| America is a BIG place. Most Americans live in | | | | personal computer. Two-way systems utilize a |
| cities and small towns served by cable TV and/or | | | | more expensive dish and low power transmitter |
| DSL. But a sizable number of homes | | | | both to send and receive data to the satellite. |
| (approximately 20 million) are not served by | | | | Each system has advantages. |
| these traditional broadband providers. Internet | | | | For reliability and economy, the one-way systems |
| usage has skyrocketed due to the popularity of | | | | come out on top. Two-way systems utilize an |
| email and web-surfing. With the increased size of | | | | extremely low power transmitter and can |
| modern email, simple dial-up internet access is no | | | | experience frequent service interruption in bad |
| longer sufficient. Similarly, downloading complex | | | | weather due to "rain fade". Additionally, the |
| web pages (featuring flash animation and | | | | complex and delicate LNB transmitter must also |
| ecommerce capability) has caused high speed | | | | be pointed precisely at the satellite 22,300 miles |
| internet access to evolve into one of the 21st | | | | away, or the connection is lost. Two round trips |
| century's necessities. | | | | to the satellite doubles the latency (time-lag) as |
| Unfortunately, many cable TV and phone | | | | well. However, some users prefer giving up their |
| companies have delayed (or abandoned) plans to | | | | land based telephone connection to enjoy slightly |
| provide broadband to rural America. The reason is | | | | faster upload speed than dial-up, which is only |
| simple economics; there are too few customers | | | | possible with a two-way system. One other |
| to justify the large infrastructure build-out costs. | | | | consideration is the costly professional installation |
| Laying cable costs thousands of dollars per mile, | | | | and servicing required by the FCC for two-way |
| as a result, the majority of investment capital | | | | systems, whereas one-way systems are simple |
| bypasses America's low density population areas. | | | | enough to be self-installed. |
| The advent of satellite TV further stunted the | | | | Other technologies on the horizon could eventually |
| returns available to cable TV companies, as many | | | | provide broadband to rural America. Wi-Max and |
| potential subscribers installed satellite TV systems | | | | Broadband over Power lines await further |
| to receive multi-channel TV programming. | | | | development, and suffer from some of the same |
| As satellite TV provides one entertainment | | | | economic hindrances as cable and DSL. |
| solution for rural Americans, satellite internet | | | | Alternatively, some smaller communities have |
| provides another. There are two competing | | | | deployed point-to-point wireless systems, often |
| technologies in the marketplace: one-way and | | | | with government assistance. Unfortunately, high |
| two-way. One-way systems utilize existing copper | | | | build-out costs and trouble with line-of-sight |
| phone wires as a request path to the internet; | | | | connections plague wireless internet. For many |
| satellites relay the requested data at high speed | | | | rural Americans, satellite internet provides the only |
| back to an inexpensive home dish antenna. A | | | | affordable and available solution for high speed |
| special satellite modem decodes the signal for the | | | | internet access. |