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Japan Launches "Super-Speed" Internet Satellite

A number of readers wrote in about the launch this morning of a Japanese H-2A rocket carrying a Kizuna ("Winds") satellite into orbit. Kizuna is intended to provide "super high-speed data transmission" for Japan and Southeast Asia. The news stories on the launch, such as the AP's linked here, are short on technical detail. For example they say the satellite successfully achieved orbit 175 miles above the earth — hardly suitable for Internet communications to a specific area on the surface (remember Teledesic?). Reader nebulus4 provided a link to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency site with an illustration and a little more detail. Such as the fact that Kizuna is destined for geosync orbit, and that a 45-cm antenna will equip eventual users for 155 Mbps down / 6 Mbps up, whereas a 5-m antenna will allow enterprises and ISPs to tap into 1.2 Gbps down. Given the latency to geosync orbit, you probably wouldn't want to use Kizuna to play an online shooter.

159 comments

  1. In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...the RIAA and MPAA today announced a plan to knock the satellite out of orbit with a missile to "protect the public".

    1. Re:In other news... by palegray.net · · Score: 4, Funny

      They're not really trying to knock it out of space, they're just going to fire a cease and desist letter at it. Accidents do happen, though.

    2. Re:In other news... by peragrin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      how else does one get a cease and desist letter into orbit? On the tip of a missile, with the letter itself engraved upon a metal cylinder.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    3. Re:In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ha! Thanks to Japan's 2006 mandate that all satellites must be able to transform into giant robots, the missile will simply be given a swift kick toward the RIAA and MPAA's secret underground bunker!
      Chalk one up for the good guys!

    4. Re:In other news... by argiedot · · Score: 1

      Are you sure about this? I knew the Japanese Agricultural Ministry was lying!

  2. Now featuring... by palegray.net · · Score: 1, Insightful
    1. Re:Now featuring... by Adambomb · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Exactly, While this could be useful for bulk mobile file transfers, this definitely wont be used for anything real time.

      I believe geosync orbit has a MINIMUM lightspeed latency of 119.4ms.

      Not a fun starting point BEFORE collisions and noise.

      --
      Ice Cream has no bones.
    2. Re:Now featuring... by BSAtHome · · Score: 2, Informative

      Ehm, you also have to get back down, so that is 240ms minimum...

    3. Re:Now featuring... by Adambomb · · Score: 1

      wow, good call.

      and another tally on the mind-is-dying meter.

      =)

      --
      Ice Cream has no bones.
    4. Re:Now featuring... by Karrots · · Score: 1

      Back to the modem days.

    5. Re:Now featuring... by Cecil · · Score: 1

      And assuming you're talking about a round trip, which "latency" generally does, that doubles again to 480ms. Which is about the typical minimum ping time for your run-of-the-mill satellite internet these days. Switching delays are fairly negligible on that sort of a timescale, even with huge numbers of connections provided you're using fairly modern technology. Look at the cellphone networks: this is a solved problem.

    6. Re:Now featuring... by milsoRgen · · Score: 1

      Ehm, you also have to get back down, so that is 240ms minimum... Still couldn't this provide some measure of redundancy in cases where the hard lines are damaged or taking down for whatever reason, like we recently saw in the middle east?
      --
      I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
    7. Re:Now featuring... by dgatwood · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You have to multiply times four to get a useful figure. Latency is normally measured round trip. Hop up, hop down, return hop up, return hop down. Latency to geostationary orbit is half a second.

      However, 175 miles up is NOT geostationary. Geostationary is 35,786 km up, give or take. The orbit is geosynchronous. That just means the orbital period is the same as the earth's rotation, so it returns to the same spot at the same time every day. It will NOT stay in the same place, however. They'll have to have several of these things in a similar orbit flying over periodically like we do for GPS satellites. It also means the round trip latency is about 3.76 msec (just less than a millisecond per hop), a heck of a lot shorter than half a second.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    8. Re:Now featuring... by cheater512 · · Score: 1

      Australia has 250ms lag to the US minimum.
      I'd sure prefer their speeds over 512k though. ;)

    9. Re:Now featuring... by vertinox · · Score: 1

      Super Latency

      I dunno. If I had the choice between no internet or satellite, I wouldn't complain about the latency.

      Of course it might suck if it rains a lot, but I suppose it is far better than not having any internet. Secondly, if you are a SE Asia islander or boat traveler you might not even have dial up seeing there is no fiber to your location. You might have a LAN line, but it might be incompatible or really slow seeing regular modems don't work well with satellite phones.

