Internet Speeds Explained
Our services are advertised with speeds such as ‘up to 30Mbps’ – however, it is wise to remember that the experience of this will not be comparable to the experience of using a 30Mbps cable internet connection. This is due to the difference between latency and bandwidth.
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Speed determines how fast an amount of data can be transferred per second. This is generally measured in megabits per second (Mbps).
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Delay determines how long it takes data to travel between the source and the destination. This is measured in milliseconds (ms).
All data and requests are sent from your satellite dish to the satellite in orbit and then from the satellite to the Earth station before reaching the internet, and then the reverse to complete a request. Due to the route that the data takes the latency associated with satellite internet is noticeably higher than the latency associated with cable internet. A typical cable internet connection will experience latency between 40-120ms, whilst a satellite internet connection will experience latency between 650-850ms.
So how does speed impact my browsing experience?
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You would click a link on a webpage and, after a noticeable delay, the web page would start downloading and show up almost all at once.
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You would click a link on a webpage and the web page would appear almost immediately, downloading all at once.
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You would click a link on a webpage and the web page would start loading immediately. However, it would take a while to load completely and you would see images load one-by-one.
Satellite internet connections implement web acceleration and TCP spoofing technologies to overcome much of the latency, along with the use of caching to allow webpages to load much quicker when you revisit the same webpage.
The higher latency of satellite connections will not impact actual bandwidth (speeds) received. For example, a satellite connection achieving 30Mbps download speed would download a file at the same rate as a cable connection achieving 30Mbps (assuming both connections were receiving identical speeds).