A.2 Wireless Network Access
A.2.4 Data service
DirecTV partnered with Microsoft to produce a push-mode data service over DBS. The service broadcasts approximately 200 popular Web sites, which are cached in the consumer's PC. Some content will be cached at the service provider's site. Instead of having a point-to-point connection with the Internet, consumers access content on the hard drive or service-provider cache. In addition to Web sites, other data services such as AgCast or stock quotes can be offered, either by continuous feeds or by caching on the consumer's PC. The problem with this model is that you cannot access a Web site that is not part of the service, because no point-to-point return-path connection exists.

One form of point-to-point data service, called DirectPC, can reach the Internet. DirectPC is jointly owned by DirecTV and Hughes Network Systems. DirectPC reserves 12 Mbps of downstream service and uses a telephone as a return path.

Because the footprint (the portion of the Earth's surface covered by the signal from a communications satellite) is so large for geosynchronous satellites, it is possible that thousands of users will want to use the common 12 Mbps of service concurrently. The more concurrent users there are, the less bandwidth each user gets. To provide a balance between bit rate and the number of concurrent users, DirectPC offers approximately 400 Kbps of service to concurrent users.