VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) is a satellite ground station that is less than 3 m tall (that’s less than 10 feet). These are most commonly seen being used as a receiver for satellite television, such as those used by companies like PrimeStar and Dish network satellite dishes. The data range only goes from about 56 Kbs (think dial-up) to 4 Mbs. These VSATs access satellites in geosynchronous orbit to relay data provided from small Earth stations to other stations or terminals.

These can be used to send narrow band data or broadband data from one point to another. An example of narrow band data may be something like a sale transaction from a credit card. An example of broadband data may be satellite internet information, or perhaps VoIP or something similar in terms of data transmission.

This technology is utilized by some of the satellite internet providers around the US, such as HughesNet, StarBand, and WildBlue. This alternative is typically used by people who can’t access DSL or Cable becuase of where they live. For any of you wondering, satellite internet is not a very good choice for playing online games with due to the latency. It may even be better just to stick with dial-up if you are planning on primarily playing online games (such as FPS or other action games).

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Availability - These services are available to a large amount of people due to satellite signals stretching quite a long distance.
• Homogeneity - The connection speeds should be about the same between all of the different users that are accessing the satellite(s) via the VSAT.
• Security - The signals sent out use private layer-2 networks for security when sent over the air.

Cons:

• Latency - Because the signal has to travel from the provider all the way to outer space to the satellite and then all the way back from outer space, this leaves a minimum of about 500 ms of lag between the two points. This makes online gaming somewhat of a nightmare.
• Adverse Conditions - If the weather is cloudy or stormy, then expect to have quite a few lost signals and connections. The signals traveling from space tend to be scattered when too many things (clouds, rain, other atmospheric conditions) get in the way.
• Encryption - When using a VPN, the added encryption can confuse the sending and receiving process that the satellite uses when decoding the packets, which can slow everything way down.

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