Satellite Internet Service for Macs? 413
Untimely Ripp'd asks: "Satellite broadband has been available to PC users for half a decade, and still is not trivially available to Mac users. It can be done, but it's always an unsupported hack, or it requires buying expensive extra hardware and software. I cannot understand why Hughes and the other providers would refuse to spend the relatively few dollars necessary to develop a couple of device drivers and glue libraries. Time after time, the vendors have said, 'it's coming,' but it never does, and the promise eventually goes away. (Earthlink's FAQ page no longer says that Mac software is being developed, for example). I'm not gung-ho on conspiracy theories, but the only explanation I can figure is that they're either being paid or bullied. Does anyone know of any serious tech hurdle that would make it cost more than $100K or so to develop the necessary software?" this article mentions one-way Mac service coming online from OWC in a future expansion, along with nationwide service. A comment from that story does mention a simple solution, but why is it that Satellite service, even one way satellite service, depends on Windows-only software? What other solutions have Mac users resorted to when they wanted their Macs connected?
Again? (Score:5, Insightful)
How many times can we go over this same point? It's the same for Linux and Mac, it's just not economically viable to develop software for something used by less than 5% of the computing masses. It doesn't pay, plain and simple, and companies aren't going to waste money developing with little to no returns. I await next week's Ask Slashdot with the same question.
Re:Again? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Again? (Score:5, Informative)
First, it's not quite so easy to provide technical support for more than one environment. Like it or not, it isn't just a case of hitting Command-C instead of Control-C; Windows users expect one set of UI conventions, Mac users expect another, and Unix users want it three different ways, and it should also work from the command line. Each OS requires different tactics to work around existing issues. For technical support departments supporting diverse platforms is a nightmare, since it means they have to either spend most of their time in training, or provide multiple specialized departments, which can easily eat up manpower.
Setting rigid support boundaries is a partial solution, but I have yet to have a customer who knew of the support boundaries and had a problem outside those nicely defined lines who didn't try to cajole and/or threaten me into helping him "just this once." It wastes my time, and his.
For developers, this is similarly a nightmare. I know of one decent cross-platform GUI toolkit that works on X11, Win32 and Mac OS, and on the Mac, it doesn't conform strictly to the Apple User Interface guidelines. Compound that with the highly specialized skillset required to write drivers for a particular operating system, with some exceptions, and to go with your bloated support department, you'll have an increased software development budget, and QA budget.
The only recourse we fringe users have is open standards; encourage your vendors to use published protocols, open standards and to document their API's. Take those documents and write a solution for your environment of choice.
Re:Again? (Score:2)
Except "Windows" is not exactly one environment, is it? A product like this probably already has customers on 98, NT4, ME, Win2000, and XP, perhaps more, and apart from similar-looking GUI's, the differences (particularilly between 98/ME and NT) are pretty vast, when it comes to what's likely to break for any given app.
Re:Again? (Score:2)
We don't see shipping/sales bonuses. That's why we're not the ones that do the product design.
Re:Bulls**T (Score:2)
Somehow most of the broadband and DSL providers manage to connect to Linux without having anybody in tech support able to answer questions, so this is NOT a reason.
Re:Again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Again? (Score:2, Insightful)
How about the people in rural locations who don't have any other options available?
My father lives in northern Maine. He has a 56k modem, that can barely get 24k on his phone line. No cable available. Positively no DSL, he's about 15 miles from the central office.
Reasonably priced satellite service would be great.
Re:Again? (Score:5, Interesting)
One way to make money is to build a product that 95% of the people use. Another way to make money is to build a product that 5% of the people use. Microsoft certainly made a boatload of money, but Apple is not exactly bankrupt. In fact, I'd expect that Mac sales of Adobe Photoshop account for significantly more than 5%.
In practice, a lot of times you'll find that the reason a minority OS is not supported is not because somebody determined that it was not viable, but that nobody ever bothered to see if it was viable or not. Only the former is a good business decision.
Re:Again? (Score:2)
This is why these bullshit reports from IDC and gartner should not be tolerated.
Even based on THIER numbers, the Mac Marketshare of currently used computers accessing the internet is around %15 to %20. Making them prime candidates for this type of access.
Furthermore, simple thought about who runs linux boxes tells you that the linux market would probably be profitable for them as well. Even if the linux market share was only %2 (I'm not saying it is)--- whats relevant is how much money you'll make from the customers, not how much of the market there is.
For Mac software, for instance, its a very lucurative market. Mac users spend more and buy more software items than Windows users AND there's less competition. so its quite possible that if you release a good product you could be 4 times as profitable in the Mac space as the PC space-- even though its much smaller. Simply not having Microsoft there to take away your thunder is a big help in itself.
Unfortunately, most of these decisions are made by newbie marketing types who don't understand the industry and don't think for themselves-- they just all do what everyone else is doing and so you end up with 10 different applications in category X on the Windows side, all loosing money, and one done by some guy in a garage on the Mac side making more than he can figure out how to spend.
The value of a market is the number of people who will buy your service-- not the number of people you have to try and reach to tell you about the service. A 10,000 person market is more valuable than a 100 million person market if you can get 500 customers for $500 in the former and $250 customers for $1 million in the latter.
Re:Again? (Score:2)
Re:Again? (Score:2)
Yeah-- they only count computers sold in a given year. People then take that number and call it the total addressable market. This ignores the fact that the average mac is kept around twice as long as the average PC.
Furthermore, Gartner counts every computer sold with windows as a windows sale, and every sale of windows software as another windows sale-- so many computers which ship with windows and are then upgraded to another version of windows are counted twice.
Furthermore, they count all computers sold with windows that are installed in a datacenter or otherwise have Linux installed as windows sales-- inflating the windows numbers and deflating the linux numbers.
They don't do ANY RESEARCH into the actual operating system installed on customers computers.
Nor do they account for the fact that many computers are bought for data centers or for business use that does not involve customer use. The business market and the consumer markets are quite different-- when you talk about selling software into a market, you're talking about the consumer market (unless you're talking business software). The huge distortion causes by counting computers that live in closets and computer rooms as addressable for software sales is very erronous-- nobody installs word or a movie editing package on these machines.
Basically, their numbers are made up.
