The first thing to do is to review all the information we have available on the website or in our printed materials (available on request). Please start with How it Works. The important thing to realise is that there is a finite amount of capacity on any network and satellite is no different. We devised the Standard and Value Packages because we found some people prefer to think in terms of speed whilst others prefer to think in terms of their data usage.If you were using your connection in an office environment where data usage is hard to gage and the most important thing is that the connection is always on (to ensure emails arrive, etc) then you would want a Standard Package. If all you do is some light web browsing (say online shopping) and emails and your data usage is low then you would a Value Package; this way you know you are always getting the best possible speed.We're very aware that choosing a Package is difficult and allow you to upgrade at anytime. Our recommendation is to start cautiously and then if you find your speed reduced too much or exceed your allowance too much you can always switch.
Yes. The subscription contract is for one year whether you pay annually or choose the monthly payment plan.
If you stop the service for any reason, the balance of your annual contract remains payable.
All you need is an internet browser.
Yes – any computer that has an Ethernet connection.
Latency is the delay that it takes for data to get from your computer out to the internet and back again. ASTRA's satellites are approximately 36,000km high so the round-trip distance for the signal is some 144,000km which takes 480ms. Adding the normal system transit time at the modem and at the network means the typical latency (or ping time) of the BeyonDSL ASTRA2Connect system is 600 - 900ms. That's from the satmodem, up to the satellite and back down to the internet backbone and then the reply in the reverse direction. It can be longer than this. In day-to-day use you might find web pages take a second or two to appear but that once they do they will appear all at once due to the high speed of our connections. Because of the relatively high amount of latency, satellite connections are not suitable for applications which require low latency like on-line gaming. However, VOIP telephone services (including Skype) work and most people find the latency acceptable for normal conversation.
No. The dish supplied in the kit is produced to a higher standard than a TV dish (TVRO or RxO). This is to ensure the correct transmission of your signal to the satellite. The surface of our transmit/receive (TxRx or VSAT) dish is manufactured on a higher tolerance tool specially cut for the purpose.
The transmit performance of a dish is critical to establishing a successful connection and therefore only the dish supplied in the kit can be used.
Dishes intended just for receiving a TV signal do not have to be made to such a high tolerance as signal reception is not so critical. These dishes are known as TVRO (TV Receive Only) or RxO (Receive Only).
For a two-way satellite service to work, the dish must be made to a standard suitable for TxRx (Transmit/Receive) and specified for the particular system. The dish, mount and iLNB in our kit is the only one specified for our system.
The only exception to this rule is the dedicated self-alignment system intended for mobile homes, RVs and similar available from specialists.
In general, VPNs should pass over the ASTRA2Connect system unaffected. However performance cannot be guaranteed. The A2C network uses optimization to accelerate various internet protocols over satellite. VPN traffic cannot be optimized in this way.
VPN is a special case because traffic inside the VPN is protected by the VPN security and therefore the optimization cannot identify how to optimize.
Many VPNs and configurations work effectively over A2C but there are so many possible variants, it is not possible to guarantee this in advance. A few VPN clients have problems with the latency of satellite.
The only way to be certain is to test the particular VPN configuration on an A2C system beforehand.
