VoIP for Deployed Soldiers? 362
rickbassham asks: "With VoIP really catching on these days, I decided to look into it for keeping deployed soldiers in touch with family and friends. I am currently a soldier in Iraq, and have the ability to get satellite-based internet, thanks to a few of the locals. While individually it is prohibitively expensive, a group of soldiers can come together to purchase a decent-to-high-speed internet connection. One of my plans is to link other soldiers to Vonage or another VoIP provider, so they will be able to keep in touch. Understanding the latency issues with VoIP via satellite (not to mention the other disadvantages), what upload speed does Slashdot recommend as a minimum for a QoS enabled connection for about 15-20 soldiers? The same for a non-QoS connection? What recommendations do you have for a good VoIP provider?"
Satellite Internet has horrible latency, never min (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Don't know where this guy is stationed but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Shouldn't this be supplied or something? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Boy when I was overseas things was different! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shouldn't this be supplied or something? (Score:2, Insightful)
Go ahead, mod me troll.
Re:Don't know where this guy is stationed but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't know where this guy is stationed but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Something is really, really wrong with this picture.
$1 per minute? Sheesh. That's obscene.
Calls home should be free. Perhaps limited (or everyone would spend their time on the phone), but free.
Re:Skype (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Don't know where this guy is stationed but... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Don't know where this guy is stationed but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't an American soldier a foreign soldier in Iraq?
I've done it with Starband (Score:2, Insightful)
Speed of Light (Score:3, Insightful)
Think of what you see when you're watching someone on the news "live" from somewhere via satelite. There is at least a full 1-2 second delay before he/she responds to a question. Thats the speed of light delay causing that, you've hit a brick wall of physics.
You may still use VOIP - and the quality will not be bad - but dont expect any kind of normal telephone experience. You (and the people you talk to) could get used to a kind of walkie-talkie VOIP experience that may be the best.
Re:Don't know where this guy is stationed but... (Score:3, Insightful)
I do often find it amusing hearing American officials talking about how there have been hordes of foreign fighters infiltrating Iraq and creating conflict. Or more recently, hearing American officials condemning Syria for occupying another country (Lebanon) without the people's support.
Re:Don't know where this guy is stationed but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't know where this guy is stationed but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't give these soldiers too much credit for being security-minded, most of them are 18 year old kids, fresh out of high school and straight out of the boot camp. The internet is one of the best and worst things for soldiers to have access to. I'd hate to be a military sysadmin.
Re:Don't know where this guy is stationed but... (Score:2, Insightful)
BTW: If you honestly think soldiers are out there 'for their country' you have another thing coming. All that I know have went there so they don't have to pay for college. Sadly, they timed it wrong and now they have a 1 in 75 chance of getting killed (current rate of mortality in Iraq). Others have went just becuase they can't get any other job.
Seriously, it's their choice to be out there fighting, why on earth do they need to be treated like heroes? I'd understand if it was conscription, but it isn't.
Re:Don't know where this guy is stationed but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Something is really, really wrong with this picture.
$1 per minute? Sheesh. That's obscene.
Calls home should be free.
I have nothing but respect for these courageous people - understand that before you flame. However I feel obliged to point out that sadly they are not exactly putting their lives on the line for their country. Iraqi soldiers and policemen are putting their lives on the line for their country - and frankly so are the "insurgents". These fine U.S. soldiers of which we speak are in fact putting their lives on the line for the current administration's own geopolitical goals, which is not the same thing as fighting for your country.
All that having been said, it actually adds weight to your argument. If these guys are effectively fighting for someone or something other than the defense of their lands and families then surely they should be extremely well compensated. I wholeheartedly agree with you that calls home should be provided free of charge by the financiers of the campaign.
Instead they're overcharged by corporations that shouldn't really be involved in the campaign in the first place.
You must be doing header compression (Score:3, Insightful)
Your point that you'll probably already be on satellite is right on. People like to quote 150ms numbers about the maximum latency they'll accept, forgetting that the world's fairly far around, and while VOIP's a little bit sensitive to latency and adds a small amount of delay, the big delays are just unavoidable physics and the human ear's willingness to work around it. As long as you've got echo suppression / cancellation, the excess latency is a bit annoying but nothing killer.
Re:Don't know where this guy is stationed but... (Score:4, Insightful)
My favorite was this guy who said he would never shoot someone because he's a born again Christian. When I told him he better start firing if ordered to, he said he still wouldn't do it. I wasn't sure to laugh or cry. Fortunately he was an Air Force dude so he would probably never be put in the position to have to shoot anyone but it still irked the shit out of me that this guy was living a lie (I guess that's a perfectly Christian thing to do) and was in my fucking unit.
I actually joined the military because I wanted to server my country. Of course, I'm still no hero because I was fortunate enough to not have to go into combat.
