I like my Hughes Internet access:

1) The router must be 192.168.0.1. Sorry if your company VPN is addressed in 192.168.0.0/24. Sorry if you have any other device that also must be 192.168.0.1.

2) The router must do DHCP. Sorry if you want to do DHCP for internal machines on a subnet. Sorry if you have any other device that also must do DHCP.

3) The router's DHCP must assign the entire available range of 192.168.0.2 through 192.168.0.254. Sorry if you need any of your machines to have both Internet access and a stable IP address. Sorry if you have any devices that can't do DHCP, since there is no address you can give them.

4) It offers both transparent and non-transparent web proxies. Except if you use the non-transparent proxy, the router crashes. Maybe that's why they don't tell you about the non-transparent proxy. (The transparent proxy has 500-800mS extra latency because you have to do DNS before you can even start making a connection.)

5) The DHCP server crashes, which can only be fixed by power-cycling, which takes about 10 minutes.

6) You cannot set a password on the router. Anyone who can reach your local network can reboot your router.

7) You can't add any local routes to it. So if you also have another local network, you can't (easily) use it to give those machines Internet access. If any Internet addresses are in fact local, you can't make the satellite router's clients access the local machines directly.

But the really big WTF is that Hughes is providing metered Internet access (250-500MB per day depending on the plan) to a world (well, at least a country) that is simply not set up for metered Internet access. Do you have any idea how many MB you transfer in a typical hour of browsing? Neither do my kids. Neither do friends who ask to use my wireless Internet when they come to visit.

Them: Can I use your wireless Internet on my laptop/iPhone/whatever while I'm at your house?

Me: Sure. About how many MB do you need? I can easily spare about 80MB or so. But if you go over about 120MB I'll be busted down to dialup speeds for a day. Is 80MB enough?

Them: Huh?

Me: [20 minute explanation]

Them: Forget I asked.

 Metered access seems normal here.  Their rules list it as per month, but who knows how the regulate it internally.  Just be happy they only bust you down to dialup (although dialup woud have less packet loss than I have), rather than billing you an extra $100 or more.

 I'm unaware of any effective way to regulate it either.  The internet is suited for per-second control, not per-minute, per-hour, per-day, or per-month.

 Why even bother with an account with them?

My advice: Buy a decent router with proxy support. Cable from modem/router to router WAN port. DMZ to decent router. Configure decent router. Tada.

[offtopic]

morbiuswilters:

Farmer Brown is MasterPlanSoftware. He created a new forum account because he is obsessed with me after I scorned him. Ignoring his trolling is the best way to deal with the crybaby.

How did you figure out that?

[/offtopic]

Just give them a few years and Hughes will have dumped the business.  They used to make all kinds of things, like terminal servers, and since they were part of the GM family for a while everyone had to buy those POS things.  The only way to change the adderss fo it was to take the top off, and pull a chip for 5 minutes, then power it back up and configure the whole thing from scratch.

Then a year to or two latter they got out of selling them, leaving zero support.  A year later, Hughes makes an access control system, think card swipes, gates, doors, etc.  Again everyone is forced to buy from within the family, then they dump it with again no support.

dtech:

 Why even bother with an account with them?

My advice: Buy a decent router with proxy support. Cable from modem/router to router WAN port. DMZ to decent router. Configure decent router. Tada.

 

Maybe he lives in West Virginia where the only thing heard over squeling pigs is dueling banjos and all he can get is satelite.  I lived in a town like that before once.  It was either excrutiating slow 28.8 dial up or satalite.

amischiefr:

 

dtech:

 Why even bother with an account with them?

My advice: Buy a decent router with proxy support. Cable from modem/router to router WAN port. DMZ to decent router. Configure decent router. Tada.

 

Maybe he lives in West Virginia where the only thing heard over squeling pigs is dueling banjos and all he can get is satelite.  I lived in a town like that before once.  It was either excrutiating slow 28.8 dial up or satalite.

One could also possibly get T1 service from local telco, split cost and connection with neighbors via 802.11a/b/g/n and cantennas.  See what the local school has -- chances are they've already got a T1 contracted with the local telco through state funding.  I'm sure the local telco would be happy to put in another one they could actually charge someone for.

dtech:

 Why even bother with an account with them?

My advice: Buy a decent router with proxy support. Cable from modem/router to router WAN port. DMZ to decent router. Configure decent router. Tada.

