Perhaps you live in a rural area and you can’t get cable or DSL high-speed Internet access, but you can get satellite. Or, maybe you are at your wit’s end with the cable and/or phone (DSL) companies and don’t want to give either of them another dime. Satellite may be the answer, but you’ll need to do a bit of research before determining if it will fit your needs. Here are answers to many of the most common questions regarding satellite service.

Q: How fast is satellite access?

A: Satellite providers typically offer several levels of service with download speeds ranging between 700 Kbps and 1.5 Mbps and upload speeds as high as 256 Kbps. Note, though, that these are optimal speeds. Typical speeds, particularly during peak times, can be somewhat slower.

Q: How much does satellite access cost?

A: The price depends on your provider and the service plan that you acquire. As a generalization, prices range from approximately $60 a month for service providing roughly 700 Kbps download speed to about $80 a month for service in the 1.5 Mbps range. In addition, your equipment costs can be as much as $300 or $400 and installation can cost another $200, although vendors often have special offers for equipment and installation.

Q: What impact can weather have on satellite access?

A: As is the case with satellite television, severe rain or snow can slow or stop satellite Internet access. That is true both for bad weather in your area as well as bad weather at the location of the satellite provider’s network operations center (NOC). However, while severe weather can break the connection, satellite systems typically operate even in strong, steady downpours.

Q: Besides the weather, how reliable is satellite access?

A: Besides service degradation due to weather, satellite access is extremely reliable. The outdoor equipment is quite rugged and, while it does break down occasionally, such problems are rare.

Q: Still, should I keep a dial-up connection “just in case?”

A: While it is tempting to keep a dial-up connection because of the complex technical nature of satellite connections, it isn’t necessary for most people. As mentioned above, the satellite equipment is very robust and rarely breaks down and weather-related problems occur infrequently. However, if something does go wrong, it can take days before repair personnel can get to your house. If that concerns you, you may want to have a dial-up back-up but know that you’ll rarely, if ever, use it.

Q: What equipment is required?

A: Satellite access requires installation of two pieces of equipment. Outdoors is a dish that collects and transmits the signal to and from the satellite. Indoors is a “satellite modem” that is connected to the dish via coaxial cable. The modem is connected to a PC or to networking equipment such as a router using an Ethernet cable.

Q: Is any on-going maintenance required?

A: Although nothing is absolute, typically, no on-going maintenance is required. On rare occasions, you will need to have your dish “re-peaked,” or re-aimed at the satellite. Even more rarely, there will be an equipment failure and some part of the system such as the receiver, transmitter or modem, will have to be replaced. But, as mentioned above, the equipment is quite rugged and such problems are rare.

Q: Can I network my satellite connection so that more than one computer in my home can have access?

A: The satellite systems can be networked the same as DSL or cable connections. That is to say, you can connect the indoor satellite modem to a router using a standard Ethernet cable, which then distributes the connection to other computers. Note, however, that the satellite providers won’t help you set up or troubleshoot home networks.

Q: What is latency and how will it impact me?

A: Latency is the time required for a signal to travel from its source to its destination. In the case of satellite access, that includes the time it takes to send the signal up to a satellite and back down to the ground. Since satellites typically orbit about 22,000 miles above the earth, that latency can be as long as a second every time data is sent and received.

That delay means that certain types of applications aren’t practical when using satellite systems. One notable example is voice-over-IP. Over a satellite connection, a second or more passes between the time you say something and the time it is heard, which makes communications clumsy. Satellite connections also aren’t good for so-called “twitch” real-time online games and for use with terminal server software, which lets telecommuters connect to their company’s servers as if they were in the office.

Q: How many satellite providers are there?

A: In the U.S., there are three primary satellite providers: HughesNet (www.hughesnet.com), WildBlue (www.wildblue.com) and Starband (www.starband.com). Other vendors and organizations may offer satellite service, but it typically is provided by one of the three services. For instance, AT&T offers satellite service but actually is reselling WildBlue service.

Q: Does it matter where I mount the dish?

A: The dish must have a clear view of the southern sky, which is where the satellite is in orbit. Beyond that, the dish can be positioned using a pole stuck into the ground, on the side of your house or on your roof. Obviously, a ground-mounted dish is easier in case maintenance is required. Also, sometimes snow and ice collecting on the dish can slow down service — it is easier to brush snow and ice off a ground-mounted dish.

