Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Why stuff happens on satellite connections...

If you are a customer of a consumer or even an enterprise satellite internet provider, chances are good that you have endured sudden slowdowns, disconnects, delays and a host of other annoying problems with your connection. What the heck is going on! Don't the satellite internet providers realize they are getting a terrible reputation by allowing this nonsense to continue?

Well, the truth is that indeed they do know you are not getting the level of quality that their advertising would suggest. After all, they produce the advertising like HughesNet puts on the air with the flirtatious red headed lady touting the greatness of the satellite experience....asking "What are you waiting for"?...well, for some of you, waiting has been a very good strategy! EVDO (cellphone technology), for example, has come to many areas close to the larger cities and as a result of much lower costs, rendered satellite internet obsolete.......at least for the present. But for most of you out in the boonies, it's either satellite internet or dial-up, with satellite internet usually providing the better experience....but at more than twice the cost of a phone line and service in most places.

So why is satellite internet (especially consumer service) so lacking in dependability? Here are the most common reasons for the problems and what gets consumers up in arms:
1. Overbooking of the network -
In order to have a chance at making a profit, satellite internet providers absolutely have to group a very large number of subscribers on the same resources (the same satellite transponder, for example)....creating a guaranteed bottleneck and slowdown during the times consumers use the internet the most - afternoons, evenings and weekends.
2. Weather -
There are two places that a weather issue can bring your connection to a standstill - your own outdoor unit or the main equipment at the uplink facility used by your internet provider. What causes the problems is heavy rain in the center of a strong storm just south of your location or at the uplink, wet heavy snow on your antenna or some types of heavy fog/rain mix. When you experience a sudden slowdown or complete halting of activity....you can usually save yourself a call to tech support - it's probably weather.
3. HOGS -
Most internet providers have implemented a number of measures to prevent a user from sucking all the "wind" out of a bandwidth pipe which is shared by hundreds or even thousands of users; however, it is still possible for around 5% of the users within a shared group to monopolize up to 75% of the bandwidth. This issue has improved a great deal by limitations to network access or Fair Access Policies (FAP) implemented by all consumer satellite internet providers and most enterprise operators as well.
Most who are labled "Hogs" by the providers and users who are affected don't appreciate the characterization and offer a defense of "I am entitled to every kilobit that I pay for." The notion of "lets all play nice" doesn't sit too well with a guy who just moved from the city where he had a 7000 x 512 kbps totally open pipe and now is paying twice as much for a 1000 x 256 kbps pipe that actually runs at 800 x 128 kbps on a good day.

4. Equipment failure or poorly aimed dish -
Although there has been a lot of noise on Wildblue and HughesNet forums related to equipment failure, the truth is, these are far less frequent causes of problems than items 1 - 3 above. Yes, Wildblue has had a problem with the manufacturer of its transmitters and HughesNet has had some modem issues in the past, but for the most part, the equipment is pretty dependable......as long as you get a quality installation.

A poor job of installing the outdoor equipment will not always reveal itself for several months.
For example, a pole mounted dish is set in concrete. The bottom of the pole is supposed to have a piece of rebar steel running through the pole so the wind load on the dish above will not loosen the pole at the bottom. This requires more work to get the hole large enough to handle the extra rebar. Imagine a very strong wind gust or sustained wind during a storm putting a very large load on the dish face of a setup without the extra rebar....over time the dish will be spinning like a top and a truck roll will be needed to repoint the dish.

So what can a consumer do about it? There have been many, many, many (I could go on for a bit) attempts to force satellite internet providers to provide an experience that is more like a terrestrial high speed setup. The efforts have been unproductive at best and a total waste of time and money at worst....why?... Satellite owners and providers have convinced Federal regulators that the industry is extremely risky and can't be compared to DSL, Cable or T1 connections. So far they have prevailed and to a degree they are correct - it costs a medium sized fortune to launch a satellite and keep it up and working....and the forces of nature affect satellite connectivity far more than a connection running underground.