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Communications The Internet

A Portable Satellite ISP in the Middle East? 59

Posted by Cliff from the a-net-connection-in-the-desert dept.
charyou-tree asks: "I'm a US Navy doctor deployed with the Marines in Afghanistan. I and many Marines have brought along our own laptop computers, but hooking up non-government machines to the network here is prohibited. Consequently, we're all stuck waiting in long lines for 15 minute blocks of time on a few designated 'morale' computers to send email home. What I'd like to do is set up a bidirectional satellite connection (like what DIRECWAY offers in the US), and then have individual computers hooked up over 802.11 - completely bypassing the Army network and its restrictions. In the sense that I'll be providing network access to other people I'll be an ISP, but I'm not interested in turning a profit on this. What other hardware and service provider options are there?"
"The absolute requirements are:

1) Needs function in Afghanistan and Iraq (since we expect to go there next)
2) Needs be reasonably portable
3) Needs be end-user installable
4) Some way to throttle bandwidth to individual users so one guy can't bog the whole thing down.

So far I've only found one bit of hardware (the Hughes Personal Earth Station) but no service providers; what else, besides 802.11 cards and an access point do I need? "
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A Portable Satellite ISP in the Middle East? More

A Portable Satellite ISP in the Middle East?

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  • Iridium? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jasoncart ( 573937 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @06:22PM (#9340244) Homepage
    Pretty slow at 2.4 to 10Kbps [iridium.com], and probably pricey. However - it is proven [platoonphone.com] for the uses you mention.
    • Do you realize that at 2400 baud, even vi is painfully slow ?
      It would be totally unreasonnable to share this connection with 10 or 20 people, even for email.

    • Re:Iridium? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      A friend of mine was based in Bosnia ten years ago and he used an analog modem over the satellite phone. It wasn't much faster than 2400 bps but he used Fidonet so all mail was compressed and sent in a batch. Seemed to work fine for him.

  • Look into amatuer radio? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ForestGrump ( 644805 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @06:22PM (#9340248) Homepage Journal
    Those guys are able to get a signal around the world...maybe you could get that and talk to your family instead...
  • I thought that this sort of thing was being frowned upon by the U.S. military in that part of the world? Just like the camera phone/email fiasco in Iraq?

    -psy

  • Two options: VIASAT or DIRECWAY (Score:5, Informative)

    by KrisJon ( 6582 ) * <mcbain7700@NOSPaM.yahoo.com> on Friday June 04, 2004 @07:12PM (#9340710)
    You have two options: Direcway or VIASAT.

    VIASAT [viasat.com] I have no idea on the expense, but that's what's powering your morale computers. It's the best solution you're going to find out there bar none. The ISP they're using is called Segovia [segovia.com], but there are other ISPs who will sell you access to VIASAT. The dishes are huge (6ft+), you need a SAT phone to engineer your link (three way call between your ISP and a VIASAT tech), and I think the cost will be prohibitive. But I don't know how crazy you want to get ;)

    While we were stationed in Iraq, we bought a Direcway system from one of the locals. It was about $3k for the equipment and another $300-400/mo for the service. But you're an officer so you can afford it ;) We got the Army to pay for it. If you're in Bagram or Kabul, you should be able to find a "local contractor" who will be willing to deal with you. Unfortunatly, most of them only deal in cash. You may be able to pay Segovia with a credit card...

    As far as your reqt #2: The dish is about 1.5 meters and the TX/RX assembly is about 2.5ft long. Hopefully you'll get a decent free standing base, but the better they are, the bigger they are unfortunately. The modem we had was three parts (TX/RX/net) each about the size of a normal cable/dsl modem. It was all 110/220 exept for the mini-hub they gave us which had a 220 only wall wart.

    3: You can use any of the numerous aiming programs out there. To see the signal strengths on the modem itself you need a F-F null modem serial cable, so either buy two of them and splice or get the appropriate adaptors. The menu system, once you connect is pretty self expanitory. Get your TX and RX to at least 90 and tighten your bolts carefully.

    4: You'll have to handle throttling yourself. Our system came with about 10 IPs, but we used a single IP as firewwall/NAT just to be safe.

    Service was OK. Your connection will likely hit the ground in Germany, so most slowdowns happen according to their timezone. You will have to be death on infections. A single computer (sans throttling) will completely dominate the connection. Good luck!

