How do we get internet in Russia without a phone line?

[MaxxumUSA]

Ok...

My Elena lives in the heart of Samara - so getting internet is not a problem.

Elena is coming here soon and I want to provide her parents with Internet at their home which is in the outskirts of Samara.  The homes are very old and do not have telephone lines.  The only way to add telephone lines is for all 10 neighbors to all agree that they will install these lines.  Chances of this happening is slim to none.

What other ways - if any - could her parents get Internet?  I prefer broadband to dial up speeds so that they could communicate with webcams - which was my initial thought.

Any and all ideas and experiences appreciated.

[Daveman]

Great question David... I don't know the answer, but I am very curious about it as well.  What options are available in Russia or Ukraine? 

Related but a little sideways from the topic:  Also, I wanted to ask you personally... when you carry your internet phone box to Russia, does it really work as advertised.. that you can place/receive calls "locally" to/from the US via that connection?  I apologize if you've already answered this.. I simply can't remember and can't find the thread again.

Dave

[Rvrwind]

There is a satellite provider here, SkyLink , I believe is their name. You buy a special box with an antenna & a phone & it up links you direct to their satellite. They claim it is highspeed but I doubt it is as fast as broadband but hey, I could be wrong.
I do know it is a little more expensive than the regular lines & that you pay by the MB just like I do & video chats can get costly. So keep that in mind.
Anyway it is available in Russia, so it don't matter where you live as long as you got electricity to keep the battery charged, your cookin'!! 

[BC]

If someone has broadband nearby, line of sight, consider a wireless bridge.  A couple of directional antennas and you can probably span 1km or so.

[MaxxumUSA]

Thank you RVR,

Can you get the contact information for me and post it here when you get time?  This would be valuable I think for others.  I will search also and post it if I find it.

Daveman...

http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/index.php?topic=4300.0

And for the record... that post was after/during my April visit.  I visited again two months later in June...  the quality was MUCH better.  From caller ID on the cell phone I can tell that skype bounced my April calls from norway to russia.  In June they started using both norway and a number out of Moscow to bounce.  I think they take a millisecond or two to test which bounce has the best quality.

I know I'm not explaining it 100% properly - but you get the idea I hope.

My April visit I was losing calls coming into my cell about 4 out of 10 calls.  In June I only lost about 1 out of 12 or so.  Skype is improving and expanding services at a fantastic rate.

[Ste]

Trouble with satellite internet is the latency. It will play havoc with your pings on Call of Duty 3 and u'll never be first to the Agility Orbs on Crackdown.

Your keystroke is sent up to the satellite, down again at the other end, up again, and back down to you. How high up is satellte? I've no idea but all this adds up to 2secs latency.

Prolly doesn't matter for browsing but for things like telnet and ssh, you type a character and 2 secs later it appears!

So it's rubbish if your a Unix-head....

[Rvrwind]

I have the info at the office Dave as we were going to use them but managed to find a better deal with highspeed over the phone line. At home I have broadband cable but unfortunately even here in Tver it is not available in all parts of the city   go figure.
I'll post what I have but it will likely be just info for Tver as far as contact info goes. But if you have the proper name you can probably do a search much easier & I may actually have their website addy already, not sure.
I'll see what I got & get back to you here.

[Kuna]

Have a look at www.newsat.com.au.

I understand they have a relatively affordable sat BB product that covers much of FSU and they "apparently" do cute things to combat the latency issues.  I've heard of people running Citrix sessions without problems and I know they have a VoIP product.

No idea on cost but when I looked it up before I was surprised because it was less expensive than I expected...

Kuna


EDIT:

I've just had a look at their coverage maps and it seems they "may" take in southern parts of Russian and some of Ukraine but many people in Russia will miss out. If you're in Odessa YOU ARE IN!

If interested I guess you could mail them though..

The pricing looks VERY good...

[Rvrwind]

Check it out Dave, but you may need to brush upon your Russian, sorry...
www.skylink.ru

[Ste]

and they "apparently" do cute things to combat the latency issues.  I've heard of people running Citrix sessions without problems and I know they have a VoIP product.

Not much u can do about latency, but I believe there are low earth-orbit satellites, mainly used by the military without the huge latency.

Cost tho.

When I used satellite, it was one way, dialup up - satellite down, two-way was expensive, things changed?

[MaxxumUSA]

I did go to school for engineering...  So I do know that the signals we send via electronics pass at the speed of light, but there are bottle necks that slow this process down.

My question is:  I thought voice telephone conversations were sent over satellites.  If this is instantaneous, would not Internet communications be the same?

What about VOIP?

Does this mean that most all internet connections - say for instance from USA to Russia - are all on earth?  Hmm...  Now that I think about it - it must be.  I have never heard of a server or router located in space.

Cool.  Learn something new every day.

What about voice telephone communications?  Same principal as Internet with no satellites?

OH... and a big question...  does anyone have a satellite telephone?  Maybe tigerpaws?  Is there latency?

Hate to turn this into TOO MUCH of a technical thread...  but I love learning.

- Dave

[TigerPaws]

Yes we have a satellite telephone and it is internet capable at about 9600 baud (if we are lucky) as for the voice latency, yes it is like a short pause.



We have 2 satellite antennas, this is one of them.

TigerPaws

[Randy]

I did go to school for engineering...  So I do know that the signals we send via electronics pass at the speed of light, but there are bottle necks that slow this process down.

My question is:  I thought voice telephone conversations were sent over satellites.  If this is instantaneous, would not Internet communications be the same?

What about VOIP?

Does this mean that most all internet connections - say for instance from USA to Russia - are all on earth?  Hmm...  Now that I think about it - it must be.  I have never heard of a server or router located in space.

Cool.  Learn something new every day.

What about voice telephone communications?  Same principal as Internet with no satellites?

OH... and a big question...  does anyone have a satellite telephone?  Maybe tigerpaws?  Is there latency?

Hate to turn this into TOO MUCH of a technical thread...  but I love learning.

- Dave

Dave,

You can actually thank the .com crash for VOIP.  Everyone put in fiber expecting to get rich.... the companies that bought it at 10 cents on the dollar after the crash are where the .12 calls to the Ukraine came from

You might enjoy reading "The World Is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman.  I don't remember the page number or the exact quote but that is one of the things he talks about.

Randy