Island Jeff
join:2005-07-18
 ·TDS
 ·WildBlue
| reply to Austin Ike
Re: Gaming Internet
quote:
I was wondering if there's any Satellite internet that is somewhat ideal for online games.
"Ideal" is not a word I would use in any context relating to games. At best, you might go for "somewhat acceptable" for some games.
The consumer 2-way systems at this point are delivering real-world latency of 1200-1400 ms on average, with fluctuations, so any type of "twitch" game is out. The throughput is there, but you'll wait just over a second between the time you click the mouse and the click reaches the other end. (You'll also see this for example when simply switching songs or stations in itunes... the bandwidth is there to deliver good streaming audio, but if you want to sample an album you have to wait a couple seconds for each song to start after you click the title.)
The consumer 1-way systems pretty much disappeared, but then I see skyway in this forum brought the concept back. I don't myself have much love for the concept of a 1-way system because I don't like relying on the slow dialup for the uplink, but others here have expressed some satisfaction with it for their needs. And for gaming, that would be the way to go since you don't need much upload speed and the latency is half of a 2-way system.
First I'd see if there was any way with an external antenna you can reach an EVDO cell provider (Sprint, Verizon, Alltel) and if there is any chance a nearby WISP could expand in your area (any nearby towers that might be candidates, etc.) And of course I'd start expressing interest (and getting neighbors and friends to do the same) to local and nearby telephone company, cable company, etc. and also to local government entities and local media to see if you can get a ball rolling in your area.
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Very happy TDS DSL user | Wildblue in Lake Michigan |