      --
      "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
      -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
    10. Re:Now featuring... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It will NOT stay in the same place, however. Well, if it is positioned above the equator (which is the case for satellites which are referred to as geostationary), it does. If it does have the same rotation period as the earth it will just stay above its point above the equator.
    11. Re:Now featuring... by absoluteflatness · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Geosynchronous and geostationary orbits are obtained at the same radius from the Earth, about, as you say, 35,786 km above sea level. The defining factor that differentiates between geosynchronous and geostationary is the plane of the Earth the orbit is positioned over. A geosynchronous orbit that is directly aligned with the Equator is "geostationary" since it will always stay above the same position on the Earth. Plain "geosynchronous" orbits are simply aligned differently.

      From the JAXA site about Kizuna:

      "Scheduled orbit: Geostationary orbit at 143 degrees East longitude and at an altitude of about 36,000 km"

      It is, even though the summarizer slipped up a bit (technically the term is correct, but somewhat misleading), destined for geostationary orbit.

    12. Re:Now featuring... by jamstar7 · · Score: 1
      Bulk mobile one way, say, to an offsite backup server farm. That 155 Mbps looks awful tasty on the download link. Should be able to move lottsa pr0n...

      The 5 Mbps uplink is kinda weak, though. Forget about bittorrent...

      --
      Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
    13. Re:Now featuring... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      I can get dialup or satellite. I can't play a game over the dialup anyway. I usually get 26.4kbps. Good times. I'm planning to get Hughesnet, which is the ONLY one that will give you a decent transfer allotment. Or so they say. Everyone else cuts you off pretty low.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    14. Re:Now featuring... by Doug+Neal · · Score: 1

      I've sometimes wondered how feasible it would be to have a combined very-high-speed satellite and "normal" speed ground-based net connection, whereby the traffic was duplicated over both links and recombined at each end. This would bring the latency down making it suitable for interactive traffic. Transfers would start slowly but then jump up to high speed as the satellite link kicks in. The router could then signal to the other end that it could stop transferring over the ground-based link.

      I can't think of a way of doing this without having huge buffers in the routers though. I haven't heard about this being done anywhere, I'd imagine cost and complexity of router hardware and software is the main reason why.

    15. Re:Now featuring... by b1t+r0t · · Score: 1

      Here is the result of a ping session over a satellite link. It was done at a rest area along IH-35 in Texas:

      $ ping xxxxxx.net
      PING xxxxxx.net (xx.xx.xx.xx): 56 data bytes
      64 bytes from xx.xx.xx.xx: icmp_seq=0 ttl=50 time=1177.625 ms
      64 bytes from xx.xx.xx.xx: icmp_seq=1 ttl=50 time=837.073 ms
      64 bytes from xx.xx.xx.xx: icmp_seq=2 ttl=50 time=848.406 ms
      64 bytes from xx.xx.xx.xx: icmp_seq=3 ttl=50 time=1072.072 ms
      64 bytes from xx.xx.xx.xx: icmp_seq=4 ttl=50 time=1079.655 ms
      64 bytes from xx.xx.xx.xx: icmp_seq=5 ttl=50 time=874.343 ms
      64 bytes from xx.xx.xx.xx: icmp_seq=6 ttl=50 time=965.390 ms
      64 bytes from xx.xx.xx.xx: icmp_seq=7 ttl=50 time=1081.254 ms
      64 bytes from xx.xx.xx.xx: icmp_seq=8 ttl=50 time=844.191 ms
      64 bytes from xx.xx.xx.xx: icmp_seq=9 ttl=50 time=903.456 ms
      ^C
      --- xxxxxx.net ping statistics ---
      11 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 9% packet loss
      round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 837.073/968.346/1177.625/118.230 ms

      I'm sure they'll be using TCP ACK spoofing in the ground satellite transceiver boxes.

      --

      --
      "Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
      "Open source is evil." - Microsoft
    16. Re:Now featuring... by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      Ah. I wondered how you could possibly have an orbit as low as 175 miles. I would think you'd get horrible atmospheric drag, not to mention how fast it would have to be moving.... Apparently, the summary was massively wrong....

