Analog Modems?

[Ben Scott]

On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 7:45 AM, Jerry Feldman<gaf at blu.org> wrote:
> The only solutions that I know of are:

  Well, there's also analog modems.  ;-)

  Hey, I know, he can borrow that circa 1964 acoustic coupler from the
YouTube video!  ;-)

> 1. Satellite.

  Anyone considering satellite should be warned of the latency
problem.  Internet via sat is delivered from geosynchronous orbit,
which is roughly 25,000 miles up.  The round trip distance approaches
100,000 miles.  At that distance, the speed of light becomes
significant.  Minimum RTT is around 600ms, and RTTs over 1 second are
common.  Forget anything interactive (SSH, VPN, games, VoIP, AJAX).
Even web browsing requires a special proxy system (often not Linux
compatible) to be usable.  It spoofs the TCP handshake and batches all
the page elements together for the return.

  For comparison, LAN is < 10 ms, cable/DSL < 30 ms, and even modems <
300 ms.  (Typical.)

-- Ben