Satellite internet?

kls834 · #1 02-19-2006, 05:02 AM

I play online for a living. I'm considering moving to the middle of nowhere in NV to save on housing and taxes, and to be able to afford a house and some land. Unfortunately cable and DSL aren't generally available in the middle of nowhere, and broadband is kinda essential for me, both professionally and personally. So I'd have to get satellite internet.

Is satellite reasonably reliable these days? I've heard that it used to suck really badly, but I've also heard from some people using it now that it's a lot better now. But then, they're not poker players, and they'd notice temporary disruptions in service an awful lot less than I would.

Are any of you currently using satellite connections to play online? How often does it bite you on the ass? More important, how often does it bite you on the ass unexpectedly? I'm okay with outages during storms, which are rare and can be prepared for - I'm not so okay with frequent random lagginess, and dropping out of six SNGs for no discernable reason on a regular basis...

Thanks.

MicroBob · #2 02-19-2006, 05:06 AM

Whatever you find, let us know.
I'm interested in this topic as well.

FWIW - you can always set-up a dial-up service as a back-up.
Dial-up is actually plenty for online-poker multi-tabling.
You can either get one of those free-trial type things from AOL...or you can something really cheap to get 5 hours a month with them or something like that in case of emergencies.

#3 02-19-2006, 05:54 AM

pokerswami · #4 02-19-2006, 06:06 AM

I've read that Nevada is one of the few states which has made internet gambling illegal by specific statute. I'm not sure if the law actually has penalties though. Just a thought.

ajmargarine · #5 02-19-2006, 06:09 AM

In my limited experience with satellite internet and online poker, I would say I really didn't like it. My parents have it, and when I visit I play online there.

I think it probably depends alot on where you are, but I know there's about a 3-hour window in the afternoon where I couldn't play because service was completely unreliable. After dark seemed to be alot better. Although there is some lag, making it alot slower than DSL, it's probably better than dialup (I have never played poker thru dialup, so I don't know for sure)(dialup = distant memory).

It is random when extreme lagginess or disconnections happened. And it's frustrating (especially on the bubble of an MTT). But just as frustrating is the mini-lags. Alot of times there's a 2-10 second delay in the action.

I personally would not rely on satellite internet to make a living playing online poker. JMO.

kls834 · #6 02-19-2006, 06:24 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I've read that Nevada is one of the few states which has made internet gambling illegal by specific statute.

[/ QUOTE ]
It is, but it's completely unenforced - look at all the Vegas pros endorsing and playing on online sites - and if they were to start trying to enforce it, said pros would be the first targets. State law doesn't worry me much. (Federal law does, but that's a worry unless I move outside the country, which I'm reluctant to do.)

kls834 · #7 02-19-2006, 06:39 AM

[ QUOTE ]
consider living overseas, your first 80k is exempt from taxes

[/ QUOTE ]
I looked this up, and it looks to me like this is only true for "earned income", and gambling winnings aren't earned income. Of course it'd be really tough for the IRS to prove that it's gambling winnings, if you wanted to declare it as something else, but if you're looking at tax evasion living overseas makes far more options available than just that. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

http://www.irs.gov/publications/p54/ch04.html#d0e2911

[ QUOTE ]
and you can live in places that are far cheaper than any place in the US

i personally live in thailand and one could easily live here on 500 a month or less, w/ broadband

[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah... I just can't think of any foreign country where I'd actually want to live. Winter weather rules out Canada. Being closer than 10 hours from friends and family rules out Australia. Being able to communicate with random people around me rules out Central America.

Also, don't countries generally put a time limit on how long you can stay there if you're not a citizen and not working at a job there? I'm not going to give up my US citizenship, so emigration is out of the question.

The Truth · #8 02-19-2006, 07:15 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
consider living overseas, your first 80k is exempt from taxes

[/ QUOTE ]
I looked this up, and it looks to me like this is only true for "earned income", and gambling winnings aren't earned income. Of course it'd be really tough for the IRS to prove that it's gambling winnings, if you wanted to declare it as something else, but if you're looking at tax evasion living overseas makes far more options available than just that. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

http://www.irs.gov/publications/p54/ch04.html#d0e2911

[ QUOTE ]
and you can live in places that are far cheaper than any place in the US

i personally live in thailand and one could easily live here on 500 a month or less, w/ broadband

[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah... I just can't think of any foreign country where I'd actually want to live. Winter weather rules out Canada. Being closer than 10 hours from friends and family rules out Australia. Being able to communicate with random people around me rules out Central America.

Also, don't countries generally put a time limit on how long you can stay there if you're not a citizen and not working at a job there? I'm not going to give up my US citizenship, so emigration is out of the question.

[/ QUOTE ]

ask KKF he knows all about this.

blake

Meezer · #9 02-19-2006, 10:13 AM

I'm out in the middle of the boondocks (it's worth it--make the move!!) and have satellite. The one-way DirectPC type service was adequate, but the newer 2-way satellite is great. The ping times can be slow, so FPS's are out, but I've run 10 tables of poker and never had a problem. Just don't plan any big tournaments when you know it's going to rain. Also, since you'll be out in the country, it will take longer for the men in the black helicopters to take your pokah away! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

zdarlight · #10 02-19-2006, 10:53 AM

for awhile I lived at a plantation in south carolina as the caretaker on a huge estate while playing poker, they had satellite service. It's generally awful for a large number of things. The service they used was direcway, somehow related to directv. Some satellite providers use a dialup link for their upstream, or did at the time (1 year ago). This specific satellite service did not, but response times were extremely slow (DSL/Cable you would expect 70ms or so from any specific source on average, Satellite was in the 1 second range). Because of the way satellite is arranged, they cache most http traffic, but because a lot of web traffic is https with no caching, it's incredibly slow to do a number of things. Bank transactions, credit card purchases, etc, are all abominably slow. From what I was reading previously direcway was by far the worst satellite provider among the few of them out there. I think earthlink had the best customer support. I had no problems playing poker, however. Outages are much more common with heavy cloud cover, although it doesn't need direct LoS. I'm pretty sure that the newer satellite internet services are vastly improved on the speed side, but the response times are going to be similar, and I don't know how they can improve outage problems. Some rural areas in the west and midwest colorado have worked on long range wireless for the communities they serve, but I have no idea how widespread that is, and almost all of those locations have elevation advantages.