Aircard vs. Satellite Internet

Despite a great initiative taken by the government of the United Kingdom, there exists considerable area in the country – particularly remote and rural areas – that hardly enjoy conventional broadband UK options to access internet. Under the circumstances marked by constraints, the predominant means for the users in these areas for accessing internet are mobile aircards and satellites.

When pitted against each other satellite broadband and aircards seem prominent in certain different aspects of internet access provision and convenience. In terms of connections speeds satellite broadband capable of speeds of up to 1000Kbps is way ahead of aircard speeds that are only about three or four times the speed of dial up internet to the maximum.

However, if the aircards are used within the EV-DO range they can deliver speeds comparable to satellite broadband services. EV-DO is a standard for mobile broadband.

Regarding internet coverage, satellite broadband holds the edge since being capable of connecting anywhere there is a clear view of the southern sky. On the other hand, aircard has its coverage limited to mobile towers. The consumers can check the websites of providers to determine coverage areas of aircards.

One segment where the aircard excels is the latency quality. the advantage of sircard in this segment owes to the fact that data is only required to travel to a mobile tower in the vicinity while with satellite broadband it has to travel around 44,480 miles into the orbit and back. This demand is tackled by satellite broadband by increasing the data amount sent in each transmission.

The price of the base satellite broadband packages is very much the same as the aircard internet service prices. However, for more advanced satellite broadband connections the customers need to pay as good a four times the price of aircard internet service.