Originally Posted by
Paul Elliott
Too true about the cost. I have to warn you about using a non-satellite-aware connection to a POP account, though.
*** My experience without Xgate was several years ago, and there may have been improvements ***
I tried connection to my regular email POP account using the raw internet gateway provided by the satphone. It was practically useless. The latency seemed to screw up the session, and if the satphone connection dropped in the middle of a transfer all data was lost and I had to start over from scratch. Iridium connections do drop out fairly often, even with a well-placed antenna. Xgate, and I believe other systems, have tweaked the connection protocol to provide good performance on a high-latency path, and provide mid-stream resumption of dropped transfers.
Without Xgate it would take several minutes for the simplest email download. The same download with Xgate can be just a few seconds. The improvement was staggering.
Since I started using Xgate, I believe that the "native" data service available through Iridium has improved, perhaps significantly. I hope so, because the original system was useless.
OK, now THAT makes sense and is a powerful incentive to either use X-Gate or....because I'm budget-conscious.... ask around and see if in fact the native data service through Iridium has improved. If X-Gate is the difference, basically, between being able to send mail and get files...and NOT send mail and get files, well....there ya go.
Thanks!
1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
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