AMEN, brother.

 that needs the world's largest sarcasm tag. seriously though, it sucks to be you. i know that's a harsh assessment, but it's true.

dtech:

My advice: Buy a decent router with proxy support. Cable from modem/router to router WAN port. DMZ to decent router. Configure decent router. Tada.

Also, setting up a local DNS cache might help with the latency.  Of course, it would be better to get the non-transparent proxy to work, but it's a decent substitute.  And, of course, both would be better yet.

dtech:

How did you figure out that?

I suspected it from the beginning (as did most people, since Farmer Brown was a troll asshole who was obsessed with me).  However, the IP addresses from Farmer Brown's posts was matched up to MPS's which proved it definititvely.

I wound up putting the Hughes router behind a Linux box that imposes sanity on it. I've quarantined it so it doesn't spread its evil.

I am lucky that I also have an ISDN connection. Low bandwidth, but also low latency. With a little cleverness on the Linux box, I can route my high-bandwidth stuff to the satellite and my low-latency stuff to the ISDN. I can even play first persons shooters online.

So it sucks that I don't have DSL or some civilized Internet access, but I'm lucky that I'm not stuck with just the satellite. (DNS goes over the ISDN, of course!)

Their router has a built-in caching nameserver with a very clever feature -- they can broadcast the most common DNS entries periodically to pre-populate everyone's DNS caches. I just checked my router, and it is (as it always is) pre-populated with precisely zero entries.

Other cool features include it rebooting to install software updates -- whenever it feels like it. Sometimes it will cut off the last few bytes of a large transfer, all of which counts against your usage limit whether you get to finish it or they cut it off.

I should, in fairness, mention one other thing. Transfers do not count towards your limit from 3AM to 6AM Eastern time. So if you do need to download something large, you can download just over 1GB/day that way. You can also go to bandwidth heavy websites and browse your heart out.

morbiuswilters:

 However, the IP addresses from Farmer Brown's posts was matched up to MPS's which proved it definititvely.

Good thing thedailywtf is not hosted in germany, where doing that could be illegal. Nobody really knows, so it really depends on the judge. Can you spell "Banana Republic"?

morbiuswilters:

I suspected it from the beginning (as did most people, since Farmer Brown was a troll asshole who was obsessed with me).  However, the IP addresses from Farmer Brown's posts was matched up to MPS's which proved it definititvely.

Definitely off-topic, but weren't you guys like best buddies ?

If you're a programmer, I strongly advise you to cajole an encrypted flash drive and a copy of your preferred SDK out of the company and work on your own PC. If you're responsible for network maintenance, I strongly advise you to move house.

heltoupee:

One could also possibly get T1 service from local telco, split cost and connection with neighbors via 802.11a/b/g/n and cantennas.  See what the local school has -- chances are they've already got a T1 contracted with the local telco through state funding.  I'm sure the local telco would be happy to put in another one they could actually charge someone for.

I looked into doing just such a thing when I lived in a rural area like that.  They were going to charge me ~ 2 - 4k to come out and install the lines to the house(s).  I didn't feel like paying that much for internet :)

Juifeng:

morbiuswilters:

However, the IP addresses from Farmer Brown's posts was matched up to MPS's which proved it definititvely.

Good thing thedailywtf is not hosted in germany, where doing that could be illegal.

Some jurisdictions say IP addresses are private data on a rough par with bank details, whereas others say they're more like your postcode. Either way, it's not totally conclusive; for all we know MPS has just moved house or rented out his spare bedroom.

Jake Grey:

Some jurisdictions say IP addresses are private data on a rough par with bank details, whereas others say they're more like your postcode.

Welbog:

Jake Grey:

Some jurisdictions say IP addresses are private data on a rough par with bank details, whereas others say they're more like your postcode.

What horrible confusion of ideas leads to someone believing the former?

bstorer:

Being German, apparently.

 Last time I checked, satellite internet had priced itself so high, that it was cheaper to MLPPP together 2 - 4 dedicated phone lines, including ISP and telco costs.  And, you got way better latency with that many lines... and the speeds, while they *shouldn't* be faster, sometimes were.  :-(  Don't forget that it's unlimited.

 So, theoretically, @ $20/month/line for telco + $10/month/line for ISP:

 4 x 53 kbps (HA!  Let's pretend here):  212 kbps @ $120/month.