Re:Again? (Score:2)
OH, I forgot another issue with their numbers: They dont' count mac sales.
Yep.
When they say Macs have "%3" of the market, they are saying that macs make up %3 of the x86 market-- that is companies that sell x86 boxes or distribute them, also often care apple hardware and report that to them. But they don't count sales made via mac mail order companies, local mac dealers, the apple retail stores or the apple online store.
In other words, the ignore all the mac sales channels and only count sales thru x86 sales channesl as mac channels. Thus not counting most mac sales.
(I'm sure there are irregularities in how they count linux and other unix on pc hardware sales as well.)
Re:Again? (Score:2)
I didn't say that was the market share-- I don't know the market share. but Gartner and IDC don't either.
I'm saying by thier published numbers, if you account for the way they collect data, then THEY are saying the mac market is %15-%20 of the consumer internet accessing market.
By the way, almost all mac browsers report to be PCs-- googles stats are pointless. After getting told you cant' use a website because you aren't running IE, (even when you are) people switch and report themselves as PCs.
But it IS economically viable to ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's phrase this another way:
How much would a company pay for ADVERTISING to get a 5% increase in sales? (And thus a MUCH greater than 5% improvement in profits, since the development is already amortized.)
Now if that same amount bought you the development of an incremental feature (i.e. a Linux or Mac driver) that enables another 5% of the market to use your product, it's the same case. (Actually, if you're currently addressing 90% of the potential market and the new segment is an incremental 5% you're adding 5%/90% or about 5.6%).
But wait, it's better
Suppose that you're currently splitting the market evenly with one other competitor. If YOU do it and HE doesn't, that 5.55% about doubles to 11.1%. With an even split among three competitors the first mover gets about a 16.7% bump in potential sales (and more in profit), and so on.
With something like networking you have a small number of competitors but MAJOR lock-in. First mover gets the prize and KEEPS it. With something (like a device) with more competitors and less lock-in you may not keep it, but you get a BIG boost until your competition wises up.
But WAIT! You don't HAVE to develop it yourself! Publish enough of the interoperability specs and - at least for Linux - SOMEONE ELSE will do it FOR you! You get the benefits and do only a tiny fraction of the work.
Your work consists mostly editing your internal documents into an externally-releasable one that will enable a developer without giving away your trade-secret farm. But don't get too paranoid: Your competitors are ALREADY reverse-engineering you. You should have your critrical IP already locked up in patent-pending, which will keep your competition at bay if you publish more than you intended. Meanwhile, better specs mean better and sooner community software to enable your sales.
Network operators might have some issues with security - but that's already been addressed elsewhere. (Bottom line is that the black hats will get you anyhow if you're already BADLY broken, regardless of whether you publish, while if you're reasonably secure (i.e. only a little flakey) the exposure will get the white hats on your side and you'll probably increase your lead in the arms race.)
Re:But it IS economically viable to ... (Score:2)
``Now if that same amount bought you the development of an incremental feature (i.e. a Linux or Mac driver) that enables another 5% of the market to use your product, it's the same case.''
No, it's not. The increase you gain through advertising means that 5% of the people ARE using your product. The 5% you get from porting your software indicates the number of people that COULD use your product. In the first case, actual sales improve rather drastically, the increase from porting will at most be equal to this.If before advertising 5% of the people were using your software, the ad campaign has increased sales by 100%. The same is achieved with porting ONLY if ALL people who can use the port (5% of all users) ARE USING IT. This is highly unlikely (not 100% of Windows users want sattelite Internet, so it would be unreasonable to assume (without further data) that 100% of Mac|Linux users would).
``Suppose that you're currently splitting the market evenly with one other competitor. If YOU do it and HE doesn't, that 5.55% about doubles to 11.1%. With an even split among three competitors the first mover gets about a 16.7% bump in potential sales (and more in profit), and so on.''
OK, I see what you're doing here. You have assumed that 100% is all people who want sattelite Internet. Then, if 90% of those people use Windows, and do in fact have sattelite access, and 5% use your new target platform, and all of those are going to use your software, you are right. However, these are a lot of assumptions to make. First of all, who says that 90% of those people are using Windows? This may be true for the total desktop market, but sattelite Internet is not only desktop market, nor is it _all_ of the desktop market. It's a different market, although it overlaps a bit.
Then, not all people who _want_ sattelite access, _have_ sattelite access. Allright, maybe your 100% is all people who _would_ have sattelite access if software were available on their platform. OK. That also kind of removes my third objection, cause if these people are going to use software as soon as it comes available, and you port first (FP = First Port), then they are _all_ going to use your software. However, adoption of your software is going to take time, and your competitors might join you in the meantime and port their software as well...
All in all, your reasoning is based upon assumptions that do not hold. Porting your software to a platform with 5% market share is more likely to increase your sales by 5% of your current sales than it is likely to increase your sales by 5% of _all_ sales. Try to keep in mind _what_ these percentages are of. I hope this post is more or less comprehensible, I just woke up after a long night...
Re:But it IS economically viable to ... (Score:2)
Most people neither want nor need satalite internet service, they either have a better form of high speed access (and basically anything would qualify as better, satalite service is super high latency) like DSL, cable modem, wireless, etc, or they are happy with their dialup. I am willing to bet the percentage of people that want this service is well below 1% of internet users, but pretend it is 1% for argument's sake.
Now given that Mac users are going to be distributed roughly the same geographically as PC users (which determines need for alternative high speed access). But again, let's assume more are willing to get it, double in fact, so 2% of all internet using Mac users.
So, we take 5% of the market, and multiply it by 2%. That's 0.1%. So realistically you are looking at an ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM increase of 0.1%, and probably much less than that. Now to get that you have to develop the software, do some advertising (to let people know it's not on the Mac), and add support staff for the Mac side.
See why it's probably not worth their time?
Re:But it IS economically viable to ... (Score:2)
Holy shit! How many poeple on /. are making this same, simple math error! If you people are actually working as programmers, I fear for the world.
He's not assuming that all Mac users are going to use the service. He's only making the reasonable assumption that roughly the same proportion of Mac users will use it.
Let's break it down to small-ish numbers so you can understand.
Let's take a pool of 19,000 PC users, and 1,000 Mac users.
