Reasons Why the Word Broadband Matters: #17 Satellite is not broadband

With over 610,000 subscribers, HughesNet is the largest supplier of satellite Internet service in America. The billion dollar company that owns HughesNet is Hughes Network Systems, LLC, which routinely describes itself as "the world's leading provider of broadband satellite services." You can see this on the company website and in the company's reporting of its first quarter 2011 results.

The problem is that broadband satellite is an oxymoron. The Internet you get from a satellite is not broadband. Just ask anybody who has used both satellite and cable, DSL, or fiber. The broadband functionality that DSL/cable/fiber users take for granted just doesn't work, or doesn't work well, over satellite; we're talking core functionality like automatic software updates, VoIP, VPN, NetFlix movies, website hosting, online backup and shared cloud storage services like Dropbox.

Who says such functionality is not there? The satellite Internet companies themselves, including Hughes. This fact is made clear in a 22-page report just released by the Rural Mobile and Broadband Alliance. Conveniently known as RuMBA USA, this non-profit group seeks to expand the availability of affordable broadband access in rural America.

Although I recommend reading the full report (disclaimer: I wrote it) you really don't have to look any further than the HughesNet website to see what I mean when I say that...

...the word "broadband" matters. The title of the website is: "HughesNet Hi-Speed Satellite Internet Provider." And the site describes a variety of services, all of which are described as high-speed Internet. None of them are described as broadband.

Now switch to the Hughes website and you will see a video titled "Consumer Broadband: A Thriving Market" and plenty of other "broadband" messaging. So why does Hughes talk "broadband satellite" on its corporate website and "hi-speed Satellite Internet" on the HughesNet consumer site, the site that actually sells the satellite service? The answer might be as simple as "truth in advertising."

You can't really fault HughesNet for saying "Enjoy easy, convenient high-speed Internet anywhere, anytime, Get High-Speed Satellite Today!" Based on 2 out of 3 critical speed factors used to describe Internet connectivity, HughesNet satellite Internet service can perform faster than a dialup modem. Indeed, adverts for the service often stress that is it faster than dialup. Headline upload and download speeds offered by the satellite service are certainly higher than the 56Kbps at which a dialup modem maxes out.

Where satellite Internet is not faster than dialup is the time it takes for a single bit of data to get from one computer to another across the network. This is known as latency and it has a big effect on things like signing into your online account and other secure services over the Internet (basically any web page URL that starts with https://). That's because encrypted connections require a "handshake" to take place in which a lot of small pieces of information are exchanged back and forth between the web server and the web client.

You can read more about security handshakes in this 2002 USENIX security paper. But latency affects more than secure connections. The time between sending a request for a web page or a change on a web page and the time that the request reaches the server that is serving up the page is always going to be longer over satellite, about 10X longer than on a true broadband connection. See this early paper that references the problem: Data Coomunications Protocol Performance on Geo-stationary Satellite Links (Hans Kruse, Ohio University, 1996).

As Kruse states, the one-way trip for a data bit to a geo-stationary satellite takes 250 milliseconds (that's 500 for a round trip into space and back). And the laws of physics dictate you can't shorten that time, unless you can get data packets to travel faster than the speed of light. Add some ground station and Network Operations Center overhead and you get a best case satellite Internet latency of around 600ms. This might not sound like a long time but it can mean that logging into a secure site can take minutes, not seconds.

Other activities, such as a typical remote employment task like writing code, are also impacted. Consider this programmer's complaint about cable Internet being slower, at 80ms, than DSL at 20ms. Now compare that to 600ms, which is the best I've seen on satellite, where latency can average 1000ms, or 50 times slower than DSL.

So, satellite is not broadband, and that matters because the federal government has given tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to satellite companies to provide broadband service. As the Hughes Annual Report of 2010 proudly proclaims: "Hughes Wins $58.7 Million Under U.S. Recovery Act Broadband Program." Except it just isn't broadband.

Satellite Internet Service: Amazing technology but not broadband (and why that matters more and more)

A new report on satellite Internet service has just been published by the Rural Mobile and Broadband Alliance, or RuMBA (clever name, huh!). This free whitepaper, full of table, illustrations, and extensive references, is worth reading if you are:

1. A nerd or geek like me
2. Ever wondered how this satellite Internet thing worked
3. Have an interest in computer security
4. Live in a rural area
5. Care about the future of rural America
6. All of the above

Disclaimer: I wrote this paper (all 22 pages of it) in my spare time, as a way to help rural communities like the one in which I live. So there is an agenda in my plugging this white paper, but no financial incentive. RuMBA is a not-for-profit group (and for the moment I'm a fairly unprofitable person).

As I say in the paper, the fact that satellite Internet service works at all is a major technological achievement. I just have a problem with the idea that satellite Internet service is being touted in some quarters as a way to provide rural communities with access to broadband.

I don't want to give anything away, because I really do want people to read this paper, but satellite Internet is not and can never be a substitute for proper broadband service. By "proper broadband service" I mean something that can support a data center or at least deliver a high-availability, low-latency, uncapped connection at speeds of more than 10Mbps.