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    17. Re:Now featuring... by tevslin · · Score: 1

      The net of this dated article is that geostationary satellite is fine for the Internet except for those pesky users of TCP who will be killed by latency. LoL; TCP isn't going to go away because a few people are using satellite. More at http://blog.tomevslin.com/2007/10/broadband-pri-2.html

    18. Re:Now featuring... by shlashdot · · Score: 1

      Actually, in addition to the "decent" and "pretty low" plans, hughes.net now offers the "craptastic" plan.

      --
      Additional plugins are required to display all the media on this page.
    19. Re:Now featuring... by Captain+Segfault · · Score: 1

      175 miles isn't that much lower than the ISS. There isn't much atmosphere that high up-- the atmospheric drag is "needs a nudge every once in a while" and not "needs heat shield".

      The problem is that an orbit at 175 miles wouldn't be remotely geostationary, because it would be circling too fast; presumably it's just at LEO while on it's way up.

    20. Re:Now featuring... by myth_of_sisyphus · · Score: 1

      Damn. That's a lot of latency.

      The Japanese are going to have to tap into subspace to avoid all that latency. When is that going to happen?

    21. Re:Now featuring... by dave87656 · · Score: 1

      Not at 175 miles up. As the previous poster noted, geostationary orbit is at 35,000+.

      I'm assuming the orbit time at that height would be something like 90 minutes. But, I lived in an area where there was no DSL or Cable and I would have been happy if I had highspeed connection for a while every day, even if I had to go outside an move the dish manually as the satellite sped by. ;-)

  3. Version 1 is just Super..wait for v2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm not going to waste my time with this version 1 "Super" speed
    version 2 is going to give me "Hyper Mega" Speed and that's when *I* will jump on the bandwagon.

    1. Re:Version 1 is just Super..wait for v2 by palegray.net · · Score: 1

      I'm going to wait until it's Super Saiyan.

    2. Re:Version 1 is just Super..wait for v2 by Cheerio+Boy · · Score: 1

      I'm going to wait until it's Super Saiyan. Its transfer rate is over TEN THOUSAND!

      ;-P

      Sorry - couldn't resist. I'll get my hat...
      --

      "Bah!" - Dogbert
  4. Using Kizuna to play an online shooter... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...would be a kamikaze mission.

  5. You cannot be serious by Zorbo88 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So a subsistence farmer in rural Indonesia gets a better download speed than me, a sophisticated suburban Australian. Awesome.

    1. Re:You cannot be serious by Dunbal · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      So a subsistence farmer in rural Indonesia gets a better download speed than me, a sophisticated suburban Australian. Awesome.

            Don't worry the kiwi's have apparently come up with a sheep powered device that's even faster. Coming to Australia soon.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    2. Re:You cannot be serious by pembo13 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well nothing really makes you better than him to begin with, so you're not generally entitled to better internet than him.

      --
      "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
    3. Re:You cannot be serious by Kjella · · Score: 1, Insightful

      If he could pay for it, it's sorta like the T3 you can't buy because you don't have the cash either. At any rate, I'll wait to see how much they really get out of this, I've had a friend with satellite service that's way in the outbacks and it was expensive, unstable, underdelivered on bandwidth and latency was higher than advertisied and it was in general a pain to use. He jumped to cable first chance he got, I don't remember which but it was one of those bloody-sucking underdelivering monopolies that get mentioned on slashdot and he was much happier all the same. Now, if this can really deliver I don't see why they can't launch a few over the US and Europe and whereever else might need high-speed Internet. 155/6 Mbps would beat anything I can find around here on downstream, even the fastest fiber connection I've seen offered is 50/25 Mbps. Which would be nice too, if I could get that and not the 2/0.4 Mbps connection I do have...

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    4. Re:You cannot be serious by misleb · · Score: 1

      So a subsistence farmer in rural Indonesia gets a better download speed than me, a sophisticated suburban Australian. Awesome.


      Have you ever tried using satellite internet before? You'll soon realize that speed isn't everything.

      -matthew
      --
      "THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
    5. Re:You cannot be serious by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Wait for the url filter to kick in.
      Then you will have subsistence internet too.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    6. Re:You cannot be serious by daBass · · Score: 2, Informative

      You laugh about the Kiwis, but we get virtually all our internet here in Oz via the Souther Cross Cable system. A system with NO australian ownership whatsoever. The majority owner? Telecom New Zealand, with a 50% stake.

