satellite broadband or alternatives

[jacklester]

Does anyone on here use satellite brodband when playing online , or use any other alternatives to standard broadband.
Moving soon , currently 6 tabling and cant get broadband in the new area , just wondering what the best choices are as i just dont want to go back to dial up
Thanks

[disk189]

verizon broadband access?

[Oliver Nipples]

I used satBB last year when I had DirectTV and it was very comparable to cable broadband. Only downfall was in very tumultuous weather, you had no internet, which happened about 3-4 times in a year in New England weather.

[jacklester]

But apart from the bad weather cut outs you found it ok then I take it , I had read that it wasnt very good with online gaming were you multi tabling ? . Dont think I have an alternative here in the UK but just wanted some feedback as its pretty costly to get installed

[SteelWheel]

I don't know anything about satellite broadband in particular as it relates to online poker, but I can tell you this much: The real issue with satellite broadband is the "upstream"--the part where you talk to the Internet. The "downstream" side, where the 'net talks to you, comes at a comparable speed to DSL/cable modem. Your upstream speed is limited, since you don't have a huge satellite dish with tremendous power and bandwidth, the way the satellite provider does. From what I understand though, your upstream speed should be no worse than dial-up, so it will probably be an improvement over that option.

I don't think that the amount of info going back and forth is that huge for online poker, so I would go for it, if I were in your shoes. But I wouldn't try to play online poker while doing anything else that's bandwidth-intensive. No torrents or youtube for you, while playing poker, unfortunately... [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[Rodolfo]

I used broadband satellite (Hughesnet specifically) for most of this year for poker. More important than the download/upload speed is the "lag" built in to every communication. This results in slower play, which is frustrating. I play mostly heads-up and found that all of my actions took a few seconds longer than they would if I was on cable. The lag on Full Tilt was often significantly worse, frustrating me and my opponents. Unless your provider has superior technology, you are not going to like it. A few months ago I discovered that dialup works great for poker. I was amazed, but maybe that is common knowledge. It takes a bit longer to navigate the game menus, but the games themselves fly along just great, so that's what I use for poker now in my rural location. I reserve the satellite broadband for my surfing/downloading needs.

[pocketpared]

I have a friend who owns a midsized bi-coastal telecommunications company. He installed satellite broadband for a while then stopped. Competent individual. He said if you stand near the dish for an hour you're sterile. I didn't verify, so take it for what it's worth. I have friends who use Verizon wireless in their laptops. Great coverage, pretty good speeds, considering. I tried it at home for a while while setting up a laptop for one of them. He's a boat captain on the Waterway Line and gets reception miles out on the water. I'm going to get it for travel.

[Greg Miller]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know anything about satellite broadband in particular as it relates to online poker, but I can tell you this much: The real issue with satellite broadband is the "upstream"--the part where you talk to the Internet. The "downstream" side, where the 'net talks to you, comes at a comparable speed to DSL/cable modem. Your upstream speed is limited, since you don't have a huge satellite dish with tremendous power and bandwidth, the way the satellite provider does. From what I understand though, your upstream speed should be no worse than dial-up, so it will probably be an improvement over that option.

I don't think that the amount of info going back and forth is that huge for online poker, so I would go for it, if I were in your shoes. But I wouldn't try to play online poker while doing anything else that's bandwidth-intensive. No torrents or youtube for you, while playing poker, unfortunately... [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, the main problem with satellite is the latency, not bandwidth. It's fine for file downloads and I would expect it to work great for most/all streaming data (video, music, etc), but latency can be up to 0.5 seconds in each direction. Terrible for a lot of video games and not great for web-based things, but probably fine for *most* applications like poker that aren't web-based.