Satellite might have a role to play as the connection of last resort for people living in truly remote areas far from paved roads and other infrastructure, but I see no good reason why homes and businesses that already have telephone service should not also have broadband connectivity. For example, it makes no sense to me that a village on a state highway less than 50 miles from the capital of New York should not have broadband, especially when it is just a few miles from the nearest broadband connection point and already has a fiber optic cable running right through it. And there are hundreds of examples like this.

As a technologist who also pays taxes I am also very concerned that the federal government has seen fit to give tens of millions of dollars of broadband stimulus money to satellite companies who clearly, according to the definitive and categorical conclusions of this 22-page report, do not deliver broadband.

If you agree with me that broadband access is important for farming families and the people who live in rural areas to support them (doctors, nurses, teachers, merchants, and so on) then please bear in mind that things are only going to get worse if we don't act now to deliver genuine broadband to these folks. Every metric out there points to a coming boom in Internet video and other rick media as a way of interacting with consumers, businesses, schools, and healthcare providers. If communities are hurting right now because they only have dialup or satellite, and I believe they are, there are really going to be hurting a year or two from now.

For example, a Cisco report last October indicated that the average traffic over a broadband connection increased 31% in the previous 12 months, generating 14.9 gigabytes of Internet traffic a month. If that trend continues, and a recovering economy strongly suggests it will, the average traffic number will reach 20 gigabytes a month by the end of this year, way more than most satellite Internet users are allowed (without substantial added cost or inconvenience).

BTW, there is a lot of information on this subject over at the Rural Mobile and Broadband Alliance website. I encourage you to check it out. You may also want to follow RuMBA's founder @HandemRuMBA on Twitter and tune in to the Rural America Radio Show on Blog Talk Radio

Cobb's Satellite Internet Whitepaper Published by Rural Mobile & Broadband Alliance

Update, December 18, 2019: A recent decision by the FCC has put the spotlight on satellite internet service for rural communities in America (see Viasat gets $87.1M for rural broadband). I researched this topic - from a rural home that depended on satellite service for its internet connection - back in 2011. This article describes, and links to, the whitepaper in which I wrote up my research (PDF, 2 megabytes).

Original article:

I'm happy to announce that a document I've been working on for some time now has been published by RuMBA: the Rural Mobile & Broadband Alliance. Here's the full title:

Satellite Internet Connection for Rural Broadband: Is it a viable alternative to wired and wireless connectivity for America's rural communities?

You can download the whitepaper here (this a 22-page PDF document just under 2 Megabytes in size).

For those who haven't heard of RuMBA, it's a non-profit organization that was launched in February 2009 by Luisa Handem Piette as an advocacy group "seeking to ensure that rural communities are offered the same access to affordable mobile and broadband services available to urban and suburban areas."

I admit that I first got involved with RuMBA for purely selfish reasons: I live in a rural community that has no access to broadband and I like broadband.

Okay, it's more than that. I need broadband to earn a living. Sure, I could go through some sort of retraining program and earn a living as a farmer or lumberjack or trucker, but to keep doing what I've been doing for the last 25 years, researching, writing and publishing, I need broadband.

(I actually think broadband can help you be a more successful farmer, lumberjack, or trucker, so it's not like those careers wouldn't benefit from better access to broadband as well.)

When I found out about RuMBA, a group of people looking to expand rural access to broadband, I signed up. One of the things I like about RuMBA is that it's not just an organization for consumers of broadband. And it's not just a meeting place for suppliers of broadband. RuMBA is a good mix of consumers and suppliers and experts, and a great place to research this field. I have already learned a great deal from RuMBA members about the possibilities and challenges of bringing broadband to un-served or under-served areas.

Which brings me back to satellite Internet. Attentive readers of this blog will know that I've had a lot of experience using satellite Internet over the last 5 years. Until recently it was the only way to connect to the Internet from the cabin in Upstate New York where I live and work IF you wanted speeds above those of an old-fashioned dialup modem.

In fact, the claim "faster than dialup" has been at the heart of marketing efforts by HughesNet and Wildblue, the two largest satellite Internet providers, for many years. What you don't see when you look into signing up for these services on the web is the phrase "satellite broadband." And there is a good reason for that [spoiler alert--the next sentence reveals the primary conclusion of the above-mentioned whitepaper].

Basically, satellite Internet is not broadband. It is not sold to consumers and small businesses as broadband. But it is getting promoted to government agencies and regulators as broadband. Which raises two questions:

1. Why did I write a 22 page document to make that point?


2. What's the problem?

Let me state the problem first: The traditional terrestrial Internet providers, the purveyors of DSL, cable, and fiber, do not want the government to require them to serve rural areas in the way that America requires telephone companies to serve rural areas.

Have you ever wondered how it is that your relatives on the farm way in the middle of nowhere North Dakota have a phone line? The answer lies in federal legislation dating back to the 1930s. That's when America decided "to make available, so far as possible, to all the people of the United States a rapid, efficient, nationwide and worldwide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges."

