Satellite Broadband is another form of wireless broadband that is most useful for remote areas. It is available anywhere even those areas where cable internet and DSL are not available. It is available worldwide which includes ships at sea and always on the go mobile land automobiles. This kind of broadband, offers connectivity to the home, office, business or even government agency. Satellites are not just there orbiting earth for telephone and television service - they also provide links for broadband.

The following factors affect broadband through satellite means: provider and service package purchased, consumer's line of sight to the orbiting satellite and the weather. The speed may be slower than that of a DSL or cable modem, but download speed is much faster about 10 times faster. Of course, this can change depending on the weather conditions.

So the advantages of using satellite broadband are faster surfing, downloads and instant email access All these without tying up the phone line. No need to dial or wait for internet access, satellite broadband give an instant online connection.

At this moment, satellite broadband has already partnered with phone companies to keep it alive since they are no match for the cable companies now. That would mean a troubled future if they can't increase their patrons. However, even if it has limited market for now, investments today could lead to improvements that may keep satellite services existing in the future. Satellite companies will reintroduce broadband services this summer. Their target consumers are rural customers that are being ignored by cable and DSL providers.

Satellite Broadband still has a long way to go to be at par with cable and DSL pioneers. With their plan to start in areas where there are no competitors specifically the rural market, they still have a chance to survive and to be able to succeed in the broadband business.

The two most used tools, and almost always the first used to diagnose a network problem are traceroute and ping. The results they return are however most often misunderstood or interpreted in a way that leads to an incorrect conclusion.

Let's take the ping utility specifically. The common mistakes that is made is that whatever the ping result is, is due to the target of the ping. For example, if there is no ping response; conclude that the site is down. Or if there is packet loss or long return times, conclude that it is because of some problem with the target address. While both those outcomes could be the case, far more often than not, they are completely the wrong conclusions to draw.

The common causes of this misinterpretation are:

1. Ping sends a packet to the destination address that typically will traverse several other network points to get there. A problem at any one of those points will cause a non response to the ping query
2. In many cases web sites and other servers sit behind firewalls, and many, if not most, firewalls block ping packets. So while web traffic may reach the site, ping packets may not.
3. The ping packet has a source (the system initiating the ping) as well as a destination, it may be that the source does not have a correct route path to the destination, or that the destination does not have a correct return route path to the source. This could be because of specific firewall rules, an error in the route tables 'somewhere' along the data path, or a specific routing policy deliberately put in place to block access.

The traceroute command can be used to help detect if 1. or 3. are the cause of the problem, which has its own issues, but more on that later. A positive result from either telnet and tcptraceroute will conclusively rule out 2. as a possible case.

Telnet can be used to open a connection any any port, not just the telnet default port. A successful telnet connection where ping has failed is proof positive that a firewall is preventing access to ping packets. Here is an example:

$ ping cisco.com PING cisco.com (198.133.219.25) 56(84) bytes of data.

--- cisco.com ping statistics ---

6 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 5008ms

$ telnet cisco.com 80

Trying 198.133.219.25...

Connected to cisco.com.

Escape character is '^]'.

You can see that the ping packet failed, but that telnet to port 80 succeeded in connecting to the server.

So too with tcptraceroute on port 80:

$ tcptraceroute cisco.com 80

traceroute to cisco.com (198.133.219.25), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets

1 192.168.6.254 (192.168.6.254) 8.557 ms 10.624 ms *

....

15 cisco.com (198.133.219.25) 289.162 ms 237.972 ms 242.171 ms

Another common error using ping is that the results of just a few ping tests are indicative of the condition of a data path. It may be true, but such a conclusion can only be relied upon over a statistically meaningful sample size. Also, to be truly accurate, the distribution of packets responses outside the acceptable level needs to be known.

For example, as single ping test of four packets where one packet is dropped, can not, in any meaningful way, be used to conclude that there is 25% packet loss on that circuit. Ten thousand ping tests, over several hours where there is say 5% lost has far more meaning; however consider if the test was done over 24 hours, and for one hour the target site was down. The 100% loss during that hour looks like a general 5% packet loss over 24 hours.

It is therefore important to review the record of the ping test and see if the distribution of any packet loss is regular or confined to a specific period, before a real conclusion can be drawn.

A third common error is that the cause whatever is result is gained is due to the target site. For example, say 5% packet loss was found when pinging 3com.com, this by no means indicates that the problem lays with that site, rather, the problem could be with any of the points along the data path to that site, inclusive the source (my own computer):

$ traceroute 3com.com traceroute to 3com.com (192.136.34.41), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets

1 192.168.6.254 (192.168.6.254) 10.285 ms 13.316 ms 14.440 ms

2 129.1.233.220.exetel.com.au (220.233.1.129) 132.994 ms 135.387 ms 136.312 ms

3 241.0.233.220.exetel.com.au (220.233.0.241) 137.192 ms 141.296 ms 162.018 ms

4 10.0.1.1 (10.0.1.1) 168.530 ms 174.358 ms 176.908 ms

5 38.2.233.220.exetel.com.au (220.233.2.38) 177.729 ms 188.233 ms 189.122 ms

6 359-ge-0-0-0.GW5.SYD2.ALTER.NET (203.166.92.57) 197.691 ms 85.598 ms 156.625 ms

