I was going to post saying that latency would make VOIP impractical using a satellite connection, but found this post from 2006 on a satellite forum:
VOIP on Satellite internet?
Quote:
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Originally Posted by dbirdman
In the world I live in (mobile satellite internet), VoIP is fairly common. Latency is often thrown up as a huge problem, but in practice for many of us it is not a big issue. I remotely administer a business and its servers, and when I'm out of cell range, or in Canada where my cell minutes are outrageous, I've used VoIP for a few years.
All VoIP is not created equal. Both WildBlue and Hughes do things that make Vonage pretty much unusable (didn't used to be that way on Hughes - I used Vonage there until August of 2005 when it stopped working). WildBlue's partner in Canada, Telesat, does not do whatever it is that WildBlue does, and Vonage works fine.
Most of us that are not on very high end satellite like iDirect (where Vonage still works) use software-based systems. The best engine belongs to Crystal Voice, and their primary licensee is NetZeroVoice. Skype works reasonably well also. I use NZV with a USB-to-phone connector that lets me use my regular 5.2GHz cordless phone (doesn't interfere with my WiFi). |