On Sat, 02 Jun 2018 13:29:16 +0100, slate_leeper wrote:

On Sat, 02 Jun 2018 12:45:44 +0100, "Jimmy Wilkinson Knife"
wrote:



Isn't satellite pretty fast? I got satellite in the UK for a few years when I couldn't get DSL. At that time it was as good as DSL.


Up until a little over a year ago, I had Wildblue satellite. MAXIMUM
download speed, 57KB/s. Often slower than a 9200 baud dial up modem.
Max allowed download amount, 7 gigabytes per MONTH, effectively 5.5
gig because they count all the network handshaking. Downloading
anything large was nearly impossible because of the frequent loss of
signal. And yes, they advertise it as "equivalent to DSL."

How odd, in about 2003 I had BT Openworld satellite. 256kB/s (or was it 512?) download. Back 15 years ago. And no monthly limit. The only thing it sucked at was ping time, so no online gaming possible (about 250ms instead of 30ms). Try shooting someone in a game with a quarter second lag.
****ing expensive though, it cost me a grand to buy the HUGE 1 metre (might have even been 1.5 metre) dish, although they put it on the wall and set it up for me. I can't remember what the monthly fee was but it was a hell of a lot more than DSL. I used it for 2 years then was able to get DSL, so I sold the dish on Ebay to a guy going to Africa to set up remote internet. He had this crazy idea of reprogramming it....

--
Impeccable, adjective: something which cannot be destroyed by the beak of a parrot. Scientists have yet to discover such a substance.