Satelite Internet Connection?

[Blue1]

Had a "Wisp" in my area but I could not "see" their antenna from where I am. (lots of hills, etc.). No DSL in my area and my top dialup connection speed is 28.8. Even at 60k upload speed (Dish) I am far better off. As soon as there's either a DSL or "Wisp" or anything else available I'll drop the dish like a "hot potato" (after one year of course) but for now......I'm screemin' compared to my dialup!!!!

P.S. Michael, thanks for the info.

 

[MichaelThompson]

Mr. Garrett,

Yes the only way to compress a file into a ".pdf" format is to use Adobe Acrobat Distiller. The Majority of appraisals are 1 meg or less. Some lenders however require our license and qualifications, and then with scanned pages you can reach file sizes upwards of 2-megs. A normal 56k modem will only connect maybe 15% of the time at a maximum of 50k generraly the connections speeds range at 36-45k these still takes at least ten minutes to upload. Possibly you have a very good ISP that supports a faster connection speed. The real problem with dial up in an appraisal office is one computer connected at a time. The dial up is to slow to network which means in an office of 5 or more appraisers and staff there is a lot of dead wait time for internet. One person is uploading a finished appraisal and another has to site a wait for that to finish so they can do research. Not very cost effective.

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Mr. Elliott,

I don't know what type of dial up you have being "always on" normal 56k ISP's won't maintain a connection for longer than an hour before they kick you off. The wireless service is an "alway's on" connection that maintains its bandwith.

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This probably isn't the place to do it but oh well, we have an office of five appraisers and two clerical staff. I created a client-server infrastructure with a central server running windows 2000 server, and seven client workstations running windows 2000 professional. This is where wintotal is run and the clients connect there. This gives us the ability to look at appraisals others have done and also share pics, data, etc... . The really cool part is that with the firewall we have we can use it's built in VPN (Virtual Private Network) functionality to connect to the server off-site. This means that at home, another site (branch office) or anywhere with a broadband connection and the a computer installed with the proper VPN software I can access my appraisals or my data as if I was in my chair at the office. I would be happy to answer more questions about this architecture in a different thread if you are having ideas of creating something similar.

 

[xmsdfafdn]

Michael,

A couple of comments:

1) Actually, higher upload speeds are possible. There were times when I was able to upload at 300K in the summer of 2001. This was a time when Hughes was still fine tuning the system. I believe they didn't like the trade-offs between fast upload and fast download - as most customers were primarily concerned with fast download. They were only really concerned with fast upload for business customers - and that market wasn't sufficient for them to give much weight to upload speeds. At some point, they just gave up on trying to improve the upload speed.

2) I used Windows 2000 Server on the computer conected to the Satellite receiver as my router, so no additional equipment was needed. Of course, if you don't have a copy of Windows 2000 server, then it's going to cost just as much or more than your estimated $600.00.

 

[Michael Elliott]

Originally posted by Michael Elliott@May 13 2003, 02:50 PM
With the way my backup and appraisal sofware works, any connection that is "always on", even if it is as slow as dialup, is a better deal for me.

Michael Thompson,

Sorry - you misunderstood me. I was commenting that any connection (i.e. even Satellite) that is always on is preferable to me because I have a need for an always on connection -even if it is as SLOW uploading as dialup. No - I do not and have never had an always-on dialup connection. I currently use a blazing commercial-grade cable that I will miss sorely, but that's the price of moving to the wide open spaces. I also have too many hills/distance to use a WISP, so I'm stuck.

The REALLY agravating part is that there is literally a fiber optic line buried in the utility easement in the front yard, but it's a main line that services the suburban neighborhoods several miles away and no way to have the phone company tap it. They run my phone line to a copper on a pole right above it. It's like they're dangling DSL out there just to tease me.

-Michael Elliott
michael@michael.net

 

[Terry Russell]

Mr. Thompson,

I am not a salesman for dish networks, but if I were I could sell you.

If you had read all the posts you would have observed the test results stating an upload speed of 375kps.

Of course, being a salesman I lied about this and everything else in my posts. I will try the tests again,

because I want to.

tr

 

[Terry Russell]

yep,

you were right, the best two-way average I can get was 617kps. mst be that 1\2 second latency draggng me down.

tr

 

[MichaelThompson]

Mr ATC,

Sorry I didn't mean to get into a p$*#ing contest I was just was wanting to inform people about the facts. I don't know what kind of tests that your are running for your upload and download , but a lot of factors go into that size of files, number of hops etc... . I was just trying to state the fact about the current 2-way data transfer didn't mean to ruffle your feathers. I did a lot of research for our office and found that it wouldn't be very cost effective. You might have found something different, but for us it wasn't the way to go.

 

[xmsdfafdn]

Yea, when it comes to computer problems, I wish people would be a little more specific and detailed. Otherwise it's a guessing game as to what they are talking about. E.g. 617kbps? What the heck is this? (I guess half of 1.2M - but what for?)

Direcway dual satellite Internet is about max 1.2M download speed and an average 40-60kbps upload. They only promise "up to 400kbps" download for legal reasons - but I believe most people are getting 1.2Mbps download. The new Direcway business systems they are coming out with probably don't do much better - except that they offer static IPs and 'suggest' uploads of maybe 128kbps.

Sidenotes:

1. The standard .5s latency (22000 miles elevation above the equator * 4 for a roundtrip gives 88000 miles which is about half the distance it takes light to travel in a second.) is not a permanent problem. This latency is only for GEO (Geostationary earth orbit) systems. But LEO (low earth orbit) and MEO(Medium Earth Orbit) systems are in the process of being created; which will provide a much reduced latency.

2. It appears that Viasat (Carlsbad, CA) has a product LinkStar that provides download speeds of up to 60Mbps and uplink speeds of 1.1Mbps.

Here are some other interesting links:

Hughes Whitepaper
Futureviz
Mindbranch

And look at Gilat's website:

Gilat: 53Mbps download & 150kbps upload!

China has signed a contract with them to provide internet to residents of Tibet. They and other companies (e.g. Skybridge) are supplying or planning on supplying LEO/MEO high speed Internet around the world - to the remotest and poorest countries. THAT MEANS, that a lot of "intellectual" jobs are going to be displaced to overseas locations in the next 10-15 years. New offshore companies are springing up everywhere to provide all kinds of services from third world countries, such as call centers, web development, advanced software engineering, graphics and design, writing, etc.. Anything that can be done and communicated by Internet is subject to offshore services. That should effect appraisers in several ways. For one, it is going to have an effect on many assets here in the US.

One can only look at the bright side: Like maybe living and doing your work from a $30,000 mansion in Bolivia, or a stone hut in Tibet, or a grass hut in Tahiti. Dream on.

 

[xmsdfafdn]

Check out Viasat in Carlsbad, CA.

Product: Linkstar
Downlink speed: Up to 60Mbps.
Uplink speed: Up to 1.1Mbps
Transmitter: 2-4 Watts. You probably don't want anyone standing close to it ....

This product IS available. The company is very reputable. For example, it has a major contract supplying these systems to the US Army.

Approx cost:

Equipment & setup: About $2K.
Monthly: Starting at $160/month for 128K uplink speed
$200 or so for a 384K uplink speed.
Contact (Northern Cal): Lee Lassen (760-476-4792)

 

[Serge Paquette]

Hi all,

My understanding was that with DirecWay, there is a daily download limit and that you can't go online for 24 hours after you reach your daily limit. Has that been an issue with any of you? How do you know how much you've downloaded?

By the way, AppraisersForum is great.

Thanks in advance,

Serge