Satellite, $20/month for the telco + satellite ISP costs + $300 in equipment + $ + $ + $.  I'd love to know what you pay, and if it beats dialup yet.

(Yes, I had satellite at one time, via Telstar 5 using a 10 foot antenna, but it was a decade ago, and it was under $60 a month -- last I checked it was now over $100 a month.  ~500 kbps was the norm through it).

Nelle:

Definitely off-topic, but weren't you guys like best buddies ?

Well, not really, but I was okay with him and generally defended him against the trolls who seemed to follow him around.  However, things have become much quieter since he left.  He's still in the IRC channel, but in the last 2 months or so he has become oddly obsessed with me and my life.  He's also devolved into blatantly spamming flamebait in the channel when he is pissy about something and I guess now has also decided to troll the forums again to "get revenge" on those who wronged him.  I think he's pissed off at me because I didn't quit in protest when he was banned, but he ended up handling the whole thing so immaturely (spamming the forums with a script until he was banned for good) that I really couldn't defend him any longer.

Oh well, it's all retarded anyway, I just wanted to warn people to stop responding to his trolling since it is evident he has only come back to derail threads and create flamefests.

Welbog:

Jake Grey:

Some jurisdictions say IP addresses are private data on a rough par with bank details, whereas others say they're more like your postcode.

What horrible confusion of ideas leads to someone believing the former?

Spectre:

Have you never heard of private IP addresses?

I'm familiar with the concept, though I couldn't tell you how to set one up; the point I was trying to make was that in certain jurisdictions, circumventing the means of making them private can theoretically land you in jail. Emphasis on 'theoretically', one suspects.

Jake Grey:

Spectre:

Have you never heard of private IP addresses?

I'm familiar with the concept, though I couldn't tell you how to set one up; the point I was trying to make was that in certain jurisdictions, circumventing the means of making them private can theoretically land you in jail. Emphasis on 'theoretically', one suspects.

He was joking...

Even if there is some legal stupidity in the world that would make it illegal to reveal an IP address of a client, we can all agree it is stupid, which is the point Welpog was trying to make.

heltoupee:

amischiefr:

 

dtech:

 Why even bother with an account with them?

My advice: Buy a decent router with proxy support. Cable from modem/router to router WAN port. DMZ to decent router. Configure decent router. Tada.

 

Maybe he lives in West Virginia where the only thing heard over squeling pigs is dueling banjos and all he can get is satelite.  I lived in a town like that before once.  It was either excrutiating slow 28.8 dial up or satalite.

 

One could also possibly get T1 service from local telco, split cost and connection with neighbors via 802.11a/b/g/n and cantennas.  See what the local school has -- chances are they've already got a T1 contracted with the local telco through state funding.  I'm sure the local telco would be happy to put in another one they could actually charge someone for.

Now imagine dealing with the tech-dumb users of the community using the single connection.Who manages it? Who collects the money from everyone? Does anyone get a service outage if they don't pay? Do you want to act as tech support? Do you want to be the security administrator as well? What if one of them gets a virus that uses up most of your internet bandwidth to send spam (i've seen it happen to a store where one computer was killing the internet connection of the entire store with spam mail). Do you REALLY want to manage this?

morbiuswilters:

Nelle:

Definitely off-topic, but weren't you guys like best buddies ?

Well, not really, but I was okay with him and generally defended him against the trolls who seemed to follow him around.

This whole notion of "following people round" is strange and confusing to me.  This is a small board with a limited number of active threads at any one time, of course the same people are going to bump into each other all the time - assuming it's some kind of "following" just seems paranoid to me.

morbiuswilters:

However, things have become much quieter since he left.

morbiuswilters:

He's still in the IRC channel, but in the last 2 months or so he has become oddly obsessed with me and my life.  He's also devolved into blatantly spamming flamebait in the channel when he is pissy about something and I guess now has also decided to troll the forums again to "get revenge" on those who wronged him.  I think he's pissed off at me because I didn't quit in protest when he was banned, but he ended up handling the whole thing so immaturely (spamming the forums with a script until he was banned for good) that I really couldn't defend him any longer.

astonerbum:

Now imagine dealing with the tech-dumb users of the community using the single connection.Who manages it? Who collects the money from everyone? Does anyone get a service outage if they don't pay? Do you want to act as tech support? Do you want to be the security administrator as well? What if one of them gets a virus that uses up most of your internet bandwidth to send spam (i've seen it happen to a store where one computer was killing the internet connection of the entire store with spam mail). Do you REALLY want to manage this?

