“One thing that most people don’t think about are the ‘dark hours‘ when VSAT have minimal load. These are usually the hours from 6pm-8am. The only thing updating are the machines that are left one and only if there is city power available since no one leaves a generator running when no one is there to use it. Plus, the neighbors hate it. This creates a secondary problem which is that almost every Windows machine automatically updates when the power is switched on and the networks comes back up at 8am. This includes anit-virus, anti-spyware, and every other application under the sun. Of course these problems can be fixed but for the most part they are just ignored and by 8:30am the network has all but stopped. I think it is critical that you keep these dark hours in mind when thinking about people in the field since there is a tremendous amount of bandwidth that just sits there every night not being used. If we could work through the night we would. Unfortunately, security and common sense don’t always allow to do so.”
