Using a VPN over satellite internet

[Mike the Wino]

We are considering moving to an area where the only internet service available is via satellite, of which we can choose from multiple different providers. My wife telecommutes and is required to use her company's VPN only for work related telephone calls, and nothing else. If she's not on a phone call, she disconnects from the VPN. During the phone call she will often be tapped into a WebEx meeting and sharing data on charts and spreadsheets, etc., between everyone on the call. Of note: The WebEx sessions run independently of the VPN...they are not routed through it. Rather, they are run through the company's iserver(s).

Most consumer satellite internet providers don't recommend using a VPN over their networks due to latency issues, which I understand. Most say that depending on the type of VPN used, we may see overall speeds reduced by 50–70% during the use of the VPN. What I don't understand is how that speed reduction shows up....what exactly will suffer during a WebEx session while using the VPN? Will the act of moving a mouse around and pointing to different things on-screen in a spreadsheet (for example) be visually delayed at the receiving end? What issues might show up on her end while watching PowerPoint presentations...like will screen loads be slow, and if so, approximately how slow? Will voice communications be adversely affected, i.e.: choppy audio or drop-offs? What other issues might arise in this scenario?

 

[beers]

Your call data is going to be an awful experience over satellite.

Latency for screen sharing is going to be pretty horrendous as well, if it's 1000ms RTT to get to the end server you're waiting for an entire second before an acknowledgement can be received for each chunk of data.

 

[Mike the Wino]

Thanks for the reply, beers. When you say the "call data is going to be an awful experience over satellite", what does that mean to my (her) ears? Choppy audio, cutting in and out, or what?

And let me ask this: if she can and chooses to use our landline instead of routing her call through the VPN, will there still be latency issues during WebEx meetings using screen sharing over satellite? In other words, without the VPN slowing down the overall speeds of the satellite internet connection, would the WebEx experience be like it is on any other broadband connection?

 

[Agent Smith]

Satellite Internet suffers from high latency. You may get many dropped calls and very choppy audio.

Think of it as like using Skype on Dial-up.