Sharing satellite connection

[erictietze]

We are getting ready to relocate our office. We currently have a single user DSL account ran through a Linksys router and shared to all of our computers.

Our new location can't get DSL, so we are considering satellite service (probably Starband). I am curious if I can run this through my router to share to my computers. My other option would be to create a Windows based server and use WinProxy or Internet Connection Sharing to share this connection across my network.

Does anyone have any experience with this? If so, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[svermill]

I don't see why that wouldn't work, but I've never used a Linksys router. Will your satellite ISP provide you an IP dynamically? If so, can the Linksys accept that, or does it require a hard-coded IP? Apparently it does NAT, since your already using it for your DSL connection. In general, just try to ask enough questions so that you know what will change when you switch services. That way, you'll know if the router is going to be flexible enough.

Regards,

Scott

 

[hexn]

The Lyman Brothers company can give you remote satellite internet access, and you can throw as many PCs on there as you like, or get as many public IPs as you want.

And they have very good prices.

Its worth a phone call anyway.

http://www.lymanbros.com

(801) 501-9090 (ask for Bob)

 

[spaceguy]

FYI - I just head that Starband is on the verge of going out of business, though I have not confirmed this.

I recently moved from an apartment with DSL through a Linksys router to multiple PCs and a Mac - it worked great. In my new house, I currently have DirecWay satellite internet at home for personal use and am in the process of looking into an industrial strength solution that will work with my company's VPN. Unfortunately, the DirecWay system connects to a PC only by a USB interface - not Ethernet. For my home network, we use a Windows XP machine as a gateway and share through a Linksys router to a Win 98 machine and a Mac using Internet Connection Sharing (ICS). It's S-L-O-W on the Win 98 and Mac machines - though I have heard that by tweaking some WinXP registry settings, you can open more TCP ports for ICS to speed things up. I have not tried this yet to see how to do it.

Also, if you are interested in a VPN solution, try looking at the DirecWay Business Edition or Skycasters:

http://be.direcway.com

http://www.skycasters.com

 

[glenn1956]

I just signed up with this group so you may already have an
answer to your question, but no , you cannot use a router
on a starband system. The modem is pc configured and must be hooked up directly to the pc. You can run a router after this pc or use ICS.

 

[santeeelec]

I am a current starband suscriber, and they will almost refuse to talk to you about sharing. They always refer me to winproxy, which I was very dis-satisfied with after having to uninstall and reinstall for every little problem. My host machine was always so much slower than my client machines when browsing, and they could not fix that problem. I finally unistalled winproxy. I assigned a static ip to my server. On my server I went in the lan properties of internet explorer and checked the proxy server option and entered LOCALHOST and port 9877. I then went to all of my client machines and went to the same place and check the proxy option and put in my ip address of my server and the port 9877. My internet works fairly decent. I still have connection issues with sites that are real secure and sites like kazaa(P2P). My setup will have to do until dsl or cable is available in my area, b/c our dialup is absolutely horrible.

 

[algernonsidney]

DirecPC won't talk to you about sharing either.

Chris

 

[tetaguila]

if u r talking about satellite that uses service unit(SU) the linksys router will work, because the termination is rj-45, here in Philippines i have seen a lot of set-up using linksys adsl router......

 

[1MonkeyBoy1]

Spaceguy,

It looks like you've used the same setup I'm looking for info on. W/the router, you went out from the ethernet card of the host PC, correct? Which port did you use (WAN, UPLINK or common port)? Were there any other special settings you needed to adjust?

Any help ANYONE can offer would be greatly appreciated.

 

[rhubarbtwo]

I'm interested to follow this thread as I want to do the same either with Windows 2k or Linux. Also, will Kazaa not work via a 1-way satellite system?

 

[PeterHurst]

From bitter experience be very careful with VPN over satellite. The latency on the BT service (and I'm told several others) is much too large for interactive traffic (Terminal services, web).

Technically it can be done - I did it, but the only useful things I could do were out backups and large file transfers.

The round trip delay on BT is around 800ms just to get to Germany - where the satellite comes down. Then you need to get back to blighty. Ask very probing questions before you splash the cash.

In answer to rhubarbtwo Kazaa flattens BT boxes.. they don't seem to like all the UDP.

 

[gdog1]

Hi,
I just got DirecWay 2way service (700/50kps) - version 4.0.3.9. DirecWay is related to/ owns DirecPC??

I'm using 3 computers - 2 W2K and 1 WXP. DirecWay installs via USB on PC, so I used Internect Connection Sharing (ICS) between the 1 host and the 2 clients. DirecWay online Help even shows you how to do this.

Configuring Linksys:
I configured the router BEFORE enabling ICS. Logged into the Router and disabled DHCP server, and changed the type to Router from Gateway (on the Advanced Tab) . (It appears that the ICS host computer acts as a DHCP server.)
All 3 computers go into the Linkysys BEFSR41 common ports 1,2,3,4 - not the WAN or UPLink ports.

Firewalls:
This works great so far - the only problem is that my free ZoneAlarm firewall will not work on the host computer - (it works great on the client computers). ZoneAlarm help docs say that the Free ZoneAlarm does not support ICS, upgrade to ZoneAlarm PRO. Good a Reason as Any to Get the PRO, I suppose.

Good Luck!

 

[spaceguy]

1MonkeyBoy1,

For my setup, I have the DirecWay modem connecting to a Windows XP box (the USB connection). I have ICS configured for that network interface.

Then I have the WinXP box connected to the LinkSys router using Ethernet (normal router/switch port - NOT the WAN port). This PC is used for basically just as a gateway to the satellite connection.

Then I have a Mac and another PC connected to the router/switch over Ethernet. All computers on the network are set up with static IP addresses. For the network settings in the Mac and 2nd PC, I had to specify the IP address of the WinXP box as the gateway, instead of the "normal" method of using the IP address of the router as the gateway IP.

My setup sounds very simlar to the one mentioned by gdog1.

Some other side notes:
* I had tried using LimeWire (similar to Kazaa) on the Win 98 PC, but it just seems to lock up the XP "gateway" box.
* Browsing the web, checking email, etc. is V-E-R-Y slow, but downloading large files is quite fast.

Hope that helps.