Viasat broadband 'super-satellite' launches

BBC News ^ | 10/19/11 | BBC

[NormsRevenge]

One of the most powerful satellites ever built has headed into orbit on a Russian Proton rocket.

The Viasat-1 spacecraft will deliver broadband services to customers in the US and Canada.

With a total data throughput of some 140 Gbps, the satellite has more capacity than all other communication satellites over North America combined.

Viasat-1 left Earth from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The lift-off for its carrier Proton rocket occurred at 00:48 local time (18:48 GMT). The flight was due to last more than nine hours, and two hours in all was reported to be well.

Viasat-1 will be moved to a geosynchronous position at 115 degrees West, and should become fully operational in 2012 after a period of testing.

The satellite carries the name of San Diego-based space technology supplier Viasat, but will be pressed into service for its satellite broadband division, Wildblue Communications.

Wildblue already has more than 400,000 subscribers using a trio of satellites, and should have room for about a million more with Viasat-1.

"Consumer demand doubles about every two-and-a-half to three years. In other words, you want twice the service, twice the speed, twice the volume that you had two or three years ago for the same price," explains Wildblue president and CEO, Tom Moore.

"Viasat-1 is all about trying to address that growing, insatiable demand," he told BBC News.

[NormsRevenge]

Viasat-1's antennas undergoing testing during its construction at Space Systems/Loral

[cableguymn]

The only down side to sat based broadband is something that can’t really be fixed..

Latency.

[Christian Engineer Mass]

Is this the thing the democrats were pushing above national security concerns?

[umgud]

The only down side to sat based broadband is something that can’t really be fixed..

Latency.

Can you esplain for us laymen?

[PeaceBeWithYou]

Time for the signal to travel from the dish to sat and viceversa.

[TSgt]

Latency is the amount of delay, measured in milliseconds, found in a round-trip data transmission. Not directly related to speed, latency can be an issue with all networks including satellites. Latency is caused by several factors, including the number of times the data is handled along the transmission path, for instance, by a router or server. Each time a data packet is handled by a device along the path (called a “hop”) several milliseconds of latency are induced. More importantly in the satellite world, latency is caused by the distance that the signal must travel. The satellites used for two-way Internet service are located approximately 23,000 miles above the equator. This means a round-trip transmission travels 23,000 miles to the satellite, 23,000 miles from the satellite to the remote site, and then as the TCP/IP acknowledgment is returned, another 46,000 miles on the return trip. That's a total round trip of about 92,000 miles. Even at the speed of light, this accounts for more delay (in milliseconds) than found in a terrestrial network. Most Internet applications including web browsing, email, FTP etc. work in their normal manner even when traversing this long distance and user experiences are very positive. Certain applications, such as Voice-Over-IP are affected but also work. Some applications, such as online gaming - specifically, first-person shooters - are not recommended. Citrix, and terminal emulators without local-echo, can also be affected by latency depending on the underlying application and configuration. If you have an application that is particularly sensitive to latency, it is highly recommended that customers check with their software vendor to confirm how specific applications are affected.

[FreedomCalls]

The only down side to sat based broadband is something that can’t really be fixed.. Latency.

90% of the users of this satellite won't care about latency. Would you rather have a little latency with a broadband satellite connection or continue to dial-up to AOL at 56k with very little latency?

[hoagy62]

When I visited my in-laws in Texas this summer, I used their computer to surf the Net. They have Wildblue as their service. The system could handle the big files, but the latency was the worst part about it. It almost seemed as slow as dialup. It was better than nothing.

[mikey_hates_everything]

When you get above T1 speeds, it’s no longer a “little” latency on two-way geo-synchronous satellite links. And T1 is barely considered broadband today. The faster you go, the worse it gets, unless it’s totally one-way. You have to rely heavily on WAN accelerators and hope your users aren’t doing encryption—because you can’t compress encryption. Wide area broadband should be done with stationary platforms (blimps) at 10-15 miles altitude or low-earth orbit satellites at 150-200 miles, but LEOs are expensive and complicated (Iridium).

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks NormsRevenge.

With a total data throughput of some 140 Gbps, the satellite has more capacity than all other communication satellites over North America combined.

[af_vet_rr]

"Consumer demand doubles about every two-and-a-half to three years. In other words, you want twice the service, twice the speed, twice the volume that you had two or three years ago for the same price," explains Wildblue president and CEO, Tom Moore.

This man knows nothing about broadband. AT&T and Time Warner both believe that you should pay more for less than you had a few years ago.

[mvpel]

It’s very important on long, fat pipes to adjust your TCP window size - this represents the amount of data that you can have “in flight” at any given time on, say, a file transfer or web browser connection. Most systems default to 32k, which on a high-speed 92,000 mile round trip means that drips and drops of data would be going across the link.

I would hope that the Wild Blue techs and docs would instruct people on how to fix this, but here’s a site:

http://www.psc.edu/networking/projects/tcptune/OStune/winxp/winxp_stepbystep.html

There’s a calculation called the “bandwidth-delay product” which can be used to determine a minimum TCP window size.

[Dr. Sivana]

Would you rather have a little latency with a broadband satellite connection or continue to dial-up to AOL at 56k with very little latency?

Well, if we could change that "dial-up AOL" (which is NOT low latency except for stuff they cache) to 64K Frame relay, 128K ISDN or fractional T-1, the answer is that it depends. If you are streaming HD videos, the highspeed satellite is MUCH better. But if you are gaming, processing many small transactions with a database or web site, or even simple VOIP, the low latency is the better way to go.

[DJ MacWoW]

Some Things In Life Are A Surprise

Click The Pic To Donate

Freepathons? Not So Much
Become A Monthly Donor

[cableguymn]

Depends.. For large files or web surfing the latency is no big deal.

For online gaming/voip latency will kill it.

It depends on it’s intended use. It won’t be long and as long as you have cell signal you’ll have land based broadband and sat based broadband will only be used in areas where cell towers have not reached.

[Fester Chugabrew]

I don't suppose there should be any concern that US consumers will be sending personal data through a Russian satellite; that the satellite may have snooping capabilities far more potent than the KGB of past.

[Captain Beyond]

bflr

[ShadowAce]

[ironman]

Russian satellite?? Read the article again.

[Egon]

I don't suppose there should be any concern that US consumers will be sending personal data through a Russian satellite; that the satellite may have snooping capabilities far more potent than the KGB of past.

Probably not, since it's not a Russian satellite. It was boosted on a Russian rocket, as they're doing the jobs that Americans no longer do.