      Yup, if it weren't for the Kiwis we'd still be sending our email by morse code. (The next biggest cable, between Australia and Japan isn't anywhere near big enough and came online several years after the SCC)

      Gotta hand it to them; they wanted a big cable for themselves but probably couldn't make it profitable - so they extended it over here and not only are they taking our money via their virtual monopoly, we gladly allow them to do so because no Australian telecom could be f***ed in late 1990s to get us seriously hooked up.

    7. Re:You cannot be serious by Fear+the+Clam · · Score: 1

      So a subsistence farmer in rural Indonesia gets a better download speed than me, a sophisticated suburban Australian. Awesome.

      Payback for Yahoo Serious is a bitch.

    8. Re:You cannot be serious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably comcast.
      I was bored yesterday and googled "Damn Comcast" in quotes, and i got over two thousand pages containing those exact words. Who knows how many would have come up if I had used more a derogatory phrase.

    9. Re:You cannot be serious by rastoboy29 · · Score: 1

      Dude, he's not saying he's better, he's saying that his country has set things up so that this is the case, and it is a travesty since he lives in a first world  country.

      Get that chip off your shoulder before your hurt yourself.

    10. Re:You cannot be serious by tomhudson · · Score: 1

      Dude, he's not saying he's better, he's saying that his country has set things up so that this is the case, and it is a travesty since he lives in a first world country.

      Get that chip off your shoulder before your hurt yourself.

      For cednturies, "First world country" meant the Europeans only. That's why there was "First world", "New world", and "3rd world", etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World:.

      According to the original definition, Australia isn't a first world country. Neither are the US, Canada, etc. They're all part of the "new world". Its only in the last 50 years that the meaning has changed (USians don't like to not be part of the "first world").

    11. Re:You cannot be serious by Robert1 · · Score: 1

      Wait a second, are you really suggesting that definitions of words don't change over time? I thought it was pretty clear that he was using the contemporary definition of first-world rather than your admitted archaic meaning.

      What the hell was the point of your post?

    12. Re:You cannot be serious by tubapro12 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Too bad you're wrong, Mr. Troll: those phrases haven't been around for "cednturies [sic]." The phrase third world was coined by Alfred Sauvy in the 1950s. He also retroactively coined the words first world and second world to apply to already existent categorical differences between the Democratic West and the Communist East. I believe the phrase you confused with first world is the Old World. However, the Old World does not merely apply to the wealthy European nations, but all of Eurasia and Africa as well.

    13. Re:You cannot be serious by Thing+1 · · Score: 1

      Don't worry the kiwi's have apparently come up with a sheep powered device that's even faster. Coming to Australia soon.

      Don't you mean "Coming in Australia soon"?

      --
      I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
    14. Re:You cannot be serious by F34nor · · Score: 1

      My favorite was when I learned about the fourth world when I was studying Haiti. Places so fucking horrible that they will never be ok, never get better, and will always be hell. In Haitit's case it is the result of political, ecological, and demographic nightmares all working together to make sure that eveyone is fucked.

    15. Re:You cannot be serious by noidentity · · Score: 1

      Well nothing really makes you better than him to begin with, so you're not generally entitled to better internet than him.

      Putting up with the drawbacks of living in the city should entitle one to better internet service than someone in the country!

    16. Re:You cannot be serious by Jarik_Tentsu · · Score: 1

      Yeah...I'm so goddamn sick of 8,000/128 kbps Cable...in reality, giving me more like 3000/128. And no ADSL2+ DSLAM yet...It's ridiculous that such a developed country as ours has stone-age internet.

      And T00l$tra's *upgradable* Cable plan is 17,000/256. What the hell can I do with 256kbps? And on top of that, they count our uploads...Bah...

      ~Jarik

    17. Re:You cannot be serious by strikethree · · Score: 1

      "Well nothing really makes you better than him to begin with, so you're not generally entitled to better internet than him."

      Sure, nothing makes him better... but the money he/she pays certainly makes him more DESERVING.

      strike

      --
      "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
    18. Re:You cannot be serious by Pescar · · Score: 1

      Are you saying someone who's loaded because their daddy owns Texas is more deserving of all that fancy crap than a single mother who's worked her ass off trying to provide for her family? If they'd been born in Indonesia, you really think they'd have as much money as they do in Australia, however hard they worked?

      --
      so.... you're a girl, huh?
    19. Re:You cannot be serious by Johann+Lau · · Score: 1

      "fuck comcast" => 4000+ results :)

    20. Re:You cannot be serious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well nothing really makes you better than him to begin with, so you're not generally entitled to better internet than him.


      That's right, you are Australian after all.