In other words, our Mac users are 5% of the total.
Now lets say that product x has 1 percent market penetration with our PC group.
That means they have 190 customers.
Now, suppose the add Mac support, and pick up only 1 percent of our Mac users
That means they have 10 new customers.
That's about a 5.26% increase.
See, you do not need to get all of the 5% of Mac users to get a 5% increase in sales. Do you get it now, or do you need to higher a math tutor outside of school hours?
No, YOUR math is wrong - here's why... (Score:2)
No, I'm not assuming that. In the sole-provider case I'm assuming you get the same percentage of adopters among Mac (or whatever) users as you got among Windoze users.
In the multiple provider case I'm assuming that you end up with the same fraction of Mac users adopting the TYPE OF SERVICE/DEVICE as Windows users.
For instance - if the product is satellite networking I'm assuming the same fraction of Mac users as Windows users would buy it - IF the Mac users could get it at all.
That's a MUCH easer case than your strawman.
Re:But it IS economically viable to ... (Score:2)
Your work consists mostly editing your internal documents into an externally-releasable one that will enable a developer without giving away your trade-secret farm. But don't get too paranoid: Your competitors are ALREADY reverse-engineering you. You should have your critrical IP already locked up in patent-pending, which will keep your competition at bay if you publish more than you intended. Meanwhile, better specs mean better and sooner community software to enable your sales.
This is great, logical and sound thinking....
something that no CEO or Board of directors on this planet is capable of as it requires not only having deep insight and a great business mind... but also be more mature than a room full of 5 year olds...
you sir, need to start a business and run it... you will become very rich.
Re:Again? (Score:4, Informative)
The DirecWay satellite is pretty much paid for - sure it's a large capital investment up front, but the software side is a constant ongoing expense. The software is constantly under revision by a largeish team of software developers and network engineers. New features are still being added. That's a lot of salaries to pay, and it doesn't stop. Software is never finished. Adding support for another operating system, at least with the current (legacy?) satellite networks, is a large undertaking. All the spoofing for the consumer products is done by software, and it fools with the TCP/IP stack directly. It also needs to be supported. There's at least 10 programmer salaries and about 50 customer service people, just to have a shot at the
Are you a shareholder of Hughes? If you were, would you want them spending 3+ million dollars a year on software that _might_ get 5000 subscribers at under $70 a month? It's hard enough making a profit with 100,000 subscribers on the PC platform. Don't forget that there are a whole host of other costs - installer training, advertising (subscriber acquisition costs are huge), etc.
So my position isn't one where I would know what anyone's future plans are - hell, they could be releasing Mac software tomorrow and I wouldn't know. But you're seriously underestimating the costs of software development and support for adding an OS.
Re:Again? (Score:2)
So what about enough of the specification of the hardware and TCP/IP hacks so that someone else could write a Linux driver? You wouldn't have to support it, you wouldn't have to write it, and your competitors are probably already reverse engineering your work in order to pick up anything not patented. I can totally understand why you don't want to be in the business of writing and supporting drivers, but Linuxers aren't really asking you to write the drivers.
Just curious.
Re:Again? (Score:4, Insightful)
Using USB based equipment in my ever so humble opinion was a major screwup on their part. Besides the obscene price tag of the equipment and installation (far more than my DirecTV system cost me) the USB satellite modem was a huge turn off. It is far more inefficient to fsck with the Windows networking set up than to do it in your own little box in a self contained manner. A satellite modem with an ethernet port is a much better idea, yet again in my opinion. For starters support is rather trivial, instead of needing to rely on Windows to work properly which is a lot to ask, they only need to really maintain their own software. All the network stack customizations and proxying tricks to let the network run on a high latency connection would be relatively simple to maintain on something like VxWorks or some other embedded system. All the end user would need is an ethernet port which in available on a huge percentage of systems, including every Mac made since the iMac.
At the time I was looking at DirectWay about when I was looking for boradband and was picking up a DirecTV system anyways the only satellite modem options were USB. Had I been able to plug it into my Ethernet hub I probably would have bought the service. For a long time I lived out of reach of both cable and DSL and my telephone line choked data down at a staggering 24kbit/s. Now I have a cable modem plugged into my router which is plugged into my hub. I think there's plenty of Linux/Mac/Whatever users who also would have signed up for their service a long time ago and thus been locked into satellite instead of opting for cable or DSL. I think Hughes dropped the ball with DirectWay, it had a major opening even in metropolitan areas before the massive cable internet rollouts of the past two years. Not only could they have likely increased their customer base but they could have also lowered their costs by not relying on Windows hacks in order to get their systems to work right.
Re:Again? (Score:2)
And way less than that plus custom windows network drivers, supporting software, etc.
Re:Again? - yay! (Score:2)
first off, why doesnt the sattelite boxes have their connection to the consumer equipment be ethernet like everyone else (cable/DSL)? your commercial equiupment does.. this eliminates 99.997% of all compatability issues and I can even use my Cromemco Model II Miniframe computer with it! you no longer have to support the computer/os just your equipment and a simple TCP/IP config of the box that YOU CAN CONTROL.
Re:Again? (Score:2)
You will gain 5% market penetration by supporting apple assuming all other factors are equal (which the are probably not in this case.. but you didn't say that did you)
I seriously doubt they have 100% market penetration in the PC world. In fact I own a PC and I don't have satelite, so I know they do not.
Say they have 10% penetration in the Wintel land, (this is very generous), and lets give Wintel 90% marketshare for consumer PC's (this might be accurate in europe and america, dubious worldwide), now you have 9% marketshare.
Lets add 10% of the Mac users out there, you gain 1/2%.
Now lets calculate the percent change in marketshare. Looks to be 5.5555555..%, seems to me they have gained prety close to the proposed 5% market penetration. This means for every 19 customers you have, you could have one more.
This applies equally well to browser arguments, in fact there it's even more valid, as the cost increases much slower if you develop right to begin with.
I have proven two things to myself here
1: People like you who make claims like "it only has 5% marketshare, so it's obviously worthless to support" definatly do not work in any sort of money-related position, and you are definatly not MBA's.
2: Neither of you have a clue how statistics work to manipluate truth.
