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 15:27:09 +0800, Holden Hao <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Is there anybody here who uses an Internet provider via Satellite? Any > > recommendations for one? > > > > Are they reliable? What is the typical cost for say, 512 Mbps? > > > > Thanks. > > > > Holden
Holden, internet via satellite is VERY expensive. There are two types, Ku-band and C-band. AZcomm's Dream service is 2-way Ku-band. It's not a clear-channel (SCPC) service, but rather a shared IP network (think something like Ethernet). That's why it's cheap (10k/month for close to 512k, but the CIR is quite low, less than 64k). Ku-band with these small dishes AZcomm is using also is quite vulnerable to rain fade, because at the frequency of Ku-band the droplets of water are an even fraction of a wavelength, and cause a lot of attenuation. C-band is better, and some companies out there (like Textron, www.itextron.com) do sell a two-way C-band service. C-band is "better" because it's lower frequency (less rain fade) and, they usually use large (2.4m diameter or more) dishes, so the gain is also higher. The disadvantage is that, it costs more. A given bird only has a fixed number of transponders, and perhaps half of them are C-band. I'm sure there are companies out there selling really cheap satellite service, but it's cheap because it's shared (e.g. AZcomm). A real deal 64k clear channel TDM C-band service would cost AT LEAST 50k/month. It's the economics of the thing. Watch this: a typical bird has 12 C-band and 12 Ku-band transponders (like the Thomson birds; BTW the Agila II is a Loral bird, but similar specs). Each transponder can handle around DS3 bandwidth (45Mbit). Aggregate bandwidth (this is for all purposes including TV, telecoms) is 1Gbps. How much does the bird cost? $500M for the bird itself, another $500M to put it in orbit. That's 1 BILLION DOLLARS. Lifetime of the bird is 10 years typically. If you amortize at 10% per year, your 1 Billion Dollars is really (1B * (1.1 ^ 10)) = $2.6B. Thats P1.20B/month (not even counting the ground station and maintenance) for 1Gbps of bandwidth. Just division gives you a cost of 1.2 pesos per bitpersecond. So 64kbit would cost you... 77 thousand pesos per month. Of course my figures could be way off, but it's interesting to note that the price of a clear-channel SCPC 64kbit link is in the same ballpark as my guesstimate. I doubt it will be less than 50k pesos per month. -- Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Official Website: http://plug.linux.org.ph Searchable Archives: http://marc.free.net.ph . To leave, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/plug . Are you a Linux newbie? To join the newbie list, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/ph-linux-newbie
