Editing Satellite Internet access (section)

===Bandwidth===
Consumer satellite Internet customers range from individual home users with one PC to large remote business sites with several hundred PCs.

Home users tend to use shared satellite capacity to reduce the cost, while still allowing high peak bit rates when congestion is absent. There are usually restrictive time-based bandwidth allowances so that each user gets their fair share, according to their payment. When a user exceeds their allowance, the company may slow down their access, deprioritise their traffic or charge for the excess bandwidth used. For consumer satellite Internet, the allowance can typically range from 200&nbsp;[[Megabyte|MB]] per day to 25&nbsp;[[Gigabyte|GB]] per month.<ref name="hughesnet-fap-faq">{{Cite web|url=http://consumer.hughesnet.com/faq/fair-access-policy.cfm|title=High Speed Internet Connection at Home – HughesNet|date=July 28, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090728171955/http://consumer.hughesnet.com/faq/fair-access-policy.cfm |archive-date=28 July 2009 }}</ref><ref name="wildblue">{{cite web|title=WildBlue: High Speed Satellite Internet Provider |work=Official web site |url=http://get.wildblue.com/pricing.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090818171337/http://get.wildblue.com/pricing.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=August 18, 2009 |access-date=July 17, 2011 }}</ref><ref name="wildblue_exede">{{cite web |title= Exede: High Speed Satellite Internet Provider |work= Official web site |url= http://www.exede.com/internet-packages-pricing |access-date= December 11, 2012 }}</ref> A shared download carrier may have a bit rate of 1 to 40&nbsp;Mbit/s and be shared by up to 100 to 4,000 end users.

The uplink direction for shared user customers is normally [[time-division multiple access]] (TDMA), which involves transmitting occasional short packet bursts in between other users (similar to how a cellular phone shares a cell tower).

Each remote location may also be equipped with a telephone modem; the connections for this are as with a conventional dial-up ISP. Two-way satellite systems may sometimes use the modem channel in both directions for data where latency is more important than bandwidth, reserving the satellite channel for download data where bandwidth is more important than latency, such as for [[file transfer]]s.

In 2006, the [[European Commission]] sponsored the [[UNIC Project]] which aimed to develop an end-to-end scientific test bed for the distribution of new broadband interactive TV-centric services delivered over low-cost two-way satellite to actual end-users in the home.<ref>{{Cite web|date=April 9, 2008|title=Universal satellite home connection {{!}} UNIC Project|url=https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/027034|access-date=June 20, 2020|website=CORDIS {{!}} European Commission|publisher=EU Publications Office}}</ref> The UNIC architecture employs [[DVB-S2]] standard for downlink and [[DVB-RCS]] standard for uplink.

Normal VSAT dishes (1.2 to 2.4&nbsp;m diameter) are widely used for VoIP phone services. A voice call is sent by means of packets via the satellite and Internet. Using coding and compression techniques the bit rate needed per call is only 10.8&nbsp;kbit/s each way.