Satellite Internet...

So just moved to Havana, FL. And the only provider I've found is Dish Network.

My latency is so high with them, 700m/s or so It's almost impossible to play the game, seeing as there is a 2-5 second delay on anything.

Does anyone know any solutions to boost my speed? Aside from getting something else.. Comcast, Century Link, Att and Verizon so far all do not cover my area..

Halp!

Probably should focus on why you get up to 3.6 secs local delay.

anyway satelit Internet has always had horrible latency issues compared to line i don't think three is much to fix.
Maybe you can reduce some latancy by mtu resizing.
Might wanna google that (I cant remember atm how to do it)

A 2 second latency is standard for Satellite internet. Consider the fact that every command your client sends to the server has to go up to space and back down to the servers on Earth.

I switched from Satellite to a cellular WIFI hotspot via Verizon. Saving a lot of $$ per month and it is infinitely faster.

Have you tried Charter? Earthlink maybe? I'm just name-dropping.

I'm surprised that you don't have cable option.

I used to live WAY out in the middle of nowhere, and I got cable there...

This is your best bet. If you're still grandfathered into an old Verizon or AT&T unlimited data plan, I'd recommend rooting/jailbreaking your phone and using it to tether, if that's an option. Considering it sounds like you live in the bum *** of no where, you might not get signal. :/ I'd give it a try at least though, much cheaper and faster than satellite.

I live in an area with terrible network coverage myself, and about 1.5 years ago, Altius Broadband moved into the area and added towers with long range wireless broadband connections. Considering at the time my options were satellite, dial up, or trying to tether my phone (though the signal went in and out too much for that to work well, worked in a pince to check a website though), I was thankful for it. The tech is pretty bleh though. I'm on a "broadband" connection that maxes at about 130 kbs, random patches of no service, a link dead every 5-120 minutes or so for about 15-20 seconds, etc. There's a whole host of problems, and it's rather expensive, but considering the alternatives (for where I live) it's the best I can get.

Not certain if such an option is available down there, but might be something to look into. They're not really advertised, and if I hadn't been involved with their competitors, I wouldn't of even known they existed.

See if Clear Wireless is available for your area also.

Chances are, if you're connected to a server overseas, you're hitting a satellite anyway, the technology itself is the issue.

I had satellite a few years ago when i still played on console and i lived in a house in the woods. I paid like 80$ a month for crappy internet that took 20min (normally) to connect from a reset and went out when there was even the slightest cloud coverage. I have never been so happy to use dial up when i switched, it felt like cable in comparison for ffxi. I still played on ps2 at the time so lack of broadband wasn't an issue. I just remember trying to solo when pup first came out and each maneuver having 3-5 delay on it. Eventually i was able to get dsl but I'd never use satellite internet again. There isn't much you can do about it that's just how it is.. super high ping.

I was able to play ffxi relatively well with a cellphone tether, sounds like that might be a better option for you than satellite. lol

Continents are connected by various wired networks via Trans oceanic lines.



It's very rare for any communications to use satellites on a server end. Satellites are mostly end user solutions for areas where standard communications aren't in place or for things where latency isn't an issue(tv).



Com satellites are in geosync orbit 22,223 Miles away. This is what accounts for the delay since these communication signals travel at the speed of light, it does take a small bit of time to travel the 44,446 mile minimum round trip. This means it takes ~.24 seconds to travel or 240ms. Though this is absolute minimum for the transmission signal you'd have to add on delay from your computer and any switches or other networking equipment you have, the satellite receiving and rebroadcasting the signal, the ISP recieving the signal, sending it along to a backbone, then sending it along to it's destination. I want to say that most satellite has an average latency of about 1000ms to around 1400ms. This is mostly dependent on the technology used and it has been a few years since I saw any numbers. So that you're getting 700ms is really nice for satellite actually and probably means you're on a "newer" system.

Ironically though, you'd have less lag time with dial-up... But obviously that has it's own problems.

For comparison, my round trip ping to most sites is about 17ms. I don't recall what I get to SE's actual FFXI servers but I'm sure it's a decent bit more. I have "crappy" TWC and live in texas so it does have a little travel to go.

A tethered cell is a good idea if you can get a decent signal in that area. It has a bit more latency than you'd get from broadband but it's an order of magnitude better than satellite.

For your zip code I see these ISP's listed:

Mediacom communications corp.
AT&T
Verizon (phone network)
Sprint (phone network)

However these providers may not have coverage in your exact residence. You may try calling them and see what options you have.

reminded me of this:

:-)

I play via cellphone tether as well. I was on the edge of cell phone coverage and had 0-1 bar. I put up a cell phone booster and now i have full bars in my house. I tether on a iphone, in 3g coverage i get 180-200kbytes/s and 100-140 ms ping. Running 2 copies of ffxi atm and ping'd google.ca for 140ms avg.