Lingerance:

astonerbum:

Now imagine dealing with the tech-dumb users of the community using the single connection.Who manages it? Who collects the money from everyone? Does anyone get a service outage if they don't pay? Do you want to act as tech support? Do you want to be the security administrator as well? What if one of them gets a virus that uses up most of your internet bandwidth to send spam (i've seen it happen to a store where one computer was killing the internet connection of the entire store with spam mail). Do you REALLY want to manage this?

Wouldn't setting up a small business allow for most of those issues to be solved, of course, the tech only works part time, and someone else could be the manager. Also it makes more sense as you can just setup a policy to control what can a can not happen. Spamming? Enjoy your 10kb/s connection until you fix that. Frequent abusers can enjoy a null-route to their IP from the routers, just make sure you give them voip phones too.

We installed a firewall on the client's network, so that any computer acting suspiciously would be locked out from the net. We also set up all access through a squid proxy, with access rules (client also wanted to blacklist porn sites). Surprise! No more botnet/malware traffic!

DaveK:

This whole notion of "following people round" is strange and confusing to me.  This is a small board with a limited number of active threads at any one time, of course the same people are going to bump into each other all the time - assuming it's some kind of "following" just seems paranoid to me.

I'm referring to people who only post to troll specific users.  A few users (like Lysis) used to do this to MPS and MPS has since done it to me (as Farmer Brown).

DaveK:

Maybe some of us were just quicker to see through him than you were.  TBH the forty-five page flame-war threads with Swampy should have sounded a warning to anybody.

I never followed that crap, really.  I always know MPS was a bit of an asshole, but I'm a bit of an asshole so I figured it was okay.  However, I'm not an insane asshole: I'm an equal opportunity insulter and I don't really care enough about this stuff to obsessively stalk someone, as MPS has decided to do with me.

DaveK:

morbiuswilters:

He's still in the IRC channel, but in the last 2 months or so he has become oddly obsessed with me and my life.  He's also devolved into blatantly spamming flamebait in the channel when he is pissy about something and I guess now has also decided to troll the forums again to "get revenge" on those who wronged him.  I think he's pissed off at me because I didn't quit in protest when he was banned, but he ended up handling the whole thing so immaturely (spamming the forums with a script until he was banned for good) that I really couldn't defend him any longer.

Maybe some of us were just quicker to see through him than you were.  TBH the forty-five page flame-war threads with Swampy should have sounded a warning to anybody.

I paid $300 for installation and $80/month for service. I am limited to 450MB/day, not counting the three hours that are unlimited. My download speeds are typically round 120KB/s and peak at about 190KB/s (my claimed service is 2Mbs down max, I think). Browsing the web is *way* better than dialup, as is downloading email or other large chunks of data. Playing games that are sensitive to latency on satellite is impossible. Cable and DSL are way better, but it's way better than dialup unless all you care about is games.

morbiuswilters:

I'm referring to people who only post to troll specific users.  A few users (like Lysis) used to do this to MPS and MPS has since done it to me (as Farmer Brown).

DaveK:

TBH the forty-five page flame-war threads with Swampy should have sounded a warning to anybody.

bstorer:

morbiuswilters:

I'm referring to people who only post to troll specific users.  A few users (like Lysis) used to do this to MPS and MPS has since done it to me (as Farmer Brown).

So now you need to do it to Lysis, and the circle will be complete.  It's the circle of trolls!

ur trol, fgt 

amischiefr:

 

dtech:

 Why even bother with an account with them?

My advice: Buy a decent router with proxy support. Cable from modem/router to router WAN port. DMZ to decent router. Configure decent router. Tada.

 

Maybe he lives in West Virginia where the only thing heard over squeling pigs is dueling banjos and all he can get is satelite.  I lived in a town like that before once.  It was either excrutiating slow 28.8 dial up or satalite.

At my dad's house in upstate NY, it's 24Kbit max.   Apalling.

morbiuswilters:

I always know MPS was a bit of an asshole, but I'm a bit of an asshole so I figured it was okay.

I know, I know.  It's terrible, there's no solidarity amongst assholes any more.  Kids these days, 'tcch.

bstorer:

morbiuswilters:

I'm referring to people who only post to troll specific users.  A few users (like Lysis) used to do this to MPS and MPS has since done it to me (as Farmer Brown).

