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Japan to Deploy Massive Broadband Satellite

Posted by samzenpus on from the connect-anywhere dept.

demachina writes "Japan has announced plans to deploy a massive broadband satellite operational in 2015. It will provide 100 Mbit/sec service to mountains, remote islands and bullet trains along with comm for disaster recovery. Its giant 66 ft. diameter dish is supposed to be able to receive even weak cell phones signals. Of course, the ping times wont be so good."

5 of 274 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Receive Traffic? by malchus842 · · Score: 5, Informative

    DirecWay (from DirecTV) offers satellite return service - no phone line necessary. I used it for about 6 months some time ago (when this area was total broadband hell, as opposed to only being partial broadband hell). It does work, but some major caveats:

    • When it rains hard, forget about using it until the storm passes
    • When it snows, you have to clear the dish regularly (or use a cover)
    • Latency is tremendous - basically forget online gaming and VoIP

    But, if it's your only option, it's great. Seriously - in the same situation, I'd use it again

  2. Large ping? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Informative

    A geosynchronous satellite orbits at a height of approximately 38,500,000m. Light travels at a speed of approximately 300,000,000m/s. It therefore takes light approximately 250ms to make a round trip. This might be sub-optimal for gaming, but its about the ping time I remember from a modem. You might run into some problems with TCP rate limiting though - it's probably best to run some non-TCP protocol over the satellite link.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    1. Re:Large ping? by FrostedWheat · · Score: 5, Informative

      You also have the round trip of reply packet to consider, so double that to 500ms. Then you have to add the normal internet latency, so say on average the lag will be about 550ms to 650ms. Not horrible but worse than dialup.

  3. Re:erm? by marx · · Score: 4, Informative

    Japan apparently has their own satellite launching infrastructure. Otherwise I think NASA and ESA both help with launching commercial satellites, it doesn't seem to be a big deal anymore.

  4. Nope. by Gordonjcp · · Score: 5, Informative
    A large dish catches a large amount of signal. Think about how much rain will be caught in an empty swimming pool in 10 minutes, compared to how much rain will be caught in an empty wineglass.


    The beam width is dependant on a lot of things. You can adjust the focus of the transmitter to turn the beam into a big fuzzy spot.