Do any of you have any experience in running Asterisk over satellite Internet? I was thinking mainly of remote IP phones connecting to a central Asterisk server via satellite.
There is a lot of latency in satellite Internet links and I’m wondering if it presents unacceptable and onresolvable problems in a configuration like that.
Also, do any of you know of any ruggedized, military-style IP phones that come with carrying cases, for use out in the field? (Google searches didn’t help…)
Thanks…
Hmmm, as you say the problem with satellite is latency. I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work, however keep in mind you will have noticable latency (when you talk it takes a second for them to hear it). This can be annoying if you are not used to it.
You would probably want to restrict the satellite links to using the more tightly compressed codecs (GSM, G729, etc) to reduce the volume of data that has to move through that bottleneck and increase your chances of avoiding really bad jitter and lost packets. Maybe big jitterbuffer settings too at the end receiving from the ground station. (Because the bigger problems are in the upstream path)
We have used Asterisk in several locations with Satellite links with ery good success. Latency is always the issue and you can expect between 600-650 ms.
We used Sipura ATA’s on the far end and g729, this worked well and calls had better quality than that offered by the local phone company.
I don’t remember having to do anything to tweek the Asterisk of the Sipura devices.
It has been a while since I worked on these instalallations so I could be forgetting something.