Technobabble

Is Satellite Internet Right For You?

Posted by on Sep 27, 2004 | 4 Comments

Satellite Internet service is wonderful for remote locations that are not served by any other broadband connections. In many ways, it’s very cool. You can achieve blistering downloads on large files over a satellite Internet connection. But there are significant caveats.

In the time that I had my satellite Internet connection I saw many downloads rocket through the air at rates better then 1.5mbps.

There were a number of things that I didn’t like about my satellite Internet connection:

  • The dreaded FAP (“fair access policy”). DirecPC limits their users from downloading more than a certain number of megabytes in a certain time frame. I can’t recall the exact numbers, but this unfortunate limitation bit me in the rear on more occasions than I’d like to remember. Typically, I’d be two hundred and some odd megabytes into a three hundred megabyte download of an alpha software build when DirecPC would invoke the FAP, then blooooie … my screaming download stream would slow to a trickle. Not nice to do to an author on deadline.

  • Horrible latency/lag. They recommend not using a satellite Internet connection if you’re an online gamer … but I’m not an online gamer. And it’s not just the games. I live on the Internet because that’s where I work. I had a horrid time using web conferencing applications with the satellite Internet connection.
  • Intermittent weather/sun related connection problems. Heavy rainstorms? Poof … no connection. Lots of snow/ice last night? Get ready to sweep the gunk off your satellite dish. Sun spots? Yeeeoooow … who would’ve thunk it!
  • Slow uploads. They promised uploads at up to 128K before I signed on for the satellite broadband. The phrase in question is “up to” … it never ever felt that fast.

All in all, would I recommend a broadband satellite Internet connection? Sure … if your walden shed happened to be in an area off the beaten path with no other broadband choices. But if there are other alternatives, well …

  • Brant Power

    I keep things clean solely for the fact I can find them faster. Especially when using multi OS. When holding onto large image files one couldn’t possibly remember exactly where that file was or the file name for that matter. Having a system to rate and tag files is critical in my field of work. The trick is to have just enough sub folders to contain your content into a relative space and location. The rest should be keywords to improve item look ups and rating to help sort out what is really important and what’s just there. This could be applied to any type of content.

    It maybe over the boarder for some but I have a naming convention for every type of file or content I encounter. So that way when I look up something I know what category it’s in then all I have to do is search for a suffix.

  • Anonymous

    The act of organizing and maintaining my files keeps me in touch with the information I acquire. Although I depend heavily on my computer’s search function, I would quickly lose touch with what I have if it weren’t for my folder and subfolder system.

    Great topic!

  • Anonymous

    I just p a i d $21.87 for an i P a d 2-64GB and my boyfriend loves his Panasonîc Lumîx GF 1 Camera that we got for $38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS.I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $657 which only cost me $62.81 to buy.
    Here is the website we use to get it all from, http://bit.ly/SHOPid

  • Craig DeForest

    Nice, Dad. You’re of course right that organization “pops out” of filing, while it doesn’t from search. But I’m increasingly leaning toward relational databases rather than the hierarchical one of folders. For example, I organize my collection of research papers in Mekentosj Papers, which is more like iTunes than like the file system that I used to use. Sure, you can flip through hierarchically — but you can also invert that hierarchy (e.g. searching for stuff by year, then author vs. author then year), which you can’t do with a hierarchical database.

    So I, too, stand by my belief that hierarchical databases (file systems) are of fading relevance — but I stand corrected on the importance of organization itself!