On 3 May 2006 at 13:27, Jim Dykes wrote:

> > You didn't clarify what you don't like about Direcway -- I have it
> > and absolutely love it.  It is reliable, fast, and you get used to
> > the propagation delays [even for interactive ssh stuff].  I consistently
> > get download speeds well in excess of the promised "up to" limit, and
> > the FAP is hardly a problem [you need to tune your expectations, of
> > course: I won't try to download a 600 meg ISO image].
> 
> It's just slow.  Perhaps my settings aren't correct, but the folks at DW
> were the ones who gave me the settings.

I guess I that's subjective -- for me, the satellite performs *exactly* 
as I would have guessed [better actually].

> By going to some of the sites who propose to give you your connect 
> speeds, the readings are quite satisfactory.....however in reality it is all 
> slow.  I know it isn't DSL, but it takes far too long to go from one web 
> page to another.

Ah, so that makes it likely that the answer to your question is "NO 
satellite service is going to satisfy you".  Keep in mind the 1/4 sec 
time to go up and back [and so you get a minimal 1/2sec round-trip time 
EVERY time your computer needs to talk to something on the "other side"] 
and that protocols are not, in general, optimized for minimizing 
interactions, and you can get some annoying delays [e.g., a paranoid 
email client can be a real hassle: a round trip to check the next message 
#.  A round trip to retrieve the message, then a round trip to delete it 
from the mailbox.  Rinse, repeat.  Annoying, but if you understand what's 
happening, you realize that it is unavoidable.

Same with the web: I see VERY few "unexpected" delays in surfing around. 
Sites that do HTTP/1.1 and so will allow multiple requests to be piggy 
backed on a single HTTP connection come up quite quickly.  Sites that 
don't [or that have graphics, ads, beacons, etc, from other sites all 
over the place] load a LOT more slowly [because it takes a _bunch_ of 
interactions to open and close a TCP connection]

> Based on how it works, I wouldn't go with DirecWay if I knew then 
> what I know now as to the speed of accessing web pages.

And I think that that will go for *ANY* satillite-based service.  Unless 
you can find one that manages to finesse the laws of physics [and so can 
make a 44,000 mile round trip in a lot less than 1/4 second] you're going 
to see the same basic "feel" for any service.  Hughesnet, nee direcway, 
uses a fairly fancy web proxy [which it is possible that you haven't 
configured properly] precisely to sidestep some of these problems, so I 
doubt any other service will find a way to do better for what you want to 
do.

Sorry...

  /Bernie\
-- 
Bernie Cosell                     Fantasy Farm Fibers
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]     Pearisburg, VA
    -->  Too many people, too few sheep  <--       

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