One of the principles established back then can be stated like this: If a company wants to run cable or beam waves across this great land of ours, everyone living on this land should get a slice of the service those cables and waves deliver. For example, a great big rope of fiber runs right through my village here in rural New York. My neighbors have to exercise care with their farm equipment so that they don't damage said cable or the power injectors and related fiber-phernalia. It seems only fair, at least in that old-fashioned 1930s way of American thinking, that a slice of said fiber should serve the community through which it passes. Right now it does not.

And one of the arguments that fiber/cable/DSL companies in America make against a universal broadband service requirement is that the country does not need it because: rural folks can always get broadband via satellite. And of course the satellite companies love that; they even got federal broadband money to build out their subscriber base. The telecommunications industry can say: "See, there's no need for universal service requirement because everyone has access to broadband."

Except they don't. That's because Satellite Internet is not broadband. And just so there could be no doubt about that statement I decided to make available an argument-ending document full of facts and references that anyone can print out and hand out and email, something that substantiates that statement in language anyone can understand. (And that answers question 2 above.)

If you would like a copy, it is free, and I encourage to download it now then please, spread it around.

That Sinking Feeling: The effects of not expanding broadband to rural areas

Interesting observation: "The Center for Rural Strategies report concludes that having access to broadband is 'simply treading water or keeping up. Not having it means sinking.' Studies rank the United States overall between 25th and 29th in the world in terms of Internet speed. The report, 'Scholars' Roundtable: The Effects of Expanding Broadband to Rural Areas,' is can be downloaded here www.ruralstrategies.org."

From Public News Service

The Center for Rural Strategies

"The Center for Rural Strategies manages the partnerships and activities of the National Rural Assembly, a coalition made up of over 400 organizations and individuals from 47 states working at local, regional, and national levels to build more opportunity and better policy for rural communities across the country."

Check it out: The Center for Rural Strategies

Queer Codes? All about QR 2D barcodes

Have you noticed more of these strange symbols lately? These are QR codes or 2D bar codes. They store information, a lot of information. Whereas a regular barcode that is made up of lines can store 30 numbers, a 2D QR can store 7,089 numbers!

I happen to know this because of a great article on the subject that I just read: Top 14 Things Marketers Need to Know About QR Codes by fellow Search Engine Watch columnist Angie Schottmuller. This article appears in the April 26 issue of Search Engine Watch and they bill it is as: "a great crash course on tools, tactics, and best practices to confidently help you jumpstart a 2D barcode marketing campaign." And I agree wholeheartedly.

The article is also a good general introduction to the technology and why people are using it. Since one goal of this blog is to make technology more accessible I thought I would highlight Angie's article for that reason. And that makes one less article I have to write, which is good, because I know that someone, at some point, is going to ask me: Stephen, what's a QR code? Now I can simply point them in Angie's direction.

Satellite companies win stimulus funds for "broadband" to rural areas

From August of last year: Satellite companies win stimulus funds | Denver Business Journal:

"Colorado satellite companies WildBlue Communications and EchoStar XI have won nearly $34 million in federal stimulus money to supply satellite Internet access to rural areas....The RUS awards...added a competitive wrinkle for the satellite providers. The RUS awarded $58.7 million to Germantown Md.-based Hughes Network Systems for discounted satellite broadband it can offer unserved rural customers nationwide.That creates the possibility of WildBlue and EchoStar XI facing competition from Hughes for customers wanting services discounted with stimulus funding."

If you have ever used satellite Internet, which is NOT broadband, you will know it is a frustrating technology at best, and no substitute for a wire/cable/fiber connection to the Internet. So handing out close to $100 million to companies that are not wiring rural communities seems like an inappropriate use of funds. Reminds us of when the mobile home manufacturers persuaded the Bureau of Indian Affairs to hand out down payments for mobile homes.

Awesome! Electric cooperative laying fiber Internet lines along its existing electric cables

"The Ralls County Electric Cooperative has nearly completed laying fiber Internet lines along its existing electric cables. In May, it will launch the sales of super-high-speed Internet with 10-megabyte-per-second download speeds.

That company was the first in the state to receive federal stimulus funding for such a project and has been used as a template throughout the region for broadband development." Quincy Herald Whig

Of course, the electric cooperatives are themselves a consequence of the community spirit which informed American politics in the 1930s (c.f. the Electric Cooperative Corporation Act of 1937). Makes for a great "compare and contrast" study. The last time America's economy and people were in deep distress (The Great Depression of the 1930s) the reaction was to let the banks fail and help the people help themselves. Reaction to The Great Recession and Crash that capped the Bush years? Bail out the banks and let the people fend for themselves. Require telecomm companies to serve all Americans equally as we did in the 1930s? Heck no, that's Socialism!

Initiative paves the way for computer literacy in Toledo

Initiative paves the way for computer literacy in Toledo: "the telephone company also is hoping that many of the participants will become paying customers once the two-year free access period ends. But Richardson said increased Internet access is a boon to the community even if people contract with other companies."

Public News Service

Public News Service:

"A new report about broadband access in rural America says communities without it will be economically crippled, losing out on opportunities to those with high-speed connections.

Dr. Sharon Strover of the University of Texas, who compiled the new report, says that with a slow connection even basic daily functions can put a small business at a big disadvantage."