I lived in a forested area for 5-6 years with no ethernet access, and in the early years I thought there was no other choice than using satellite broadband. For normal internet usage that we do these days, it's three times as slow as normal broadband, and companies like Hughesnet, which I was using, will throttle your usage until the end of the month. It frustrated me so much to the point of frustration that I had to find myself going to my dad's house at the time for my online gaming fix.

That's when I found salvation in one of Verizon's Mobile USB Broadband Modems that i used strictly for FFXI. Depending on the reception, it worked pretty decently. However, when I was doing it with Verizon, they put a stop to the 5GB plan for new subscribers, but I got lucky when I was told I got grandfathered into that service plan. They have a few service plans, but they're probably a lot more limited than the plan I got.

It also depends on how much internet you use, it can get pretty expensive if you're over your data usage. My bill was usually an average of $220, and this was pretty much before wifi hotspots became a thing. In this case, I would personally go with the Cellphone Tether idea, since I imagine it's similar to using a Mobile Broadband Modem and...does goes with your phone plan? I've never tried it personally. Or, like I mentioned, this:


Any of those are better than Satellite Broadboand...

...way better...

...oh god. the horrors. The horrors of the latency!

THEY'RE COMING BACK!!

GODDAMN IT GET AWAY FROM ME HUGHESNET! I DON'T WANT YOUR SERVICE ANYMORE! D:<

...erm. *ahem*. Yeah. Take it from someone who's been in your position before.

This for an interim fix.

Also every satellite service I know has bandwith metering. Deadly.

Shortly after I started playing XI I had to move out to the corner of nowhere... I played decently on dial-up for months. For general playing, it works okay. ~120ms ping (to google) so it is faster latency wise. You get a bit of delay on some actions especially if you are in crowded areas. It gets BAD at that point. Back then I hadn't ever done any endgame so I couldn't tell you how bad an ally of people was but lower jeuno back in the day was a place I avoided.

It disconnected me every 4 hours on the dot and rain or wind would also cause disconnects and spikes in latency/packet loss.

Turn off anything that that uses internet at all. Windows updates, applications, everything. A single thing tries to use internet at the same time and you can say hello to a 5 sec lag on every action.

I can guarantee your not doing any such thing. Time / bandwidth on birds is expensive as f*ck. Using them for unicast traffic is horrifically uneconomical. Global communication does not happen via satellite though the movies always make you think that. It happens via undersea cables that go from country to country and make up the backbone of the internet. There are several gigantic ones that go underneath the pacific ocean from Japan to the USA.

http://theterramarproject.org/thedailycatch/fiber-optic-submarine-cables/

http://submarine-cable-map-2013.telegeography.com/

When that earthquake happened in Japan is really f*cked up regional communication out here. Most of our communications rides on those and the entire region had to reroute through the China and Europe. Internet sucked until they could get the subs out there to fix them.

Yeah Dish caps me at 10gb a month data usage anytime, and 10gb from 2-8am...

Anyone know how much data a single instance of XI uses in a month? So I can get an idea what dual/tri boxing will cost me?

Also, my roommates phone gets full 4g service (ATT) can I jailbreak it and use that? Or will that use the data plan?

That will come out of the data plan.

Anyone know how much data FFXI uses in a single day?

I get about 12MB downloaded for 3 hours of ffxi but it really depends on what going on in the background too.

Does only download data effect data caps? Not uploaded?

no, but they could be separate limits depending on your service. either way you're using their service.

Sorry for saying this, but since you *just moved* I would consider just moving back again lol.

In this day and age living with such communications limitations is akin to living in an area without electricity in the 50s.

On satellite, FFXI uses about the same data as normal until about a week after and then it drops off abruptly to 0 because the user has taken the dish sharpened the edges and played a friendly game of Frisbee with the local ISP's CEO.

Shouldn't that say "Eurasia" or is the humor in this image derived from its hypocrisy?

Continents.

Europe isn't cut in half in that map, Asia starts from the Ural mountains to the pacific ocean, and is cut in half.

:P

</nitpick>

There is a statement about FFXI not even working with satellite internet on the SE account online handbook thing. Something about the architecture not handling packet loss well and hence crashing the game or causing frequent d/cs. I stumbled upon this while looking for internet at my new place and I myself have been through hell and back just to get a shitty 6 megabit connection from AT&T. Sometimes the lines just aren't there. I've had cable for years and it spoiled me. The cable lines stop 5 poles from my house and they said it would cost upward of 10 grand to finish them. A drop in the bucket when buying a house here but unfortunately I'm just a measly renter :/