satellite broadband

[Wigglyamps]

As I live in rural Somerset I am cursed with slow broadband speeds and will be so for the foreseeable future so I was wondering if anyone uses satellite broadband, the price is now quite reasonable but one concern is the ping, I do quite a lot of gaming and if the ping is too high it would be unplayable.

Thanks for any info

Wiggly

[Bushfiva]

I'm not using one right now, but I trialled a semi-mobile unit using what I guess would be the same satellite you'd be using, given your location: Astra. So maybe you're looking at one of the BeyonDSL.net packages. Max bandwidth down is around 20 Mbps. Max up is around one-tenth of whatever package you choose. As you guess, ping time is the killer if you're a gamer.

If you qualify for a BDUK code or you find you qualify for one (Go Superfast: Now's the time for superfast broadband (http://basicbroadbandchecker.culture.gov.uk/)), you can get a subsidised installation.

[xtypeman]

Talk to Avon communictions in Bristol.

[rans6andrew]

we had a trial system about 15 years ago. It managed 2Mb downlink and .25Mb uplink speeds. At the time our best terrestrial availablity was somewhat slower than these speeds. Not being a gamer I don't recall the ping time being an issue for us. As it was only a trial system and we were one of the first users there was never an issue with it slowing down when the kids got out of school or when the local business all tried to get their emails at 9 in the morning. It was the first time I had seen one PC running 4 streaming movies at the same time without any waiting for data.

Towards the end of our two year trial (Free!) we started to get weather related performance loss due to the tops of the trees in our back garden growing enough to block some of the signal on wet and windy days. Make sure you have a clear and permanently unobstructed view of the right part of the sky.