7 0.so-0-2-0.XR3.SYD2.ALTER.NET (210.80.33.189) 158.108 ms 159.430 ms 160.260 ms

8 0.so-4-3-0.IR1.LAX12.ALTER.NET (210.80.50.249) 305.124 ms 305.952 ms 306.775 ms

9 0.so-5-0-0.IL1.LAX9.ALTER.NET (152.63.48.65) 313.518 ms 321.047 ms 321.868 ms

10 0.so-5-0-0.XT1.SAC1.ALTER.NET (152.63.0.98) 405.111 ms 406.359 ms 407.241 ms

11 GigabitEthernet6-0-0.GW9.SAC1.ALTER.NET (152.63.55.73) 331.091 ms 337.600 ms 341.527 ms

12 eds-gw.customer.alter.net (63.114.61.154) 357.930 ms 287.765 ms 310.755 ms

13 205.141.209.3 (205.141.209.3) 311.606 ms 312.502 ms 313.587 ms

14 10.231.1.2 (10.231.1.2) 341.277 ms 342.101 ms 342.931 ms

15 205.141.209.133 (205.141.209.133) 344.380 ms 345.861 ms 346.689 ms

16 ip-192-136-34-41.ip.3com.com (192.136.34.41) 261.317 ms 266.998 ms 346.689 ms

You can clearly see the number of hops the data must traverse. In this case there is no evidence of any problem along the data path. But if the traceroute looked like this:

$ traceroute 3com.com traceroute to 3com.com (192.136.34.41), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets

1 192.168.6.254 (192.168.6.254) 10.285 ms 13.316 ms 14.440 ms

2 129.1.233.220.exetel.com.au (220.233.1.129) 132.994 ms 135.387 ms 136.312 ms

3 241.0.233.220.exetel.com.au (220.233.0.241) 137.192 ms 141.296 ms 162.018 ms

4 10.0.1.1 (10.0.1.1) 168.530 ms 174.358 ms 176.908 ms

5 38.2.233.220.exetel.com.au (220.233.2.38) 177.729 ms 188.233 ms 189.122 ms

6 359-ge-0-0-0.GW5.SYD2.ALTER.NET (203.166.92.57) 197.691 ms 85.598 ms 156.625 ms

7 0.so-0-2-0.XR3.SYD2.ALTER.NET (210.80.33.189) 758.108 ms 759.430 ms *

8 0.so-4-3-0.IR1.LAX12.ALTER.NET (210.80.50.249) * * 806.775 ms

9 0.so-5-0-0.IL1.LAX9.ALTER.NET (152.63.48.65) 813.518 ms * 721.868 ms

10 0.so-5-0-0.XT1.SAC1.ALTER.NET (152.63.0.98) * 1406.359 ms 1007.241 ms

11 GigabitEthernet6-0-0.GW9.SAC1.ALTER.NET (152.63.55.73) 731.091 ms 737.600 ms 1341.527 ms

12 eds-gw.customer.alter.net (63.114.61.154) 357.930 ms * *

13 205.141.209.3 (205.141.209.3) 811.606 ms 812.502 ms 813.587 ms

14 10.231.1.2 (10.231.1.2) 741.277 ms 742.101 ms 1342.931 ms

15 205.141.209.133 (205.141.209.133) * * 746.689 ms

16 ip-192-136-34-41.ip.3com.com (192.136.34.41) 761.317 ms 866.998 ms *

It would be reasonable to conclude that there was some serious problem between hop 6 and hop 7 that is causing the ping test to return its lossy result.

To conclude, we can see that ping:

1. is a useful tool to indicate where a problem may be
2. should be used in combination with other tests to eliminate false positives
3. should not be used for small, isolated tests 4. is a good indicator of problems over sadistically meaningful sample sizes

I would like to start of by saying I am sorry for not posting as much as I should have last week. I have been going through a few headaches this past week that have diverted my thoughts away from putting up anything that would mean anything meaningful to anyone. If your interested here is a highlight.

I have been going through a little of network hell in the past 2 to 3 days. You see I have always had a wired network for my computers but my wife and I decided to get a refrigerator this week that has a wireless access point to upload pictures. But come to find out every time I configure the refrig to my netword my router got blown away. Which blew away my whole home network.

Next I went to program my XBOX 360 system with wireless access. Come to find out that I did not have my media server configured on my system. I still have not figured out how to do that. So, thinking that my router was not able to handle the broadband needed to connect to the refrig and my XBOX I went out today to purchase another router. I almost purchased the same router as I had before. Come to find out, the router that I had, which was on sale the cheapoo guy in me, was not a very good router. If your in the market for a new router I would not recommend the Linksys WRT54G model. For a wired network it is great. But, for a wireless network it has issues. I switched over to the Linksys WRT54Gs. I have not had any problems as of yet. My wife has hooked up the refrig already and when the kids go to bed I will hook up the XBOX. I still need to figure out the media center junk. Vista headache next..

