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Teresannable
Participant
January 6, 2012
Question

adobe connect with satellite

  • January 6, 2012
  • 5 replies
  • 3690 views

Hi,

I teach classes using adobe connect.  We are thinking of moving out in the country to an area that can only get satellite internet.  Do any of you know if it is possible to use adobe connect with satellite?  I called the help line and asked but they could only say that they don't recommend it, but they don't really know.  The area has two providers, hughes and wildblue.  Anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks,

Teresa

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    5 replies

    Eric_Engelmann
    Eric_Engelmann
    Inspiring
    February 21, 2012

    I work for the World Bank, and we use Adobe Connect extensively for meetings with our 40+ country offices in Africa, almost all of which communicate by our satellite network. Where latency may be 40-50ms domestically, latency over satellite links can be well over one second (traffic from DC goes to Adobe in California, then back to DC, then submarine to Germany, then satellite link to Africa). One does have to be aware of this when doing screen sharing, but otherwise latency hasn't been a problem. Bandwidth is another issue. We have to share 2Mbps bandwidth among all applications and users in an office, and Adobe Connect will often not have enough bandwidth for smooth video, and even has audio problems on occassion. PPT and chat seem to work fine, and we always include a telephone number to call (telephone uses a chunk of reserved, QoS bandwidth) to deal with this.

    I
    Isabear08
    Participant
    January 9, 2012

    I just got off the phone with HughesNet because I signed up for a class that uses Adobe Connect.  I can connect if the class is prerecorded, but NOT if it's LIVE.

    Hughesnet told me it is not possible to connect to live things because of "Latency". Satellite has to go up and back to space, so there's too much lag time for a live class.

    Living in the sticks has it's perks, but easy fast and cheap internet is not one of them.
    Also, if I CAN get anything like a pre-recorded class, or god forbid a VIDEO, I will eat my DAILY download "allowance" before a 1 hour show is over. Download allowances are somewhere around 200-450MB per day.  Mention that to a gamer and watch them LAUGH.

    SIgh.

    Isa

    A
    Anonymous
    January 7, 2012

    Let's be clear about consumer satellite internet versus commercial and military grade. These are completely different worlds. Understand that Adobe Connect is designed for and sold specifically to corporations, governernment agencies and universities. In that light, most of the target customer set would be using commercial grade internet connections. However, some proportion of users would be on consumer grade connections like DirecTV (now HugesNet). Having supported HughesNet while I worked at IBM in this space, they have lots of different connection types for universities and enterprise customers. Most of these customers have selected speeds that will work with any web conference solution. Having been a customer of HughesNet there are several consumer grade speeds and it would be best to have the higher speed version. The US Goverment has their own satelite netwrok and they use Connect all the time that way. Now, that being said understand that satelite networks have a very large latency factor that will affect the quality of any web conference. Latency is not really a problem except when you try to share webcams, video or MP3 files via Connect. The military tries to minimize the use of these multi-media types because latency affects the quality of the video. It can get quite choppy no matter what web conference you use because of the video needing a lot of bandwidth back and forth.

    So. let the buyer beware but if you have no other option than satellite pay the extra dollars for the highest package you can get.

    Another option might be celluar 3G or 4LTE. Adobe Connect works great on cellular networks so don't forget to see if that is an option. Might not be if the data plans limit the traffic though!

    Hope that helps.

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    TeresannableAuthor
    Participant
    January 7, 2012

    Thank you to all for your answers.  Heyward, your response describing how the US gov't satellite internet not being the same as what, say, Hughes provides is very helpful.  I think I should only go with satellite as a last resort and pay for the most expensive package if it comes to that.  It may even be the case that we should avoid looking at houses that have this as their only option for internet.

    I did a little more asking around up where we're moving and it looks like there a couple more alternatives to satellite.  One is called Air Advantage.  This company has towers built in the area which broacast a signal. It's wireless internet--I think similiar to Clearwire.  I don't know how fast it is--they call it high speed.  Another choice is Frontier, (which someone told me has been bought by Verizon--don't know if that matters or not). It's DSL.  Their most expensive package touts "Up to 3.0 Mbps Downstream Speeds and up to 384 Kbps Upstream speeds." Do any of you have any experience with adobe connect and these kinds of internet providers?

    Thank you so much for all of your responses and help.

    I'm grateful.

    Teresa


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    focused_ZephyrB836
    Known Participant
    January 6, 2012

    Jorma is correct.  The higher the price, the better the speed...Wildblue has mixed reviews, that's for sure...Take a look at this provider http://www.hughesnet.com as they have some good offerings for those who don't have $$$ to spend on internet.

    Y
    yorkeee
    Participant
    December 19, 2013

    Ha ha, I agree Scott. Though I will say that I used to have Gen4 but then switched over to Blaze Wifi Exede (here is the address: http://www.blazewifi.com) because it was a better deal and offers a way better free zone and faster speeds. Believe me, I don't have a lot of money either so I have done A LOT of research on how to get the best bang for my buck!

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    focused_ZephyrB836
    Known Participant
    January 6, 2012

    Hi Teresannable,

    I have a few customers who use Satellite connetions for their Adobe Connect meetings today.  They are mainly Fire Departments, as they use a feed right from the truck and connect with a built-in laptop.  They use it to stream the video pod so they can capture activity happening during a fire for training purposes.  I am not aware of the service providor, but remember you can always adjust your room bandwidth setting to accommodate slower connections.  I also know that the DoD uses satellite connections as well.  Our support team would only be aware of these customers if they had issues, so it seems they are doing just fine.

    -- Scott

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    TeresannableAuthor
    Participant
    January 6, 2012

    Dear Scott,

    There is another teacher at our school who has wildblue and says it is not sufficiently fast enough for her classes, especially if it is windy.  She goes to the local library for class now.  But another teacher has satellite and is pleased with the quality.  I wonder if there are different levels of speed one can get if he pays a higher price, similar to the different levels of dsl that we have in our area now.

    Sprint has a strong signal out where the new house is.  Do you know anyone who uses a hotspot internet for adobeconnect?

    Thanks so much,

    Teresa

    Jorma_at_Knox
    Jorma_at_Knox
    Legend
    January 6, 2012

    Speed can depend on price (and satellite is not cheap). However it sounds like your instructor with Wildblue doesn't have the dish anchored down properly. Satellite Internet, in my experience tends to land somewhere between dial up and DSL, but can be affected by weather (like thunderstorms for electrical interference, and snow if it builds up on the dish). If you can accept a lower bandwidth/quality setting for the room and pods, then you should be able to make satellite work.

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