Re:Again? (Score:2, Interesting)
> land, (this is very generous), and lets give
> Wintel 90% marketshare for consumer PC's (this
> might be accurate in europe and america,
> dubious worldwide), now you have 9%
> marketshare.
>
>Lets add 10% of the Mac users out there, you
> gain 1/2%.
>
>Now lets calculate the percent change in
> marketshare. Looks to be 5.5555555..%, seems
> to me they have gained prety close to the
> proposed 5% market penetration. This means for
> every 19 customers you have, you could have
> one more.
Actually, this is amazingly close to the proof of why they *don't* support alternate OSes.
Start with a realistic market penetration for satellite connectivity - probably 0.1%, which is still probably generous. I don't even think DSL or cable have 10% each.
At this point, the mathematical argument you make could conceivably hold true - add a 5% platform and get 5% more users. But numerically, that number is really small and you gain them at very high cost. You have to pay to develop a new version of software and keep developing it as the world and the platform move forward (this is a big deal in the brave new world of OS X), provide technical support to these new users (along with all the people that aren't upgrading along the way), documentation, advertising so that anybody knows it exists, etc., etc.
If all these numbers were in the millions, then you might at least try to make a go at it - the per head cost might not look great, but it's not ridiculous. But these numbers are probably in the 10s of thousands for the Windows platform, and you probably would have to battle for even a couple of thousand Mac users. With a million users, $500K for software and support infrastructure might work - for 2000 Mac users, it would just be stupid.
When you try to sell this to your boss, he'll say, "we only have 0.1% market share with our existing product and support which targets the biggest mass market. Wouldn't be be better off spending the half-mil on advertisting for the current product? Couldn't we double our market share [e.g., tens of thousands more customers]?".
And you know that he'd be right, don't you?
David Fung
It's really too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's really too bad (Score:4, Interesting)
So yeah, the typical reasons.
Re:It's really too bad (Score:3, Informative)
Uuh, hate to burst your "Linux makes NAT easy" bubble, but in WinMe/2K/XP, internet connection sharing is like 3 clicks from the desktop. It will even enable DHCP for your trusted network to make adding hosts trivial.
>easy to set up a firewall
Yet agian, WinXP to the rescue. In the same dialog used to share a connection, you can enable a basic firewall. It's fairly secure from the outside, but it will autoconfigure ports as they are requested from the inside. Once a trusted computer requests a port, it is opened automagically.
I'm not bashing Linux, just pointing out that Windows can do it as well...
Re:It's really too bad (Score:2)
It is also true that Linux needs some smarter people doing the setup & installation. It has been able to do this for years, but as far as I know no system when installed will detect the existence of two network cards and assumme this is what you want to do.
Re:It's really too bad (Score:2, Informative)
It becomes a mess because you do not know what you are doing.
If people spent as much time learning the internals of Windows as the do Linux, they would realize that a lot of the crap they spew about windows is totally false.
Compare Windows to the easiest to use distro, Mandrake. If you mess with settings outside of the "wizards," you will mess up systems. To fix the linux system you will have to research and find the files, to fix the windows system, you will have to research and find the registry keys. Bottom line, there is no difference.
Re:It's really too bad (Score:3, Informative)
You are totally wrong. Starband even gives you a shareware copy of winproxy to help you share your satellite connection and set up a firewall. They have some pages up to help you set up your internal network so you can use Linux and Macs and such. The only thing they require is that the computer connected to the satellite is Windows.
Anyway, they specifically condone the use of connection sharing and using Linux behind it, they just don't support it, if you call them, they make you unplug your inside connection and shut down any firewall before they will help you.
Exactly... ethernet! (Score:4, Informative)
Cable and DSL companies have finally figured this out- in the beginning, many were supplying PCI card DSL modems that needed Win-drivers, or USB-only cable modems. Now virtually all of them are standard ethernet. Cable modems are usually both- ethernet and USB, in case someone doesn't have an ethernet card. But even USB networking is pretty flaky- most techs will suggest getting an ethernet card if someone's having trouble with their USB.
The sattelite services might still be stuck with tons of this crappy Win-driver stuff, which they have to get rid of, before getting into something new.
Re:Exactly... ethernet! (Score:4, Insightful)
I've discussed this with people that claim to be in-the-know about such things, and they say that revealing the specs of the accelerator software would allow competitors to get into the market, hence the reason they havn't given the specs to open source developers. The gist is that the software drivers package the TCP/IP into very large datagrams that are much more efficient for satellite use. Someone who knows more about this can fill in the details.
Or so the argument goes at least.... Of course, MS being a (former?) big investor in Starband might have something else to do with it. And they could always release binary only non-windows drivers, like Nvidia does.
I just put up with W2K on a Pentium 166 with 80 megs ram for my gateway/firewall, and use Linux basically everywhere else in the house. I hate it completely, but it's pretty good on the download speeds (100-130KBytes/sec max).
One neat trick to get around the latency of the satellite for things like ssh: Use a dial in modem to dial in, and have your ppp-up scripts change the default route to the modem, but leave a route in for your satellite gateway. Then use the proxy on the satellite gateway for download intensive stuff like the web and ftp, and run everything else through the modem, like ssh. You get the high speed downloads and relatively bearable ssh speeds too this way. Of course you have to have some sort of ISP to dial your modem through, seperate from the satellite ISP.
No cable or DSL options out here, but I don't live far from the cable service, so maybe someday soon....
Competitors, bullshit! (Score:2)
Yeah, right, like anyone could just hack the stack and raise billions of dollars overnight to launch a bunch of sattelites. I'm sure anyone who could launch a sattelite network is capable of hiring a few engineers to build a TCP/IP stack that works.
the standard tcp/ip stack doesn't work well (Score:5, Informative)
When you consider that a new connection is SYN (one way), SYN/ACK (return) and ACK (final handshake)... times 750ms per trip, that's 2.25 seconds to set up a connection. To work around these problems, the satellite vendors are forced to do all kinds of tricks with the IP protocol, including spoofing ACKS at each end and running proxies and special compression algorithms. I don't remember all the details anymore. There's a little bit of info in this thread [slashdot.org].
Basically, without a custom IP stack, two-way satellite is almost useless. And a custom IP stack is an expensive thing; given the dismal state of most networking companies, there's just not a lot of money to blow on 5% of the customer base.