So now you need to do it to Lysis, and the circle will be complete.  It's the circle of trolls!

Physics Phil:

DaveK:

TBH the forty-five page flame-war threads with Swampy should have sounded a warning to anybody.

But those threads were entertaining enough that they were legitimate. He started out as a bit of a well-intentioned extremist (and he was a lot better than TubeRodent and CPound), but got more and more trollish.

belgariontheking:

DaveK:

TBH the forty-five page flame-war threads with Swampy should have sounded a warning to anybody.

Hey those threads were fun!  in a "beating up the elderly" kinda way.

DaveK:

Well, or you could say that he's a vulnerable and mentally ill man who suffered an episode of breakdown into florid psychosis under the pressure of massive social ostracism, bullying and abuse, if you wanted to look at the other side of it.

joelkatz:

I paid $300 for installation and $80/month for service. I am limited to 450MB/day, not counting the three hours that are unlimited. My download speeds are typically round 120KB/s and peak at about 190KB/s (my claimed service is 2Mbs down max, I think). Browsing the web is *way* better than dialup, as is downloading email or other large chunks of data. Playing games that are sensitive to latency on satellite is impossible. Cable and DSL are way better, but it's way better than dialup unless all you care about is games.

I was tempted to tell them that we were unable to make the signals go at FTL speeds. Maybe I should've brought Dr. Strangelove for an explanation?

danixdefcon5:

I was tempted to tell them that we were unable to make the signals go at FTL speeds.

I'm not sure that's quite accurate. As far as I'm aware, the only satellite of Earth far enough away that light takes an appreciable amount of time to travel there is the Moon; the actual cause of the hold-up is more likely to be packet losses from interference. Still not something you can do a lot about, of course.

BUZZZZZZZ. You have no idea what you are talking about. Do the math. Or deal with a system on an off shore oil rig that has a sat. link. Or listen the echo on a phone call over sat.

Okay, do you want to tell me exactly where I'm going wrong here? Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. A typical communications satellite is fewer than a hundred miles from the planet's surface. I think it safe to say that c is not the bottleneck here, at least not in the very literal way Dani was implying.

Jake Grey:

danixdefcon5:

I was tempted to tell them that we were unable to make the signals go at FTL speeds.

 

I'm not sure that's quite accurate. As far as I'm aware, the only satellite of Earth far enough away that light takes an appreciable amount of time to travel there is the Moon; the actual cause of the hold-up is more likely to be packet losses from interference. Still not something you can do a lot about, of course.

 It's pretty accurate, you have to do the math. Speed of light is  299792458 meters/second. A geostationary orbit for a satellite is at around 36000000 meters,and the radio signals of course travel at the speed of light, so:

  36000000 m / 299792458 m/s = 0.120 s or 120 milliseconds per trip. Since you need 4 trips to start a request, that is about 480 ms of delay between the first request and the first packet back, 

 Usual ping times for satellite are about 500-1200 ms

calloatti:

 It's pretty accurate, you have to do the math. Speed of light is  299792458 meters/second. A geostationary orbit for a satellite is at around 36000000 meters,and the radio signals of course travel at the speed of light, so:

  36000000 m / 299792458 m/s = 0.120 s or 120 milliseconds per trip. Since you need 4 trips to start a request, that is about 480 ms of delay between the first request and the first packet back, 

 Usual ping times for satellite are about 500-1200 ms

It's twice these numbers because one "trip" is an up to the bird, then a down back to earth.  That mean just to get that first SYN packet to a server takes close to 240ms.  And this of course is best case if you were directly under the sat. Your slant range distance is even longer.

Your problem was thinking a few hundred miles, it's 22,000 or so miles for geo sync.

PG4:

It's twice these numbers because one "trip" is an up to the bird, then a down back to earth.  That mean just to get that first SYN packet to a server takes close to 240ms.  And this of course is best case if you were directly under the sat. Your slant range distance is even longer.

Your problem was thinking a few hundred miles, it's 22,000 or so miles for geo sync.

The slant range is negligable.  Most satellite Internets use tricks for speeding up browsing that bypass the latency-sensitive parts of TCP.  However, yes, it ultimately will take approximately 0.473 seconds just for the round-trip radio communication with a geosynchronous satellite.  Of course, there are plenty of lower orbits that can be used for much faster communications, but those cover less distance and require more power for omni-directional transmission and hence are more expensive.