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I am planning a vacation to a destination that will not allow me to have cell or Internet service. I play a role in my organization such that in an emergency situation, my availability is of some importance. As such, I'm considering renting a BGAN satellite for the week. Like this one (http://allroadsat.com/inmarsat-satellite-internet)

Has anybody out there done this? I'm looking for a little help figuring out bandwidth requirements. I'd like to plan for 4 hours of use with an RDP connection over an IPSEC tunnel.

I'm thinking 50MB might be cutting it a little close. What do you guys think?

bdeetz
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2 Answers2

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If my math is right, 50MB of usage over a 4 hour period works out to about 27.8Kbps of usage, which is in the general range for an RDP session (albeit a little on the low side in my opinion). My suggestion would be to find out what the overage penalties\fees are first, then if you have to use it make sure to set the RDP client Experience settings to Modem (56Kbps) and make sure to disable local resource redirection (printers, drives, clipboard, etc.) unless you absolutley need to have them enabled. I would also recommend installing a bandwidth meter on your laptop (I'm assuming you're taking a laptop) and launch it whenever you connect to the internet to keep tabs on your usage.

joeqwerty
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As joeqwerty says, using a dial-up modem will probably be a lot les painful - and you can try it out today.

I've no experience with the service you are looking at just now, but I've known several people who have been very disappointed with satellite internet access due to:

  • very high latency (which is a big issue for RDP)
  • only allowed connections to DNS, HTTP, HTTPs, SMTP and POP

If you can, try before you buy - or at least specify your requirements as a condition of the order.

There are alternatives to RDP, tightVNC badwidth usage tends to be about the same IME, despite the different approach. OTOH Nomachine NX is a lot better on low bandwidth links - and has significantly better security. But there's no way of solving latency with software / protocols.

symcbean
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