Satellite IP

Mon Jan 10 18:28:07 UTC 2011

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Valdis Kletnieks" <Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu>

> On Mon, 10 Jan 2011 11:06:32 EST, Kelly Olsen said:
> > That would only happen with an outrageously over-subscribed
> > provider.
> 
> OK - I'll feed the troll. What's the proper amount of unused and therefor
> non-revenue-generating capacity the operator is supposed to reserve in
> order to *guarantee* that bandwidth will be available?

> (Hint - the provider doesn't have to be "outrageously" oversubscribed
> - by definition, if you're oversubscribed *at all*, it's possible for
> somebody to lose out. It's easy for the provider to be 98% sure that they'll be
> able to satisfy all the requests. But guaranteeing 100% is a whole nother
> story...)

Ok, I'll feed the troll.  :-)

Those who want to *guarantee* that they will never lose out -- people
like network news organizations -- *lease entire transponders by the year,
or for the projected lifetime of the satellite*, after which those 36MHz 
are yours to do with as you like; here's a list of the current *dedicated*
ABC transponder avails:

   http://www.abcnewsabsat.com/files/frequencies_nac_041510%5B2%5D.pdf

There's really a *lot* of space-segment available, Valdis.  A lot.

And if you buy a transponder for the entire projected 15-year lifetime
of the bird, I hear you get a pretty hefty discount over the hourly
rack rate. ;-)

Now, in my particular case, the secondary usage I was talking about
wasn't so much first-line municipal support per se, but backup to that,
in the way that hams have always provided that sort of support, just fancier;
in that case, it's practical for me to utilize contended, and therefore 
substantially cheaper, occasional time (LBiSat, for example, has quoted 
me $179/hr for 3MHz, and $250/hr for 4.5MHz as a rack rate, which is
acceptable for my primary use, as long as the uncontended-service 
packet-loss and jitter numbers are low enough; contended time should be 
much cheaper than that), and in either use case, since there are at least 
3 providers, with a total of something like 12 full transponders, who 
provide occasional iDirect connectivity, I shouldbe able to book the 
time *somewhere*, just as "traditional" DSNG operators
(using DVB-S MPEG2, mostly) always have.

Thanks to Kelly, I'd seen Skycasters, but didn't get the impression from 
the website that they did anything other than monthly service; to James,
I'll check out Trustcomm; and to Ryan: yeah, there are Video-to-MPEG-to-
IP-Ethernet encoders off the rack; for that use-case, I mostly need to find
a matched pair that's efficient; the primary use of the truck will *not*
be sports.  :-)

And I'll be leaving in the DVB-S modulator that's there, so if the truck 
is suitable to someone for rental, they'll be able to use it in the traditional
fashion as well.

My motivation for asking the question *here* was of course to get the operator
perspective on the actual transport, if anyone had any.  

Cheers,
-- jra