    • Re:Two options: VIASAT or DIRECWAY (Score:5, Informative)

      by charyou-tree ( 774046 ) <<charyou-tree> <at> <nym.hush.com>> on Saturday June 05, 2004 @12:12AM (#9342435)
      While we were stationed in Iraq, we bought a Direcway system from one of the locals. It was about $3k for the equipment and another $300-400/mo for the service.

      This sounds about in line with a system we're looking at from a UK company - Bentley Telecom [bentleytelecom.co.uk] sells a hardware package for about $1700 (1.2 m dish & receiver) plus about $300/month for a business class 512/128 connection.

      If you're in Bagram or Kabul, you should be able to find a "local contractor" who will be willing to deal with you. Unfortunatly, most of them only deal in cash.

      The problem with using a local contractor is that when we move, we can't count on them to come to us. (And we want to use the same system in Iraq next year.) We want to buy the hardware, pay for the service, and do everything else ourselves.

      3: You can use any of the numerous aiming programs out there. To see the signal strengths on the modem itself you need a F-F null modem serial cable, so either buy two of them and splice or get the appropriate adaptors. The menu system, once you connect is pretty self expanitory. Get your TX and RX to at least 90 and tighten your bolts carefully.

      This is the only thing holding us up. Realistically, how hard is this? I'm not an engineer - while I'm fairly computer literate (longtime Linux user, competent c programmer, able to set up firewalls & web proxy servers, etc) I have never pointed a dish in my life.

      Is this something that I, as a "pretty smart" guy, can reasonably expect to do? The disastrous scenario in the back of my mind is that we plonk down $2500 for everything and can't figure out where to point the dish. The comm guys at our (battalion) level don't have experience with this sort of thing. I have their blessing and encouragement, but I'm on my own.

      Which of the aiming programs do you recommend?

      4: You'll have to handle throttling yourself. Our system came with about 10 IPs, but we used a single IP as firewwall/NAT just to be safe.

      I'm not too worried about this. We have few enough users that I think an informal courtesy policy, coupled with voluntary use of download managers that can throttle speed (like GetRight), will work OK.

      Service was OK.

      Anything that works consistently at speeds over .5K/s will be light years ahead of what we have now. ;-)

      Many thanks for your input.
      • 4: Throttling:

        I almost want to say use something like Netlimiter (netlimiter.com) to use for your bandwidth limiter on each computer. Have them each set a limit on the Global download/upload speeds, and that'll take care of all sorts of traffic (including BitTorrent, Kazaa, Web, and any other application running locally on your computer.)

        It's only for Windows, though... and not usable as a bandwidth shaper for a single computer sharing the connection out (I know, I've tried).

        As to dish pointing:
        Got a com
      • Locals would be hard to re-establish service with when you went to Iraq later.

        Aiming the Direcway system was quite easy. The guy who came over was able to get it to about 75/75 without even a compass or inclinometer. The menu system isn't too complex and you can ask the place you buy it from for a setup guide (and a F-F null-modem cable ;). He was able to get it to 90/90 just by us yelling at him from across the roof. The hard part is keeping it >90/90 as you tighten the bolts down. Sometimes you have t

  • Considered INMARSAT? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Daniel Wood ( 531906 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @07:12PM (#9340712) Homepage Journal
    I don't know the prices, but INMARSAT offers a 64kbit ISDN over satellite connection. Not the best response time, but it is a good solution for web surfing and e-mail, I got to try it out when I was at Fort Gordon last year. To my knowledge, you're not going to get better than 64kbit from something designed for a Maritime solution. Not sure on the prices either.

    You might be better off working a deal with your onboard Satcom crew for a 64kbit internet stream. Not sure how much you guys normally pull, but I think if you do have a satcom crew, you guys are usually pulling 384k.

    I'm not sure how things work in the Navy, but in the Army, we Satcom guys always have our own dedicated internet separate from everyone else with our own laptops. Talk to them, mabye you can work something out.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @07:30PM (#9340824)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Thank you (Score:3, Interesting)

    by knightPhlight ( 173012 ) <nate AT nottingham-tech DOT com> on Friday June 04, 2004 @09:16PM (#9341587) Homepage

    I'm a Marine and am damn thankful for the things you and your Corpsmen do for us. Believe me, I wouldn't be humping around the country side with only a 9mm.