Q: Can I install satellite service by myself?

A: No — satellite access vendors won’t let you do that. And that’s probably a good thing since it requires certain skills to link the dish to the right satellite. Further, the Federal Communications Commission requires that professionals install satellite systems that both send and receive signals.

Q: How does satellite service operate in actual usage? Is it different than using cable or DSL?

A: Other than limits on a few specific types of applications mentioned previously, satellite Internet Service operates virtually identically to DSL or cable broadband.

Q: I live in the city. Are there any reasons to consider satellite access?

A: In most cases, DSL or cable access is faster and cheaper. If that type of service is available to you, chances are high that it will be preferable to satellite access.

Q: Is satellite access two-way access?

A: Yes. Data that you receive, such as downloaded files and Web pages, is sent via the satellite system, as are items you upload. Early satellite systems, however, were one-way systems. Downloads occurred via the satellite but information sent by you was transmitted via a standard dial-up connection. Such old-fashioned systems haven’t been available for several years.

Q: I’m a Mac user. Can I use satellite access?

A: Yes. All major satellite access systems work with Macs.

Q: Is mobile satellite access available?

A: No. A satellite connection requires a constant connection with a satellite that is in high orbit. It is a time-consuming task for a trained installer to aim your dish at that satellite. While some companies have been experimenting with antennas that can maintain a connection with the satellite while a vehicle moves, this technology isn’t yet practical for day-in, day-out use.

Q: I also get satellite TV. Can I use only one dish for both?

A: No. While single dish solutions once were available, vendors determined that separate dishes work better for both Internet access and TV.

Q: Can I download as much as I want over a satellite system?

A: No. Like other broadband providers, satellite vendors have Fair Access Policies (FAP) that detail how much you can download at a given time. The purpose of the FAP is to prevent a few heavy downloaders from hogging bandwidth used by everybody. Satellite vendors tend to have stricter FAPs than other broadband providers. For instance, with HughesNet you can download as much as 350 MB at a time, depending on your service plan. That is roughly one-third the size of a typical downloadable feature-length movie. When you surpass the limits of the FAP, the provider has the option of temporarily throttling down your speed.

Selection of your satellite internet plan is an extremely important step in getting broadband internet via satellite from HughesNet. Don’t be lead into cheaper plans which offer minimal speeds when you can upgrade your plan and receive far superior speed for only ten dollars. The home package is the basic HughesNet plan and offers basic speed of 700kbps. This will get the job done but if you are upgrading from dial up to gain faster downloads and quicker web page loading, don’t sell yourself short. The Pro or the Pro Plus package is what you need. The Pro plan offers speeds up to 1000kbps and can handle connections for 2-3 computers. Another benefit of the pro package is its ability to handle wireless connections for laptops and other wireless accessories. The big brother of all the residential packages is the Pro Plus an extremely versatile package allowing its users all the same capabilities of DSL and T1 lines. The Pro Plus Package offers blazing speeds of 1500kbps and even has the capabilities of a static IP, a must for users seeking secure connections to servers.

Upload speeds also vary with the different HughesNet Packages. Upload speed plays an important role in sending emails, pictures, and files. If you plan to send a lot of files especially pictures or large documents a high upload speed is what you need. The Home package offers upload speeds of 128kbps which is a large increase over dial up. The Pro and the Pro Plus boast download speeds of up to 200 kbps.

All Residential HughesNet Plans come with these features: 24/7 live technical support there to help you with all your needs including setting up email accounts and billing questions; 5 free email accounts with up to 2GB of email storage allowing for plenty of room for storing photos, videos, and files; email defense that blocks and prevents spam mail and viruses via email; a personalized start page just like AOL or any other large scale internet service provider; HughesNet offers it’s customers a personalized start page with email, news, and other important content HughesNet customers specify; equipment and standard installation is included with all HughesNet packages and all HughesNet packages come standard with a 24 month equipment warranty covering the satellite dish and modem.

Residential HughesNet packages range from $59.99-$79.99 per month and normal installation is available within 3-6 business days of purchase.

There are numerous advantages to living out in the country, home offices, less traffic and open spaces. One of the biggest disadvantage is the lack of availability of DSL or cable Internet service. So basically we have two choices, stay with dial up or satellite Internet service. Not all satellite access is the same. Unless you live in southern California, Arizona or areas that do not receive much cloud cover or rain, the differences of the satellite systems can be huge!