I don't know about Earthlink, but Starband's service is TERRIBLE. My mother signed up with them because she's really out in the sticks. The connection is very intermittent. It just fails at random times, and she has to reboot her Windows 2000 gateway machine all the time. (and I know the machine/OS is solid.. it's either the system or the software that sucks horribly.) A couple months ago, they dropped her entirely for two weeks. They were finally forced to roll a tech to fix the problem.... it turned out to be THEIR foulup, they'd changed access group for her modem without bothering to tell her. And they billed her quite a bit (maybe $200?) for the tech!! And needless to say they continued to charge her for the service she wasn't getting.
Stay far, far, away from Starband unless you are truly desperate.
Re:the standard tcp/ip stack doesn't work well (Score:2)
The initial development cost might be higher, but wouldn't it pay for itself in reduced support, and have a longer life cycle?
iDirect.net uses ethernet still (Score:2)
What you get is a remote modem that you use through ethernet, just like a regular router.
Basically the TCP is accelerated by the remote intercepting the TCP packets and reformatting them into something which works well over satellite.
So it should work great with apples, or pretty much anything that goes over ethernet. Our stuff is kindof high-end, 9mit down, 2mbit up, and I have no idea what the pricing is but its more than cable.
Allthough satellite will never be good for low-latency stuff (real time games, interactive shells) it works great for web-browsing, file downloads/file sharing, VOIP, etc.
Re:It's really too bad (Score:2)
The reason for this is that the usual SYN-ACK-SYN/ACK connection setup sequence would be painfully slow with the huge latentcy of a satellite connection. If there's a 300ms delay each way, and establishing a connection requires the usual sequence, that's 900ms just to establish a connection, then you have the additional overhead imposed by the protocol (e.g. the HTTP GET request) Imagine if each request for an image on a web site took several seconds to set up before any data could actually flow. This would be mitigated to some degree if HTTP pipelining was used, but it would still be an issue -- consider browsers or servers that don't support it, as well as non-HTTP applications.
Instead, it makes sense to do some kind of encapsulation so that, for example, a single outgoing packet would convey "establish a TCP connection to images.slashdot.org:80 and send a HTTP request for
So to do this translation/encapsulation takes some non-trivial software, which would either have to be ported to the Mac platform or implemented in hardware. Apparently, this task is non-trivial enough that it doesn't make sense to the bean counters. If the software was just a fluffy "connection manager" and the hardware was really speaking true TCP/IP (as is the case with cable/DSL modems) then I don't think you'd be in this situation.
Re:It's really too bad (Score:2)
Because satellite connections for PCs generally have to use a modem to send upstream. The special software is essentially a packet wrapper program that causes the response to those packets to be sent to your dish and not your modem. This wrapper, of course has to be written for each OS.
Now if they would just release their source codem, some happy mac hacker would build a macintosh client and increase satellite providers' revenue at $0 upfront cost.
Re:It's really too bad (Score:2)
OK, good point. However, they could use something like QNX to develop said software on to translate thier exotic schemes to ethernet with something like an ARM [arm.com] or even a MIPS [mips.com] processor. Hell, then they would have a single architecture to target, and only need to develop the software package once for a single platform. Support is happy, since everything is standardised, and so would be the developers I'd wager, since they control all of thier code.
The extra cost might be substancial, though, so unless they can sell lots and lots of service, it might not be worth it in the end. The other side is that they'd open thier service up to anyone with an ethernet card or USB port. Add batteries, and the posibilities become, well, limitless.
Soko
Re:It's really too bad (Score:2)
ell, you see, their reasoning is the same reasoning that's behind winmodems, winprinters, and so on -- why pay even $5 /unit for a CPU when they can use the one in the host machine to do their dirty work?
Because they save money on the reduced tech support load.
Re:It's really too bad (Score:2)
Of course you could use old technology [microsoft.com] if you prefer dumbed down interfaces that are hardly as functional, but thats your choice.
Look at it from all sides... (Score:2, Informative)
Microsoft does own share in ISP backbones, it is possible that they own share in a lot of these Satellite ISP companies also. Finding out is an exercise I will leave to someone else...
Furthermore, it is entirely possible that the security they use for these Satellite ISP services is horribly broken and is only maintained by the fact Windows is soooo obscure. If they released the specs of how all this hooked up it is entirely possible that anyone could use their services without paying. I don't know, we can't find out---we don't have the specs to write our own software. Just keep an open mind for the myriad of reasons...
Re:Look at it from all sides... (Score:2)
Bleh.
Re:Look at it from all sides... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Look at it from all sides... (Score:2)
If this is true it defeats the ability to use the Windows box as a gateway, which is pretty bad. However many other people here claim they have gotten this to work.
Why would Mac users need fast internet anyway? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why would Mac users need fast internet anyway? (Score:2, Insightful)
When I come home, i don't really feel like spending half my night recompiling the latest kernel.
I just want to make music and video.
After I eat my sushi, of course.
Re:Why would Mac users need fast internet anyway? (Score:2)
Heh, you must mean linux users [freshmeat.net]. Remember, Mac users aren't allowed [slashdot.org] to tweak their UIs anymore.
Re:Why would Mac users need fast internet anyway? (Score:2)
Of course the only reason I don't reboot is because I am running ProgressQuest [progressquest.com] all the time and I don't want to lose my place. My charater, Captain Dingleberry [progressquest.com] is currently ranked 196 out of 39600 players. I was pissed when that guy rebooted my PC and I come back 2 days later to discover that ProgressQuest had been shut down.
Doesn't Apple have an investment in Earthlink? (Score:2)
It's not about the cost to *develop* the software (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time someone calls with a question, it costs the company money. The quicker you can answer their question and get them off the phone, the better. This means minimizing the number of different systems your support folks have to be trained for.
-Mark
Re:It's not about the cost to *develop* the softwa (Score:2)
So have the bulk of them trained for the bulk operating system, a few trained for each little one, and TRANSFER THE CALL if you get one for a little opsys. We are talking NETWORK companies, right?
Heck - I bet the little guys would put up with a half-day delay and callback - and be grateful they could buy your stuff at all. YOU get to schedule the calls, rather than fielding them when they arrive - increasing the efficiency of the little-opsys helpers.
