Two-Way Satellite Internet Is Here!

spectro writes: "Wired is reporting the first two-way satellite Internet service has been launched by StarBand. The service promises speeds up to 500Kbps down and 150Kbps up, but a ping latency of about 400ms, so gamers are out of the question. Anyway a nice alternative for those of us who cannot get DSL yet, but watch out... The Evil Empire is part of the joint venture." It's nice to know that someone has finally made the leap, after years of promises and millions of R&D dollars. Check out the article for information on some of the competition, too.

Comments

Buzzword Security

[_Sprocket_]

From the article:

The DirecPC system uses 56-bit encryption on the packets of data that are sent downstream from the satellite, according to Steven Salamoff, assistant vice president of the DirecPC business services division. Deciphering upstream packets would first require breaking the downstream encryption because of its random packet generation, Salamoff said.

Consumer awareness of home computer security is growing. And it looks like the DirecPC salesforce is chomping at the bit to try out their service's embeded buzzword: encryption. Yep. They're safer than that Cable and ADSL you hear about. Unlike those guys, satalite providers encrypt their data.

Sure, wireless brings forth a whole new series of security concerns. And that means encryption has its part. But it does nothing to address insecure hosts on persistant broadband connections.

What do you want to bet that the new satalite service providers will do the same as their xDSL and cable competitors and ignore this problem. But hey... they have encryption.

Geostationary Broadband Services

[Baldrson]

In late 1991, as vice president for public affairs at E'Prime Aerospace I did a lot of the work to break up the log-jam within the FCC on the first Ka-band satellite license ever to be issued. It was for a two-way geostationary broadband system called "Norstar" that was based on Milstar satellite technology. The way these geostationary systems work is to use a phased array antanna on the satellite to rapidly multiplex a tight spot beam between ground stations and dynamically shift the time slices to various geographies based on load requirements.

The higher the frequency allocated for the service, the tighter the spot beams with a given dish diameter, which means you can end up with the geographic equivalent of a dynamically distributed cellular communication system deployed via a single satellite with the main drawback being that you are sharing a single point of failure as well as a bandwidth bottleneck. However, at these high frequencies satellites can be parked much closer to each other in the same orbital so the bottleneck and failure vulnerability can be minimized by requiring a bit more complicated ground station to allow a fixed dish to rapidly switch between co-located satellites.

The rain problem is serious, but can be minimized, at least on the downward leg, by increasing the energy storage capacity of the satellite to power through the weather. IIRC the upward leg has a bit more of a problem with heavy weather because, although power is quite available on the ground, the scattering occurs far from the satellite (clouds are only a few miles in altitude whereas the satellites are about 20 thousand miles away). On the upward leg it is a bit more problematic due to the fact that arc very tightly which further increases the density of communication via demultiplexed (parallel) communication channels.

The delay time introduced by going up and back is less than typical human reaction time (about a quarter second) so its just fine for most practical uses -- even interactive ones other than games where people are pushing human reaction times to the sub 100ms ranges.

Starband is probably in these high frequency ranges since they do have a bit of difficulty with heavy weather, although I haven't been able to locate their FCC filing online to see exactly how high the frequency actually is.

one pipe- bandwidth limitations

[Matt_Bennett]

While the article doesn't come out and say it, I'm guessing there will be serious total bandwidth limitations- since there are no tracking antennas, and since this is referred to as part of a satellite TV service, it must be from (and probably to) a satellite in geosync orbit. All traffic is probably going to just one satellite. Once a lot of people sign up for this- popularity will kill it- since I'm sure that they can sign people up to long term contracts faster than they can put more transponders up.

Plus there is the fact that anything beamed to you is probably also being beamed to everyone in a multiple state area around you. I sure hope they have some *strong* encryption built in. They ought to be doing something better than DES, no?

I hate to say it, but the microsoft backed Teledesic system is a much better system (many satellites in low earth orbit- kinda like a cellular system) the satellites are closer and cover smaller areas, so the amount of bandwidth/satellite is much smaller.

Whatever happened to a simple net connection?

[mikeboone]

Hardly anyone wants to sell you a simple net connection anymore. What's with all the useless addons? ISPs are always trying to be their own portal when they can't top Yahoo. Best Buy tries to get you on MSN when you buy a refrigerator.

Now to get satellite net access you have to buy a whole new PC, and it's still $60 a month?

Dammit, give me some hardware and tell me what I should set the IP and DNS to, and charge me less!

Damn light is so slow

[state*less]

but a ping latency of about 400ms so gamers are out of the question.

I rember when i thought light (186,000 miles/second) was fast haha. Now 400ms a second isn't round trip time for light from nowheresville -> Satellite -> Backbone router but the handicap makes up for a damn sizeable chunk

Let's investigate.

For example, if the mission requires a geostationary orbit, which can be achieved only at a distance of about 35,000 km (22,000 mi) above Earth.

I got this from MSN Encarta. MSN... like their operating systems, probably can't be trusted :).
Lets do some calculations(my favorite). For light to get to the satellite it takes .118 (approx) seconds now multiply by 2, we have to go both ways. we have .236 seconds (approx).
Now a handicap of 236ms before you get on the net leaves a little to be desired. Like, Damn I wish light were faster.

Time is Change