Satellites are used to send information down to us. They are used for GPS, television and satellite Internet service. Some satellites share their capacity with other services to help offset the millions of dollars that they cost to launch and implement.

The biggest difference for Internet service is between two way or one way Internet systems. Two way satellite service utilizes a satellite dish to both send and receive information back and forth. One way satellite Internet service uses your phone line to transmit your page request to the World Wide Web and the satellite to send packets of information down to you.

Two way satellite systems boast that they do not “tie up your phone line”. While this is true, that is also one of the biggest disadvantages that two way system have. If you live in rural America where it rarely rains or receives much cloud cover, then go with a two way system. If not, a One way option is your best bet.

Satellites where sent into orbit for one purpose, to send information to us. For Internet purposes, the world wide web does not reside in space on a satellite, it’s here. With two way service, we are asking the mounted satellite dish , to send page requests to the satellite. Do we really believe that the satellite dish that is mounted on our home or business is close to being as powerful as the satellite is? Of course not! This is a major downfall that two way satellite service has. The lack of strength to transmit back through clouds or rain is called “rain fade”. If it it cloudy or especially if it is raining, you have a high probability of losing the ability to even be on the Internet!

One way satellite service solves the issue of rain fade. Using your existing phone modem sends your page request to the World Wide Web directly. The packets of information are then sent down lightening fast via the satellite to your dish. This provides a stable and reliable high speed Internet service. This uses the satellites strength as it was intended.

One way satellite Internet access will provide you the speed and reliability that you are looking for to complement the benefits of living out in the country. Can your home or business really afford to take the chance to be down without Internet service? Give satellite Internet service a try, you will be glad that you did!

Organizations are constantly looking to expand business. Consequently, their networks grow larger and complex, making it necessary to look into network stability issues often. New applications like VoIP, video and other applications may create bottlenecks in the operating network and such issues need to be isolated and rectified immediately to ensure smooth flow of network traffic.

IP network needs to be assessed adequately to prevent network failures from affecting the regular operations of any company. Many companies have realized the need for IP network assessment and have started to create robust infrastructures to protect their networks.

IP network assessment tools facilitate the overall care of feeding and managing a VoIP platform. There are many tools available in the market to gauge network performance.

While choosing network assessment tools, the following points need to be looked into.



Assessment – It should be able to assess network performance through large-scale networks.



Simulation – It should be able to simulate hundreds of protocols across thousands of network endpoints



Performance testing – It should have the ability to perform IP network assessment of the performance characteristics of any application running on wired and wireless networks. It should be able to provide a powerful and repeatable way to assess a network’s VoIP performance



Compliance – It should be able to validate proper conformance with industry standards prior to production deployment and verify acceptable performance



Apart from using assessment tools, it is also important to perform regular troubleshooting and check for network response time, throughput and streaming performance. Using efficient tools for network assessment and troubleshooting can go a long way in preventing any kind of network issues that may arise when using large networks

Computer has made our life more easy than ever, it helps us on doing our jobs everyday, or even just to have some fun with it. You can say the most useability of computers especially for communication and business matters like sending e-mail which might be contain business data, graph reports, or maybe just pictures of our daily life to share with friends, with the availability of online shop on te internet, we can easily go shopping online, pay bills online, and etc. For those who have been doing online transaction they must be already know that it is very risky to send confidential data through the internet. Identity theft is a big worry these days, so computer users who are always dealing with it will need Data Encryption as the way to protect important documents. File Encryption is the most basic way to keep files and folders safe from unauthorized access. The software will protect the files by several ways but the main idea is that it will only can be opened by someone who have the ‘key’ or the access right for it. In common case it will be a password or something like that.

By using the Enryption Software, you can make sure that anything you send through the internet will be safe, because you know only the people with proper rights could read your data.

Recently I have just experienced a bad experience with a web hosting company. The webhosting support service said that their servers suddenly becoming very unstable and it affect to all account hosted on their company. As the result, my site is going down for a couple day and it was not accessible at all. I very disappointed with the situation, so without any doubt I move out my website into another web hosting company which have more reputation and good rated by people. So how do I find those web hosting company with good reputation? I read honest reviews on webhosting geek. They have plenty members who write their experience with hosting company they have used.

