Envisioning Satellite Internet

It is interesting to imagine all of the various signals that travel around the world, through the air and up into outer space. Just think of all the cell phone and mobile device signals seeking out towers and receivers. If these were something detectable to the human eye it would be nearly impossible to see anything else!

The same could be said of satellite signals too. There are many more satellites circling the globe than most people realize and they have hundreds of purposes. They might be a broadcasting device for radio or television; they could belong to a government agency or a scientific organization; some are even out of service. The fact is that there are millions of signals heading out into space each and every day.

What many people may not know is that a huge number of these signals “pinging” back and forth are actually Internet signals. This is because many people are opting to subscribe to satellite Internet service. This is due to many reasons, but the most common is that they have no other option but old-fashioned dial up services.

Does this mean people are just settling? Absolutely not! Satellite Internet has an average rate of speed measured at twenty times faster than a modem. This translates into huge amounts of time saved when surfing the web. How much time? If we take a common example of something billions of computer owners do on a regular basis, we’ll be able to make a good point. Let’s look at software updates.

Many people with high-speed connections will have to wait only a matter of minutes for a 25 MB update or upgrade to load and install, but a dial up customer with the standard 53k connection is going to have to endure over an hour of waiting before that update is finished loading.

Unfortunately they might also have to restart the process several times if their modem, or the software company’s server triggers a “time out”. Few high-speed connections ever get a time-out, and usually only when there is a problem with either the computer or the website. Dial up customers, however, get time out errors on a very regular basis.

So, satellite signals are faster and much more reliable, but how do they work? Well, a bit earlier we mentioned that if we could see the signals we would note that they head up into the sky and also come back down. That is exactly how the satellite Internet services function. Instead of a “one-way” conversation between the satellite and the home receiver (which is how satellite TV works), the Internet connection has a download and upload modem that allows the dish to conduct a “two-way” conversation between the computer and the Internet.

If we could actually see the signals in a satellite Internet connection we would be able to watch them head up from the dish mounted on the home or business and to the satellite. This signal would then head to the land-based hub that interacts with the Internet and sends the new signals to the satellite. Finally, this is sent back to the original computer user. Fascinatingly enough, this takes seconds and is an entirely secure and stable transaction.