Re:It's not about the cost to *develop* the softwa (Score:2)
I've worked with an ISP that had this very policy. If you ran Win9x and IE, the help desk would assist you. If you ran anything else---you are on your own. Anything else included Win/NT, Win2k etc.. Just the lowest common denominator 'consumer' systems were supported. BUT, all the documentation on what you needed was available. If you ran *nix/Mac you were assumed to be clueful enough to deal.
Do this, and the only cost is the drivers. Maybe not trivial, maybe. So open source them. Let someone else write them for you. Your profit is not in the IP held in these drivers---which are just a means to an end---namely getting more customers online.
Not only that, maybe the drivers will be better than the in-house ones. Being open source, you can benefit from that, roll them back into your Win drivers, provide better service, equals happier customers, equals more---and more profitable---customers.
The real cost is maintenance (Score:2, Insightful)
In the realm of mass market computing, the majority rules. Most companies can't afford to expend the budget to gain a small fraction of a platform that only makes up 5% of the industry as a whole. Remember, it's not like EVERY Mac user will start using the product just because they support the Mac. So, why would a company spend even 2% of their R&D budget to get 1% of a 5% market (if they're lucky).
I tried to like get the satellite to work.....like (Score:4, Funny)
Unhhhhh?
then all of a sudden (Score:2)
Mac users should be able to have sucky service too (Score:2, Interesting)
By all means, though, Mac usuers should be able to get pissed off just like us PC users...
Usurper_ii
Huh? (Score:2, Funny)
Expensive hardware? You mean like the Mac you're trying to get online with?
Most Mac Users Probably on Broadband (Score:2)
Re:Most Mac Users Probably on Broadband (Score:2)
The 'specs' are only on paper. And USB-2 doesn't come anywhere close to a theoretical 480Mbps, much less 400Mbps, which you would expect now in the beta-stages of USB-2. And I said "beta" in the sense that this product has been released as a product for you to beta-test... unofficially. (Another "subjective" argument, based on the fact of the performance disparity.)
Re:Most Mac Users Probably on Broadband (Score:2)
mobilecomputing [mobilecomputing.com]
toms hardware [tomshardware.com]
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Why Satellite? (Score:3, Interesting)
Their solution? Wireless internet. Give your user a wireless internet card, then connect the receiver to a fiber-optic network offering 100Mbps. Works with Windows as well as OS 9 and OS X.
Currently, ADSL alone in Japan offers 12Mbps, for a slightly cheaper price than in the states.
I think the answer is pretty obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
First off, you have the very small market share that Mac users represent. About 1-3% (right?)
Then you have to factor in what percentage of the Mac users live in or near major metropolitan areas. I would argue that number is probably near 90% of the total Mac users (a number I am pulling out of my ass, but I just don't think there are a ton of Mac users in the rural US, which is where the Sat. companies are focusing).
So, you have a possible market that makes up maybe
Hell, even if my numbers are a little bit off, the total market share for Mac users in rural areas can't be more than 1% of all internet users.
So, if the software costs $100k to write, and then another $5k - $10k / year (/month?) to support, plus retraining all (or many) of your support/install personel to use the Macs, is it really worth it?
I personally don't think I would do it if I ran the company.
But whatever... hmmm... the linux router seems to having problems... wonder if throwing it out the window will solve it
Technical issues (Score:5, Insightful)
I set up a PC system (with win2k) purely as a bridge. The satellite reciever uses USB (this is from Pegasus-DirecPC-Hughes - now acquired by Earthlink). Pegasus and DirecPC provide proprietary Windows only drivers to deal with the USB network-satellite connection. That's issue #1. That means using Linux or (as suggested in the "comment" link in the oringal post) a simple router won't fly.
Issue 2: Optimizing the Window size for the ethernet connections --
The fact is, the TCP/IP conneciton to the satellite (high bandwidth - extremely high latency) needs different rwin settings to optimize the connection than the simple pc->mac LAN connection. So far as I can figure, Windows lets you choose one setting for all NICs (in this case the USB satellite connection is a NIC).
Issue 3 - you need some kind of 3rd party NAT/Bridge software like Sygate to share the connection with the Mac. The built in (to Win2k, 98) Internet connection software won't work because it can't bridge different subnets. The USB conneciton is on a different subnet vs. a regular NIC. I don't think it can be configured otherwise. WinXP might fix that.
Bottom line: You need a PC with Windows to share the satellite with the Mac and even then the Mac will have inferior service vs. the directly connected PC. So a satellite service supporting Macs would be nice :)
I'm not sure I agree... (Score:3, Informative)
3) You're probably right except that home networks don't have different subnets. Or I should say, there's no good reason to have multiple subnets.
I think the primary problem with 2-way satellite service is that latency is so high that for the common things home users do (open up their home page of http://www.msn.com) its likely to be no faster than a dial-up connection.
Re:I'm not sure I agree... (Score:2)
192.168.5.x is my main arcnet segment.
192.168.6.x is my token ring segment.
192.168.7.x is my IP over localtalk tunnel segment.
192.168.8.x is my ATM/LANE segment.
192.168.9.x is my FDDI segment.
192.168.10.x is reserved for my IP-over-HIPPI segment.
192.168.11.x will be my 100mps token ring segment, should I ever find a MAU for it.
192.168.3.x contains various slip/ppp serial connections, including the tivo.
10.x.x.x is a cute little VPN I'm building for shits and giggles.
And since I don't feel like pouring through the rest of my custom init scripts, I won't even bother to look up the other segments that I have. Then again, maybe I should get rid of them all, because...
Or I should say, there's no good reason to have multiple subnets.
BTW, if you mean routing IP between eth and tr, then yes, it's simple. Bridging though, is probably impossible via software.
Re:I'm not sure I agree... (Score:2)
Re:Technical issues (Score:2, Insightful)
Basically, sustained downloads perform great on both server and clients, but individual images on webpages seem to only load one at a time, as if only one socket connection is being made at a time to the server to download them. Running multiple simutaneous sustained downloads also seem to suffer, but not as bad has normal http page element traffic.
If anyone knows what causes this or how to solve the problem without 3rd party software (SatServ [satserv.com] seems to work great), I would greatly appreciate it!
