Residential Satellite Internet
High speed satellite internet access is one of the fastest growing segments in the internet market. Although technology has greatly advanced in recent years, high speed satellite internet access still lags somewhat behind the speeds offered by cable, DSL, and especially fiber optic services. However, such services are not available in many areas. In the past, satellite high speed internet access was limited by visibility issues, as the user had to communicate back and forth with a satellite through the atmosphere. Because the user needed to communicate with the satellite across a large distance, speeds were often limited. However, recent technology breakthroughs have solved a number of speed and reliability issues relating to high speed satellite internet access.
Residential services often involve users sharing their internet. This lowers price while still allowing users to utilize a large amount of bandwidth, provided the service is not being heavily used by others. Shared services usually have speeds in the range of one to forty MBits/s. However, because shared services are distributed among 100 to 400 users, internet speeds in each household amount to about ten to twenty kbit/second. Though this is much better than dial up speeds, it is slow than many high bandwidth ground-based services. Satellite high speed internet access is still a good option for users who are not served by land based options, though. High speed internet often does not reach rural areas, so satellite high speed internet access is the best option for residential users. Satellite internet may also be offered as a standalone service, whereas many broadband options now require users to subscribe to several services to avoid paying a high rate.
Due to new technologies, high speed service providers now offer speeds near those of DSL. High speed applications now range from 768 Kbits/s up to 5.0 Mbits/s, which is nearly as fast as cable. This high speed makes satellite internet the equal to cable and DSL for most applications, such as video. However, due to higher latency, satellite internet is problematic for time-sensitive applications, such as online computer games.