I also learn so many things there, as a conclusion, here’s what I’ve got: Basically there are three kinds of web hosting services out there. The first one is shared web hosting. You can save your money by using this kind of services, becuse usually they are cheap one, it will cost you around $2 – $9 per month. There are limitations in shared Web-Hosting because they use single web server for multiple customer. This is the most common web hosting plan that people use. If you are going to have a basic website or personal blog, this choice will be good for you.

Dedicated web hosting is a web hosting plan that customer do not share with anyone but leases an entire server. Customer has a full control over the server including choice of operating system, hardware, etc. But it also depends on the dedicated server service on each web hosting company. So I suggest you to read the reviews first before you choose. Dedicated service will cost you about $100 per month, this is only for you who have serious business that will need more power, uptime, and full control of your server.

There also a good discussion about green hosting servers or technology, which is a revolutionary technology used by webhosting company where they won’t hurt the earth by using alternative energy resources which produce less pollution.

On November 17 the SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) Developers Conference, hosted by the USB Implementers Forum in San Jose, Calif., will unveil the USB 3.0 specification to the industry, according to a statement Wednesday from the Implementers Forum.

The USB 3.0 specification, a next-generation high-speed connection standard due in 2009, is significant because all future PCs and devices will use connectors based on it. The spec is also expected to offer 10 times the speed of USB 2.0–used in virtually all PCs introduced in the last few years–or roughly 5 gigabits per second.

Hewlett-Packard, Intel, NEC, NXP Semiconductors, Microsoft, and Texas Instruments are all backers of SuperSpeed USB.

Speaking at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Los Angeles, USB-IF President Jeff Ravencraft said he expects the final specifications to be made public on November 17.

Intel and Nvidia had been skirmishing over the standard but resolved their differences.

Technology brings so many changes in our life, and it’s growing so rapidly nowaday. One day you buy a brand new DVD player with 64inch LCD display and then soon at the next day you’ll find that stuff is already marked as ‘old school’ gadget and it worthless anymore because it’s beaten by the new concept of network media player as seen on the picture above. So what’s next? you need a fresh info all about newest and coolest gadget!

Well, Gadget Advisor is a resource for the best in gadget and tech news. They’re focusing on the products and news that are the most significant, useful, and/or cool so that visitors can quickly view the top gadgets and tech news without wading through pages of news. So many products info you should know from the universal remote control, computer hardware, and even you can find tips about online backup services.

With all the people getting online and clicking away everyday, it is no wonder why Google Adsense has become an instant hit. For some who are just new to this market, it would be a blow to their pride knowing that their homepage is buried somewhere in the little ads promoting other people’s services. But then, when they get the idea that they are actually earning more money that way, all doubts and skepticism is laid to rest.

There are two major, and clever, factors that some successful webmaster and publishers are learning to blend together in order to make money easier using Adsense.

1. Targeting high traffic pages on your website. If you check on your logs, you will discover that many of your visitors are taking advantage of the free affiliate marketing resources and ebooks that you are offering on your site. In simple words, your ads are working effectively and are generating more clicks. It also means more money for you.

2. Placing Adsense links on pages that are producing little, or better yet, no profit. By placing Adsense on a free resources page, you will reduce the amount of potential customers being lost to other sites. Tricky, but effective nonetheless.

With the many techniques that people are now learning on how to make the easiest money by their Adsense, it is not surprising that Google is trying everything to update and polish their Adsense in order to maintain their good image.

The crucial point of planning your site is optimizing it for revenue if you want to gain any income from the site. Divide your site into major blocks, ordered by themes, and start building new pages and subsections in those blocks. For example, you might have a “food” section, an “accomodation” section and an “entertainment” section for a tourism site. You can then write and publish relevant articles in the respective sections to attract a stream of traffic that comes looking for further information.

When you have a broader, better-defined scope of themes for your website, you can sell space on your pages to people interested in advertising on your page. You can also earn from programs like Google’s Adsense and Yahoo! Search Marketing if people surf to those themed pages and click on the ads. For this very reason, the advertisement blocks on your pages need to be relevant to the content, so a themed page fits that criteria perfectly.

As Internet becomes more widespread, advertising on the Internet will bear more results than on magazines or offline media. Hence, start tapping in on this lucrative stream of profit right away!