Re:Technical issues (Score:2)
Don't forget path packet size discovery... (Score:3, Insightful)
The satelite drivers are written to keep the high-bandwidth pipe full (i.e. you can put a lot of data in the air before it gets to the satalite and back.) Since various networks that carry TCP/IP (Etehrnet, ATM, etc) are based on different optimal packet sizes, so oyu generally probe your connection to figure out the what link is going to split your packets into the smallest size and then just send packets of that size.
I'd suspect that's why the Mac on a PC performs a lot worse than the PC in general - the ethernet packets that get sent to the PC probably get passed on as-is instead of reassembled into larger packets for the satalite link.
One huge packet with one header is obviously more efficient than one huge packet made up of lotsa smaller packets each with their own header.
As a junk hardware collector... (Score:4, Informative)
I mean, every time we wait for these fuckers, we end up losing. Maybe you need to decide to write it yourself? It's the only way to be sure it's done right.
PS Anyone that knows the pinout for the power on the DirecPC usb modem (mini-din 8), could you send it to me? I know it's gotta have 14v for the lnb power, in addition to 5v, but last time I tried to deduce this from looking at the pcb, it took me a day and I still fried the device.
well maybe (Score:2, Funny)
know better than to get in bed with mac users. they
tend to be the most pushy, clueless, demanding,
ignorant and zealous user community out there
always some screwed up issue
for the meager bucket-drop dollars from the pockets
of people for whom the concept of more than one
mouse button is overly taxing.
(mac linux users are excluded from this rant)
Re:well maybe (Score:4, Informative)
I worked the phones in tech support for quite some time for a major ISP. I hated having to get mac calls. Not because they were difficult to troubleshoot; macs are surprisingly easy to fix when there are network issues, and I always liked that.
But the users, as a general rule, were much much worse then PC users. The worst were the imac users. I have dozens of theories about why this is, but the only one I can come up with is mac users simply don't invest the time needed to really understand their own computers, or at least the time needed to properly opperate a PC, but instead just want everything to work right. When it doesn't it's the fault of whoever is on the other end of the phone.
This is not a bash of macs. Macs are so easy to troubleshoot, the computer literate mac user rarely needs to call tech support, so the support folks just get the worst of the worst.
Re:well maybe (Score:2)
And just what is wrong with this? I personally tend to push the limits of my computers in many ways and know the ins and outs of hardware and software, but my mother and my grandmother just want to be able to get email, surf the web and get photos and movies of the kids and grandkids. I would never dream of purchasing either one of them a Linux box or a Windows box. Rather I have always defaulted to the Macintosh because they don't have to spend time configuring settings. Macs just work.
The other cool thing about this is that OS X works for both my grandmother (It just works and is easy to use) and me (I can compile lots of data visualization apps originally written for our SGI's, crunch data in the background, use my workstation as a server, surf the web, run the latest versions of Photoshop and Office, listen to 40GB of music on iTunes and have the best system wide text anti aliasing ever on a computer all on one machine and all at the same time.
Cool.
Re:well maybe (Score:2)
There is nothing wrong with that. And if you don't quite understand your computer, you should by all means call tech support.
But the problem is mac users, again as a general rule, are just plain rude.
"Ok. in the upper left hand corner of your screen, you should see a little apple. I want you to click on that"
"There is no little apple in the corner"
"There should be, look again"
"I'm telling you, there is no little apple"
"I'm sure it's there. Take your time."
"I'm not some idiot. If there was an apple, I'd tell you"
(... continues for 15 minutes).
"Sir, I hate to say this, but I can't help you. I want to help you, but I just can't. If you don't see a little apple, either you have a different kind of computer or there is something seriously wrong with yours that we don't have the resources to fix"
"fine. I'll go into the den and turn the damn thing on"
This is not some rare funny story... this is typical of the mentality of a mac user who calls tech support.
Again, I'm not saying mac users are dumb, but the ones who use the support resources of a company, at least in my experience, sure the heck are.
Re:well maybe (Score:2)
I did my best to be kind and helpful regardless of if I knew the user was lying to me (I'm not in frount of my computer was a common one with mac users).
And yes, there ARE pc users who are like that too, but again, in my expereince, there is a much higher percentage of mac users who are more interested in being right then being helped.
This has nothing to do with being a newbie. If you don't know how to use a computer, there is nothing wrong with asking for help, espically when it's from someone who is paid to help you.
On the other hand, the person on the other end of the phone is in fact a person. If he or she is good at what they do, they will do everything they can to help you and treat you as a person. And if they are really good, they will still try to treat you as a person even when you are a compleate prick to them.
So, let me rephrase this. As a percentage of people who call tech support, mac users have more assholes.
Re:well maybe (Score:2)
I don't agree with your language here. You say Mac users don't "invest" the time "necessary." I think a more accurate way of saying it is that Mac users don't have to waste time learning about the internal workings of their computers. Macs, for the most part, just take care of themselves.
And, speaking as a moderately well educated and informed Mac user, when it doesn't work it is absolutely the fault of the person on the other end of the phone. I moved into my current home this summer, and decided to try AT&T's cable modem service. The required that I install some software on my computer-- an iBook, at that time-- before I could use my cable modem. I installed it, and it proceeded to send my computer into absolute shitfits. For some reason, it created a new logical network device with its own IP settings, and royally hosed my routing table. Evidently (as I discovered after literally tens of hours on the phone) they had never tested the software on a computer with more than one active network interface. When I installed it on my computer, which had both Ethernet and AirPort active, everything went to hell.
This was absolutely the fault of the vendor. They provided me with software that had not been adequately tested. Hell the default configuration of a Mac with an AirPort card is to have both ports active in the "Automatic" configuration. To think that AT&T would ship software without testing it on a machine with AirPort astounds me. Running it once under OS 9 on the Power Mac 7600 in the back room does not qualify as quality control, guys.
Naturally, I let the various people on the other end of the phone have it, then demanded a full refund, and fired them. They're lucky I'm not trying to bill them for the time I wasted on that fool's errand.
Anyway, back to the point: it absolutely was AT&T's fault. If it doesn't work under circumstances in which a reasonable person should expect it to work, it's the vendor's fault, and they should take responsibility for fixing it.
Re:you won't be reading this (Score:2)
The one thing that a customer must never hear from a technical support person is, "I can't help you with that." This is practically the textbook definition of customer service.
I'd kind of like to know how you managed to 'fire' them, though.
See, AT&T worked (at that time) for me. I was paying them every month to provide me with a service. No euphemisms are necessary here; I didn't "cancel my service," I didn't "opt out of my contract." I fucking fired them, right there on the spot. I told them, in essence, to clean out their office (i.e., to get their CPE out of my wiring closet) and get out.
This, also, is a fundamental tenet of customer service: the vendor (them) is employed by and works for the customer (me). The customer is the boss, and the vendor-- and all the vendor's staff, including and especially front-line customer support-- are employees of the customer. When they forget this, and say things like "I can't help you with that," I fire them and hire somebody else.
Starband (Score:2)
Irony is Ironic That Way (Score:2)
pulling ot: satellite usenet (Score:2)
In particular, I've been interested in a feed that pumps through something like a configurable cable modem or cable box that just jams articles over ethernet via the NNTP protocol to an NNTP server you specify. Then, any old NNTP server can be dual-homed between the sat and your LAN, and you just better hope you have lots and lots of disk.
Any takers?
i was once forced to use a sat connection.... (Score:2, Informative)
Your answer: Real soon. (Score:4, Informative)
The DW4020 is pretty much the standard DW4000 satellite modem boxen they currently sell, except it includes a third boxen that eliminates the need for a USB connection and presents 4 Fast Ethernet ports. Supposedly you'll also be able to buy this box separately to upgrade your existing DW4000.
Now the only question is when EarthLink will lower their monthly satellite service fees [earthlink.net] to match DirecWay through DirecTV [direcway.com]. I just dropped BellSouth in favor of EarthLink this past June and I'm not interested in changing ISPs yet again so soon.
No different than any other non-cross-platformies (Score:2, Insightful)
It likely boils down to a small group of Mac non-users legislating that "there is not enough of a market to compensate for its expenditure".
gung-ho? (Score:2)
Yeah, just like all the other people who don't do mac ports of their software. All bullied, yup.
Seriously though, the market for satilite internet isn't really all that big, you think they figure that maybe most mac users are urban and don't need it?
Copyright pending of course... :) (Score:2)
"i in the Sky"
ah-hahahaha! *this is the sound of one man laughing*
BTW I only own a flat panel iMac so don't be too mad at me...
Need custom stack, do it in hardware/firmware! (Score:4, Insightful)
Betcha this would be cheaper than creating and supporting software, too. They have to make the receiver/modem box anyway- so stick a router chip in there, and be done with it.
Direcway 4020... (Score:2)
http://www.skycasters.com/4020.htm [skycasters.com]
I bet this is a shot in the arm for sattelite services. Too bad it took them so long to figure this out.
That exactly what my company does (Score:3, Informative)
It more of a commercial service than a residential one, but we do exactly what you describe: the custom TCP acceleration is in the embedded box itself. (Although the real heavy lifting is done by a linux box on the ISP side)
We test with mostly Linux and Win2k, but apples should work fine over regular ethernet. Ne special software is needed to run a client site. Just plug and play (It also does DHCP and DNS-caching)
Look at http://idirect.net/ [idirect.net]
Its a pretty good programming gig, I get to work with gcc/cvs/all my favorites.
jmaiorana at idirect.net
We can provide Mac support *if* demand is there. (Score:4, Informative)
The company I work for, Spacenet [spacenet.com], is the second-largest business satellite ISP out there. We serve *business* customers who have large and small multiple (5-5000+) locations (retailers, food service, energy, financial, services, etc.).
If you have a *business* meeting these criteria and are looking for satellite connectivity that supports Macs, send e-mail to me [mailto] and I can push for Mac compatibility if there is significant demand.
Don't just say there is no corporate satellite ISP support for Macs and do nothing about it ... if you can genuinely justify large multi-site Mac satellite network support, I can help make it happen.
As a BSD guru-turned-Mac-guru myself, I would love to help this but I do need the numbers to prove it. Right now, we have almost zero requests for this, but an influx of REAL potential customers asking for this could make it happen. I would really, really like to make this available, but I can't do it by telling our MS-oriented development guys to do it without visible justification.
This isn't some random spam for business, this is a real request from a company's senior marketing staff to help build demand and make this happen. In your e-mail, please describe your multi-site business and its needs, and I can use this info to get Mac support for Spacenet's services.
Simple (Score:3, Informative)
Power consumption will become a cost issue so you might try a mini-itx box, which will only suck about 25 watts, but up front cost will be higher, on the order of $200 for a complete system.
You paid $2500 for your mac and around $500 for the satellite install what is another 200 bucks?
If you want the service, you have to solve the problem yourself. The bonus is, you can have as many computers using the connection as you want without paying the satellite company's per seat fee.
The only problem with satellite besides the cost is latency worse than a phone modem. your signal has to travel at least 46,000 miles round trip to a geosynch bird over the equator from the southernmost parts of the US. That's a 500ms ping time minimum.
So, running a mac on satellite is no problem technically if you consider an extra 200 bucks for installation fees independent of what your provider is charging.
The only time you will really notice the 500ms lag is in a game and, well, you are using a mac so that shouldn't be a problem either.
Apple should launch their own satellite (Score:2)
Re:Earthlink Satellite is USB only: why? (Score:3, Informative)
Most satellite Internet providers use a form of header-rewrite on the packets, routing everything back to your PC through their NOC. It makes for difficulties in setting up direct-to-router connections.
Re:A real life "switch" story (Score:2)
Honestly, 80% of problems with Macs running classic OSes are due to skankware being flung all over the system. Put some memory in that machine, and install OS X. Trust me... it's a world of difference, especially with modern devices like Digital Cameras...
Re:Something I understand even less (Score:2)
Regardless of the above poster's bigotry, what I see [and no, I'm not a satellite user] is an opportunity, a challenge - a chance to do some digging and question asking, as Untimely Ripp'd has done. Geez but it seems like so many people would rather rip someone else's choice of platform instead of offering up some helpful comments.Whatever happened to digging and scrounging for a solution?
Re:HA (Score:2)