    You are welcome to my DirecWay dish (parabolic.. about 2' x 3') and the RX/TX unit (a DW4000). See the dish [direcway.com]. The dish weighs 80lbs approx. Aiming the dish is usually done by a professional installer with a special signal strength meter. Anyone have a good POC for getting one of those? Little yellow device IIRC.

    I don't have the DW4020 (right model number?) which has the built-in router so a Windows machine would be required as the RX/TX unit is USB with no available OSS drivers. A headless mini-ITX machine would be perfect. It could do bandwidth control and NAT/DHCP as well. I've run this same setup (albeit stationary) without any trouble. Download speed is great but capped to 169Mb per four hours (see more detail [copperhead.cc]. Upload is good enough for email and the all important pr0n.

    As long as the motor pool would allow it, it could be mounted to the side of a hummer or 5 ton very easily. Setup/takedown would be minimal. It's bright white so motor T may need to donate some paint as well. Might be a bitch getting cami netting over it.

    Can the rest of Slashdot see any problems or offer any other help?

    • Re:Thank you (Score:4, Interesting)

      by mlyle ( 148697 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @01:51AM (#9342814)
      Unfortunately, your dish will not work. The direcway satellite is in geosynchronous orbit over the equator, at a longitude/antenna pattern that works well for North America; Afghanistan is literally on the other side of the world.

      I wish the submitter luck-- unfortunately, it's going to only be served by little LEOs (expensive service offerings) and regional geosynchronous providers that we're not familiar with here in the states. It's a shame that the military doesn't have a little more infrastructure for morale for everyone who's putting it on the line for us.
      • I've seen Direcway (as resold by Bentley, which I believe was mentioned above) used aplenty in Iraq. So clearly it's possible outside of North America. As to whether their footprint covers Afghanistan, that I cannot answer.
    • ...what exactly are you guys doing over there?

  • swe-dish? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ptudor ( 22537 ) on Friday June 04, 2004 @10:12PM (#9341842) Homepage Journal
    Would anything from SWE-DISH [swe-dish.com] help out? I remember reports from new organizations about it last year. Pretty much it has 1M satellite on one side with 10/100 rj45 Ethernet on the other, in a suitcase.

  • "I'm a US Navy doctor ..." (Score:3, Funny)

    by unitron ( 5733 ) on Saturday June 05, 2004 @01:08AM (#9342668) Homepage Journal
    "...completely bypassing the Army network and its restrictions."

    Oh yeah, no interservice rivalry problems forseeable here. :-)

  • We're supposed to be in Iraq teaching them how to be more like us, right?

    Well how about this: figure out a way to buy the equipment. Buy it yourself, organize donations, get the Army to pay for it, whatever.

    Give the equipment to locals who would like to run a business.

    Let them charge money to serve coffee and Internet access to American soldiers.

    The bonus is that the more people you set up in operation like this, the lower the prices get, and the shorter the lines get. And you've taught them how to be A

  • Hardware here (Score:3, Informative)

    by Webmoth ( 75878 ) on Sunday June 06, 2004 @12:06AM (#9348330) Homepage
    You might look into these guys [lastmilegear.com]. They provide ISP-grade wireless network hardware (Cisco Aironet, Motorola Canopy, and their own Cyclone products). The Cyclone products are based on the Motorola Canopy, but are environmentally hardened. They've pushed the limits of the technology; I heard they recently did a test where they were able to get a signal at 125 miles.

    DISCLAIMER: I don't work for Last Mile Gear, and won't get any commission or kickback; but they are business associates of mine.

  • IP service: http://regionalbgan.inmarsat.com/

    very portable.

    "How much does Regional BGAN cost?
    The satellite IP modem costs about the same as a notebook PC, with costs for transmissions in line with GPRS roaming tariffs."

    144Kbps
    • I would also suggest looking at Inmarsat BGAN.

      If you are mainly interested in email also look at UUPlus [uuplus.com] software. Basically their software sets up a POP3 server on your local network that stores and compresses your outgoing mail until you next connect to the satellite. When you do connect it forwards any incoming mail and sends your outgoing mail. They are priced very reasonably and it is definately worth the money you save on SATCOM charges (you can really rack up a big bill fast with Inmarsat). We use

  • Also look at a Tachyon solution www.tachyon.com
    Don't know about pricing, but they have coverage in the area, and unlike some of the other names mentioned, they focus on data....at broadband speeds....

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