Thinking about getting satellite broadband? It certainly has its pros and cons, and your internet use and location will determine if it is best suited to you.
Satellite broadband is an internet connection provided through communication satellites. One located in space (36,000 km from Earth) and one from the roof of your home. Satellite technology has been continuously improving over the last fifteen or twenty years and has become a great broadband option for those in remote areas.
Pros of Satellite Broadband
- 100% Connectivity and Global Coverage
It provides 100% connectivity, no matter where you live. Regardless of any hill, tree or other land masses that have previously blocked your broadband connection. As the internet connection is beamed from your home, straight up to a satellite in space, there is no internet mast to which to connect.
This is what makes satellite broadband extremely attractive to rural and remote areas, as it provides coverage to any location on earth.
- Superfast
It is extremely fast and is up 35 times faster than ‘dialup’. In general, is classified as ‘superfast broadband’ as it provides over 30Mbps (megabits per second).
Rural WiFi packages provide up to 30, 50 and 100Mbps.
- Simple, Quick and FREE Installation
The installation is very fast and simple in comparison to other broadband alternatives, such as fibre. The home satellite that is mounted on your roof, can be installed within a few hours. The turnover from point of sale until your satellite is installed and fully operational is approximately 10 days.
- No Phone Line Needed
It does not require a phone line, so you do not need to have one at all. Unfortunately for those who are looking for a phone line, they will have to get one from another provider as this cannot be provided through satellite broadband.
- Reliability
It provides a highly stable connection and has much lower chances of outages. With other underground networks (aka terrestrial networks) such as dial-up and fibre broadband. There is much more opportunity for faults along their long cable lines that go on for hundreds of miles.
Cons of Satellite Broadband
- Latency
Latency is the time it takes for data to be transmitted, from one source to another and is measured in milliseconds. Data has to travel up to a satellite in space and back down, which can cause a level of latency at times. Although this latency does not affect general internet users, such as zoom, skype or streaming. It does affect online gaming, as even a slight delay in connection can ruin a game.
Due to this, we don’t recommend satellite broadband to any customers who have online gamers in their households.
See more about our broadband packages:
To see if these packages are available in your area, please contact our sales team at 01 211 86 53.
To learn more, see the video below:
