Jump to content

Internet Satellite and internet telephone


mountainborn

Recommended Posts

  • Moderators

We were in a campground above 10K feet, with no cell service, no Television because of heavy timber overstory, no internet, no land line telephone, when we met a district manager of campgrounds in the area. After a short visit and mentioning our up coming retirement, a job offer was made to us !

Now, we ain't never been paid to camp out in such beautiful country and we really like the idea. The lake filled with trout was a factor also.

But, we want internet, and internet telephone, we think, if we can afford it.

We think we can simply add a direct dish on a tripod and run it out into an opening in the trees, for television, but the internet and internet phone are something we havn't experienced.

Has someone on here had experience with those things ? How do they work ? What is the cost ?

I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth 08' Oliver Legacy Elite HULL NUMBER 0003(sold)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Up until a few years ago, my house had satellite internet because that's all there was besides dial-up.

 

It is certainly not as fast as DSL or cable, but it's faster than dial up. The company that used to run it was called DirecPC and is now called HughesNet. I am almost certain that HughesNet is the ONLY service that uses two-way satellite communication. There are other services where you send your data to them over the phone lines, and they send their data to you over the satellite. That wouldn't work for you.

 

There is a lag that separates individual events. For example, if you were to load the oliverforums.com site, there is a noticeable lag (I would say about 2 seconds, HughesNet says this "transmission latency" is about 1/2 second) before the page starts to load, but then it loads quickly. I would think that this added latency would be a bit noticeable with VOIP (voice-over-internet-protocol = internet telephone). A bit like talking long distance to Europe.

 

Because HughesNet is a two-way satellite communication system, apparently the FCC says that is has to be professionally installed. AND, HughesNet only does permanent installations in homes, not in boats or RVs. There are companies that use the HughesNet system that do install them in boats and RVs and these go by the name of "mobile satellite internet systems." From what I found, these systems are priced more for the guy who can write off the system as a business expsense (or for those guys who own Airstreams or those fancy Class A's) -- $189 a month for a two-year contract.

 

You might be able to recoup some of it by renting access to other campers over a WiFi system BUT all of the providers have a daily data limit (usually around 1 GB -- good enough for websites and email, but VOIP or downloading movies from NetFlix might take several days of data allocation).

 

Maybe a satellite phone?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

Looks like you prety much have it figgured out. I recently talked to dealers and installers who advise that their latest modem cannot be moved over eighty feet from it's origonal installation coordinates, or it quits working the first time it shakes hands with the satellite. :cry:

We are looking into other alternatives but nothing solid yet. Man oh man, it sure would be sweet if the king dome on our Oliver could be used for that also.

You got any suggestions ?

I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth 08' Oliver Legacy Elite HULL NUMBER 0003(sold)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, here's what I just Googled using the term "mobile satellite internet providers"

 

http://www.groundcontrol.com/prod_ig2500_001.htm

 

If you look at their products, they have at least two options. One is a mobile satellite internet device that can be moved from place to place, but takes several minutes to get a satellite fix at each location. The other is a device that keeps constant satellite contact IN A MOVING VEHICLE. (Pretty cool! But i'm sure not cheap!)

 

That web page pretty much says it all.

 

The one thing it didn't talk about was how much data a typical VOIP call uses. I found an estimate of 100Mb (megabytes = 1,000,000 bytes) per hour on one site. The HughesNet basic plan has a 370Mb limit. That means you could talk on VOIP for 3.7 hours a day on the basic HughesNet plan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 7 years later...

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...