"Seriously, it's their choice to be out there fighting, why on earth do they need to be treated like heroes? I'd understand if it was conscription, but it isn't."
Being forced into the military makes you a hero? That makes no fucking sense to me. Volunteering to get your ass shot at seems much more heroic to me (or stupid depending on your viewpoint). Being forced into combat just makes me feel sorry for you.
Our society is too obsessed with heroism. The people who are real hero's don't ask for fame or priviledge. Too bad our media has such a desperate need to call anything wearing any kind of uniform (military or civilian) a hero. It's devalued the term to the point of having little meaning.
Sorry for the off topic response, but I wanted to get this off my chest.
Re:Pray I don't fucking find you, asshole (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Don't know where this guy is stationed but... (Score:5, Insightful)
These fine U.S. soldiers of which we speak are in fact putting their lives on the line for the current administration's own geopolitical goals, which is not the same thing as fighting for your country.
I disagree. The soldiers may or may not agree with Bush's goals, but I still believe they are fighting for their country. They're fighting to answer their country's call regardless of the reason the call was made. They're fighting for freedom and many of them no doubt beleive that being in Iraq is a part of securing American freedom--your answer to that or mine aside. They're fighting for their families and their children. They might be in Iraq because of Bush's geopolitical goals, but ask the individual soldiers what they're fighting for and I think you'll get a different picture.
That said, bending the soldiers over on calls home is indeed despicable. I really have a hard time believing that with all the awesome technology the US military has--and all the R&D funding at their disposal--that they can not come up with a good, secure, cheap communications system to let a soldier in Iraq tells his parents he's still alive.
Re:Don't know where this guy is stationed but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do you find it relevant to point out that the abused detainees were alleged violent rioters? Was it proven in a court of law that they were violent rioters? Would that justify the abuse they suffered?
Re:Don't know where this guy is stationed but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? I'm surprised that it isn't higher. I mean, suppose France invaded the U.S., imposed the
Napoleonic code and parliamentary government, outlawed
the Republican party, and imprisoned George Bush
for war crimes, after killing 2.5% of the population
(7.325 million people) and bombing NYC and Chicago
into rubble. How many French people would consider
U.S. resistance attacks on legionaires to be justified?
Re:Don't know where this guy is stationed but... (Score:3, Insightful)
> 6 months from now, if you were to look back at what you just typed, you'd see it's
> as wrong as predictions of slaughter of the allied forces.
I predicted no such thing; if you'll recall, it was the ones who thought that Iraq had WMDs that were predicting mass allied deaths. In a FAQ that I wrote at the timeon Iraq myths, concerning the myth "Saddam is developing weapons of mass destruction", I stated "Unlikely", and cited as counterevidence:
20) Federation of American Scientists: http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/missile/index.
21) Federation of American Scientists: http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iran/missile/index.
22) Sydney Morning Herald: Oct 3, 2002: "Butler accuses US of nuclear hypocrisy"; http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/10/03/1033538
23) Washington Post: Sep 19, 2002: "Evidence on Iraq Challenged"; http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36348-2
Washington Post: Jan 24, 2003: "U.S. Claim on Iraqi Nuclear Program Is Called Into Question"; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35
24) Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Mar 1991, Vol 47, No. 2, pp 16-25: "Making the bomb"; http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1991/m91/m91alb
The Federation of American Scientists: "IAEA and Iraqi Nuclear Weapons"; http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/nuke/iaea.htm
Furthermore, I stated elsewhere that the invasion would go like it did in Afghanistan - a couple weeks to a couple months - and then we would declare it some huge victory and most people would buy into it. However, that the Iraqis (apart from the Kurds) were distrustful of the US government and its motives (like the rest of the Arab world) and would resist the US occupation as the Palestinians were doing to the Israelis. It seemed pretty predictable to me; what idiot wouldn't see this coming?
On The Other Hand, go read posts from a conservative forum like FreeRepublic.com (or listen to quotes from the Bush administration, Defense Policy Board, etc) as to what the invasion would be like (according to the Bush admin plans, we were supposed to be down to 40k troops a year and a half ago), after being greeted by flowers and causing a cascade of democracy and peace in the middle east, after siezing Saddam's vast stockpiles of WMDs.
Gee, who got it right? About the only thing that I got wrong was how long it'd take for Saddam to get captured - I thought they'd get him a lot faster. I also didn't see the looting coming - what horrible mismanagement.
Re:Don't know where this guy is stationed but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Prisoners of war are to be treated as such, as agreed to in the Geneva Convention. Prisoners of war are enemy combatants that often have simply had the poor luck of being born in another country. Even regular prisoner should be treated fairly and justly, instead of being humiliates and tortured.
Being subjected to torture is simply unacceptable, regardless what TV series like 24 would have you believe. That some of the americans stationed in Iraq could not fathom this is testament to the depravity of the situation.