Stupid naive question about satelite HDTV

Right, this is probably just stupid, but HDTV is transmitted digitally in the US through satellite, yes? But this stream is just data being transferred at high rates (something loke 20 or 30 MBit MPEG2). So why couln't these be used as an internet connection to provide very fast speeds (at least in one direction)? This would be much quicker than toady's broadband solutions (8 MBit max, but more often 512 k or 1 MBit). Most commercially available satellite connections are much slower than this (typically about the same speeds as broadband here in the UK). Anyway, I was just wondering that's all.

I think DirectTV has such a service, called DirectPC, but it is not very popular except where nothing else is available. And I think recently hearing that they or some similar service (DirectTV, Dish?) are going to cancel it. - Tom

That's weird. It would enable T3 speeds, maybe even more, and there's no reason it couldn'e be included in the HDTV package and use the same receiver too. Is there just no interest in fast net connections in the states?

I read that too. "With the dramatic change in the capital markets and the significant shift in the telecom operating environment, DIRECTV Broadband can no longer stand as an independent business." (Note: does not effect TV service) In the states, broadband is very popular, and reasonably available (except for rural areas) via Cable and DSL, for around 40-50$ a month. I don't know what the Satelite cost was, but with dialup upload speeds, most people opt for cable or DSL. I don't know the actual reasons, but it sounds like they just couldn't make it profitable. Shawn

I think at least at first they were charging a lot and it suffered from latency problems. There is more info at but if you click on the price list it is not there. It seems also they had expensive byte caps. But I first checked this out at least 5-6 years ago so a lot has probably changed. - Tom

U really have NO IDEA how valuable satellite bandwidth is, it would cost a fortune to provide T3 to the good people of the world. There are many companies in the UK that provide that kinda of connection, - it already costs a fortune and has delays of at least 0.2 seconds (on a really good service). It is impractical, but if you dont mind wating for a good speed, by all means, costs about 30 quid a month. It is titakky dependant on how many people will use a service at one time. BT OPenworld offer their version, it costs like 600 quid to setup (rip off).

Uhhh... one HD channel sends 15-20 MBPS to thousands of people. If you wanted to provice those thousands with 15-20 MBPS bandwidth you would need, well, the bandwidth of thousands of HD channels. Because different people request different files.

Because of the way TCP works, you're limited by your upstream, which would only be a shitty modem.