Having worked for ISPs for several years, I was there at the beginning of satellite broadband. I watched it "mature" over the years, and it never got any better. In all my years, I have only heard from three people who actually had no problems with it. I have heard thousands of others who have had problems...and those were only the people I talked to. This ratio was more or less equal for the other techs. If you are getting a decent connection, believe me you are the minority. And while the subscriber base for satellite has grown and more satellites have been launched, the connection method is still plagued by the inherent latency. Overall, I can say in my professional opinion, it is the most unreliable method. Here is why (in a very much simplified nutshell):
You are at your computer and you request a webpage in your browser.
That request is sent through your dish to a satellite in a geosyncronous orbit 25,000 miles above the earth.
The satellite then bounces that signal back, down another 25,000 miles to a receiving station.
The receiving station gathers the information on a landline connection, then sends the signal back to the satellite, again 25,000 miles above the earth.
The satellite then relays this back to your dish, down 25,000 miles again.
The information is then displayed in your browser.
Granted, this happens rather quickly, but the request you make has to travel 100,000 miles through thin air and atmosphere before it gets to your system. Should anything from cloud cover to a tree to a interfering transmisson to space debris block that signal, your inherent latency is only increased. Also if something were to go wrong with the satellite, nothing short of a space mission would fix it...and if you think the 4 hour window the TV repairman leaves is long wait, imagine up to a 4 month window (or longer) for NASA to go fix a satellite. Not to mention that at last count I recall, there were only 3 satellites that handle about 800,000 subscribers worldwide. Only two of those (there may be one more by now, I am not certain) were designated for U.S. usage. With the majority of subscribers in the U.S., bandwidth is spread terribly thin.
I have heard that some people (read: very few) get decent connections for download, and the upload always sucks. However if you do have a somewhat decent download, there is an entire litany of restrictions on how much bandwidth you can use. The people who did get a good reception usually got termed real quick because they overshot their bandwidth quota for a day in less than an hour and had to wait at least 24 hours before they could connect again. Yes, there are bandwidth quotas that are cleverly hidden in each TOS for satellite ISPs and yes they can lock your access should you ever exceed that quota. This is due in part to the fact that you also have the FCC to contend with. Your dish does not simply receive like a TV satellite dish does, but it transmits as well. There are miles of FCC codes and regulations that govern satellite transmissions.
Most satellite ISPs also require at least a one year commitment, making your first year cost for service around $1,800 to $2,000 when you factor in equipment cost and installation. Nearly ten times the cost of dialup and about six times the cost of DSL/Cable for one year.
The TOS on Satellite ISPs are horrid...they are worse than wireless phone contracts and credit card user agreements :black:. Having read them (it being required to know the TOS inside and out as part of my job) I would never want to take the gamble on such a spotty system with costs that high. Some people feel that it is their only option though. I stongly suggest getting a copy of the TOS before you order any service with a satellite ISP and make sure you not only read the entire TOS, but make sure that you understand it as well. If you have any questions at all, make sure you get them answered before you give any information or order request to the ISP.