Anyways, I wish I could show you all the other linksys devices that I have gone through in the last 4 years. In front of me now I have the linksys router BEFSR41. This tropper last for a while. I was able to get 3 years out of that one. But it finally burned out on last year. Then there is the wireless b router BEFW11S4. This baby did not work out of the box. I never got any time on this one. Last but not least the Wireless G router WRT54G. It still works but has a sucky wireless network. It is also on sale at this present time at bestbuy. Don't get it... Spend a little more money and get a better router that will last a little longer than that one.

The world of technology ahs changed so fast that most people have not been able to keep pace with it. Just when you get the hang of how to log on to the Internet and start chatting on instant messenger, they come up with upgraded versions where you can speak on the headphones too. And then as soon as you get used to that there comes the web camera that allows the other person to see you. And this is not the case only with one aspect of the Internet but with each and everything that is going around.

It is actually ironical that even today most of the people working on computers use only a fraction of the applications that are available. For example, an average businessman or executive would probably be using Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint and may use the Internet for some information searches.

Another interesting aspect of the whole situation is that teenagers catch on to newer technology and can make use of it much faster than the older generation. Take webcasting fro example! I had not heard the term before I saw a program about Internet crime. To my utter disgust, I found that a teenage girl was using the concept of live webcasting to show the various girls doing the rounds. And this was being done among here own friends without their knowledge and all to earn some cash.

Sad though it might be technology has its bad and good side. The good side is that live webcasting can actually save corporates a lot of cost because now they can conduct meetings across the world using live webcasting. Documents can be shared and shown on screen and the people can converse as if they were all sitting round a table. If you actually dim the lights in the room you may actually fee that you are sitting in a meeting room.

The other benefit of live webcasting is that it can be used to chat up with friends and family across the world. It does not have to be as mundane as typing away furiously on the instant messenger and neither does it have to be only a voice chat. You can sit in front of the computer and chat with your friends and family as if they were actually there. The only thing you may not be able to do is to give them a hug. But I will not be surprised if some new technology can handle this aspect also.

The OC48 is a high-speed digital network connection that is capable of transmitting at a speed of about 2.5 gigabits per second. This type of dedicated line is designed for large companies and universities with a large campus environment. The super speed allows for transmission of large databases over a busy network.

The OC48 is equal to 4 OC12s. To get an idea of the size this equates to approximately 1600 T1 circuits. The OC48 is engineered specifically for your location and can be used for voice or data. It can also be divided and used for both. The large bandwidth of the OC48 provides fast service for your network backbone.

Because of the large amount of lines and capabilities of the OC48 the pricing is based on the specific configuration. The OC48 allows for full Internet access to all streaming data and can handle many Internet connections at a time.

The OC48 is made for large and super-large applications and those requiring the maximum amount of bandwidth. This may include campus environments such as hospitals and universities. An OC48 can be used as the backbone in large installations.

OC stands for Optical Carrier. The OC48 is a group of fiber optic circuits. This allows the OC48 to support such high speeds. The OC48 is suitable for a large enterprise or ISP backbone. Fiber provides a stable and reliable method of delivery for these circuits both for voice and data applications.

OC48 bandwidth is the big story here. With speeds of up to 2.488 Mbps the OC48 is a logical choice when large applications are used. These can include streaming video, multiple large text files and graphics. The bandwidth supports any current application available today as well as future applications. For the business serious about its communication system, the OC48 is the best method for the price.

The costs for initial installation and setup are quite steep, usually over $100K, the fees are comparable with those of standard lines. The cost savings benefits potential is great, however, with most savings being recognized within about a year of start-up.

Space considerations are also an important part of the decision to use an OC48. The OC48 consists of a number of termination points, however, it uses substantially less space than the same amount of regular copper trunks would take up. This allows you to have the right amount of lines in the smallest space possible.

OC48 circuits are extremely reliable. These circuits are constantly being monitored from the central office. If any problems arise with a circuit the problem can often be easily resolved remotely. The large amount of lines with the OC48 means that you can bypass any lines that are having trouble, making communication seamless to the end user, who likely would not know of the problem.

Circuits are shared with users as they are available so you need not have one per person. In fact, in most voice T1 applications the general rule of thumb is to have one T1 per each 50 to 100 users.

The OC48 eliminates the need for most of your copper circuits. This will bring an immediate cost savings. You will need to keep some copper trunks as a backup in the case of a power outage or system problem. You may also want to consider the use of a UPS system or generator in the event of a power failure.

Many types of service plans are available for the ongoing service issues with your OC48 circuits. Be sure to choose a plan that gives you optimal coverage, particularly during your peak times. If you support an operation that is 24/7, as most large applications do, be sure to get a service plan that supports your 24/7 operation as well. This is like taking out an insurance policy for your communication system.