I have heard lots of issues with VPN problems using true satellite 2-way communications. Part is due to some of the issues mentioned above (pseudo-networks, no static IP capability etc.) The other issue is latency and unfortunately god and our choice of planet are to blame. The satellites used by the system are geostationary (which allows you to point once a dish stuck to your house toward the satellite parking place on the equatorial plane and out 22,300 miles from the point directly below the satellite).
The delay depending on your lattitude can be over 4*22,300/186,000 or about 1/2 second assuming no processing delays. The reason is when you click your mouse for an http request it goes into your PC -- gets formatted with data and shot out your dish up to the satellite then routed possibly to another satellite (via space crosslink which adds additional delay) then down to the POP gateway. We are up to two 22,300 mile segments now. Then the server processing the http request now must get the info you asked for, format the data and blast it back up to a satellite that again may need to crosslink to yet another satellite and then process the data (spaceway constellation modulates and demodulates the data on board the satellite to allow for switching in space). Finally the last satellite blasts the signal down to your outside dish which is now four 22,300 segments. Divide this by the speed of light and you have a lower bound for the delay due to the distance of the satellite(s) alone.
Add more delay for the TCP/IP protocol and you can easily get into a second or more delay. A lot of hardware may timeout if the delays get much bigger than a second. If a bit error occurs after all the processing that can't be corrected by coding the data, then the data must be resent which then adds another second to the time so now we are up to near two seconds to get a bit that was requested as part of a binary file transfer for example.
For voice and video bit errors are acceptable, for file transfer (sending an executable program for example) bit errors can't be tolerated because the application will likely break. This helps making fewer "hops" to the satellite for time-critical data if some errors can be tolerated (voice sounds ok, video looks ok). However imagine a phone call where a half second elapses between you ending a sentence and the other guy hears it--you'd be stepping all over each other constantly making the communication mode to be more of a "walkie-talkie" than a full-duplex phone.
To cut latency a lower MEO or NEO constellation could be used but you would need a tracking antenna or much more powerful satellites with enormous dishes/arrays to process weak signals that are sent throug omnidirectional antennas rather than the tightly focused parabolic dish. You typically have to drop data rate when the link cannot support communications at a higher data rate.
Hey kj_95376--can't you get cable?
Until Direcway can deliver >1 Mbps per household for <$50 a month I think they are fucked. Considering a satellite costs like $200-$300 MILLION to design build and launch (and god knows how much per year to operate and keep healthy) and they only live about 7 - 10 years and realistically the total transmission bandwidth is probably < 1 GHz or so. If you got 1 bit/sec per Hz of satellite bandwidth that means only 1000 Users that are getting 1 Mbps (maybe 5000 using loading models and oversubscription) I don't see how the thing can ever really be profitable -- lets say we have 5000 users who pay $50/month -- I get about $3M / year revenue how will that ever cover the hundreds of millions of $$$ it cost to put the damn thing there in the first place????? Suppose you get 6 bits/sec per Hz of satellite bandwidth (64 QAM?) then we are up to $18M / year which is still way to little revenue so how is the cost made up without ripping off someone??
Inquiring minds want to know.
