[KLUG Members] ISDN vs. Satelite

[Jamie McCarthy]

adam_bultman@gmx.net (adam) writes:

> ISDN: 128kbit connection. Never slows down (well, except for
> high-usage times all over the net). 
>
> Sat:  400kbit down, modem (19.2kbit) up.

> What is the best for this situation?  What are teh standard
> delays for this?  A buddy of mine, when he had it back in the
> day, said it was numerous seconds.  

You will definitely notice the delay with the satellite connection
and you won't be able to play real-time games over the internet.
The speed of light will cost you 483 milliseconds at best, probably
a bit more, plus the modem's 150 milliseconds, and I've been told by
people who've used it that the real-world delay is easily over a
second.

> A guy in my church has my father all geeked, despite the fact
> that ISDN is being installed in, oh, 11 days now because of the
> speed.  He says, "Oh, you don't send up much info, it's all just
> downstream".

That's true, basically;  most typical net use requires low-bandwidth
upstream.

> My beef is:  yeah- but how much does it take to flood a 19.2kbit
> pipe upstream?  How does this affect SSH? Anything else?  is
> satellite easily used with an OpenBSD/linux router?

SSH will be like telnet, every few characters you type will not be
visible for an extra second.  I used to administer a machine on the
west coast with dialup modems on both ends and I can tell you now,
unless your fingers never slip, you want as little lag between you
and your shell as possible.

> Anyway, I'm trying to convince him that the benefits of
> High-speed Satellite access are negligible compared to the
> instantanous nature of ISDN (low latency).  Please:  anyone with
> experience please let me know.

Personally -- I've used ISDN for almost a year so I know what that's
about, and I can imagine what satellite is about.  If the prices and
everything else were comparable I'd have to pick the ISDN setup you
describe, above.

But then, I do most of my work on the net typing into ssh shells,
and all of my relaxation on the net is playing twitchy real-time
games.  So latency is vital to me.  If your family does 99% email
and casual web browsing, and the games you play are Hearts and
Pinochle, you'll be just as happy with the satellite.  If your
family downloads gigabyte-sized files every day, definitely go with
the satellite :)

Honestly the difference between 128kbit and 400kbit isn't that big.
OK, you'll notice it the three times a month you have to download
something over 10 MB, but the rest of the time it just doesn't
matter that much.  I went from 128kbit ISDN to 1.5Mbit cable
download speeds a few months ago, and while I notice the difference,
it's not a _huge_ difference (until I go to download a 600 MB .iso).
At these speeds, latency is just as important as bandwidth for how
fast the net "feels," and probably more important.
--
 Jamie McCarthy
 jamie@mccarthy.vg