One of the latest technologies; Satellite Internet uses a dish, transponder and a modem for downloading and uploading data from the service provider’s server to a computer in the field. In most cases Satellite Internet connectivity will work fine if your only concern is transferring data, but unfortunately it is known not being the best choice regarding towards real time applications and specifically online gaming.
Let’s find out why!
Latency, in game terms called ping, is a factor that causes roadblocks in Satellite Internet connectivity being used for online gaming. Internet researchers state that at present service levels playing online games is not a sinecure over satellite Internet. The time it takes for an electromagnetic signal (Radio Waves) to cover the two way distance up and down is approximately 0.48 seconds at a speed of 186,000 miles or 299,337 kilometers per second. Not much, but unfortunately above acceptable limits for smoothly playing interactive online games and thus the main reason why online gaming is not suggested if you have a satellite Internet connectivity. The transponders (satellites) are normally hovering at a height of 22,300 miles or 35,888 kilometers above sea level. Apart from latency there are numerous other factors such as noise degradation of the signals during heavy precipitation and solar interference in mid March and late September. Yet another factor that would hinder online gaming via Satellite Internet is bandwidth availability. Online gaming is real-time and mostly requires high bandwidth between the server and the player’s computer. In some cases Satellite Internet may not affordably provide such high bandwidth requirements for home use. Online games are developed using peer-to-peer architecture and the bandwidth requirements are most of the time directly related to the scalability of the game. As the number of players increases, the bandwidth requirements for the game will do also. Real time games have to maintain consistency of state. It is important that all players have the same view of the world in a shooting game. It requires higher speeds, lesser latencies and almost no jitter. The bandwidth requirement for an online game is calculated as N.L/T; The update period parameter is called T and N stands for the number of updates that is sent and received in each update period. The size of the updates is L. This formula is used by researchers who work on the bandwidth requirements of a game. But as an end user we should also consider these requirements before we start a game.
Satellite Internet companies such as HughesNet offer speeds of 1 Mbps, 1.2 Mbps and 1.6 Mbps for home connections as well as 2 Mbps and 3 Mbps for business connections. Upload speeds are at most 300 Kbps. Online gaming is not ideal over Satellite Internet because factors such as loss of packets and jitter may cause the player to lose or even abandon a game. It will be a frustrating experience for the player and hence it is advisable that for gaming purposes either Fiber, DSL, Cable or other broadband mediums be used. Satellite Internet providers are continuously working on their technology to upgrade infrastructures so that they can in future offer higher levels of services to subscribers. Things are moving at a fast pace but for now, until latency problems are solved, fans should stick with DSL, broadband or cable Internet.
Gaming over satellite is indeed not really fun. I’m hoping low earth orbit satellites will bring an affordable solution in future.
http://www.tech-faq.com/low-earth-orbit.shtml
I recently tried to play some Call of Duty over satellite and my pings were between 500ms and 700ms. Totally unplayable, the distance to the satellite is the true ping killer
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