      [duck and run]

    21. Re:You cannot be serious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stop posting in monospace, unless you are posting actual code.
      It's fucking annoying.

  6. Geosynchronous Latency by dsginter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    22,233 miles to the satellite
    round trip = times 4 = 88,932 miles

    speed of light (wave propagation) = 186,282 mi/sec

    latency = 88,932 / 186,282 = 0.477 seconds (on top of regular network latency)

    Curse you speed of light. You win again!

    --
    More
    1. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by BSAtHome · · Score: 1

      That just means that you need to have a large TCP window to compensate the large bandwidth-delay product. No real problem. The connection sucks for anything interactive, but bulk is just fine.

    2. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Funny

      The connection sucks for anything interactive

            Except, possibly chess.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    3. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by JonWan · · Score: 1

      Why not put up a bunch of them up (like GPS) and just hop around to available Sats as they come over the horizon ?

        Note:
      I know nothing at all about this stuff, so be nice when you call me a idiot.

    4. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by kcbanner · · Score: 1

      Because, then you have X "wasted" satellites in orbit...only one is being used at a given time. Its silly not to make it geosync.

      --
      Obligatory blog plug: http://www.caseybanner.ca/
    5. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by Pros_n_Cons · · Score: 2, Informative

      That just means that you need to have a large TCP window to compensate the large bandwidth-delay product. No real problem. The connection sucks for anything interactive, but bulk is just fine. I've got satellite. Latency effects more than you think. Yes for big files its fine but p2p, web surfing, voip, if you voice chat. Sometimes my latency is 2-3000ms. id rather have a 384kb dsl line at home and just grab my .iso's at work.
      --

      -- "of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
    6. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      Depending on the cost and throughput, i would consider getting satellite in addition to my DSL for bulk transfers...
      Use bittorrent to download to a fast server, and them download it over the satellite link from there.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    7. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by Atlantis-Rising · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Unless of course you sell service to people all over the globe with a constellation of LEO satellites.

        In any case, a Molniya orbit would only require three satellites for coverage, looks ideal for Japan as a nation, and the perigee can be as low as ~400km. The round-trip latency for 400 km would be (400*4/300,000), or 5ms (if my mental mathematics is not off by a decimal point or so).

      Yes, you'd need three satellites, admittedly.

      --
      "It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
    8. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For example they say the satellite successfully achieved orbit 175 miles above the earth

      175 < 22,233

      That makes for 3.76ms latency for those directly below it.

    9. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by Dare+nMc · · Score: 1

      round trip = times 4 = 88,932 miles

      what, you don't think it would be appropriate to put your servers in geosynch orbit as well?
    10. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by frieko · · Score: 1

      Well, since data rate is proportional to SNR you need a dish to accomplish any sort of decent speeds. Which would mean having to track the sat in real time. Armchair astronomers out there - would it be feasable to make a satellite-tracking consumer product?

    11. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by cjb658 · · Score: 1

      22,233 miles to the satellite

      Is there a reason the satellite has to be up this high? Could it be at a lower altitude?

    12. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by jamstar7 · · Score: 1

      Not to mention that your dish has to 'track' the satellite to get a decent connection time. Then it has to swing back to the 'start' position to pick up the next satellite in orbit.

      --
      Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
    13. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by jamstar7 · · Score: 1

      Is there a reason the satellite has to be up this high? Could it be at a lower altitude?

      Not if the satellite is going to appear to sit in one spot in the sky. At geosynch altitude, the sat has an orbit of 24 hours, thus, appears to be stationary.

      --
      Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
    14. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      From what I've read latency over 1 second is typical. It makes sense; the data is probably spread out and repeated so that the lost parts of the signal can be pieced back together. I mean, phone modems encode data like this these days too...

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    15. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by Orange+Crush · · Score: 1

      Yes. But it's a bit pricey.

    16. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by SashaM · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The connection sucks for anything interactive

      Except, possibly chess.

      I know you were joking, but as an administrator on a chess server, I can tell you that people get pretty pissed off when lagging half a second. It's acceptable for playing long games, but most over-the-net chess games are 1 to 5 minutes per player per game. Yes, it's a whole different game that just shares moving rules with "chess".

    17. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by Ambiguous+Puzuma · · Score: 1

      It could not be at any other altitude without some kind of continuous propulsion (or other force besides gravity acting on it).

      If I remember right (it's been a while since I've studied any physics) a simplified explanation looks something like this:
      (1) a = v^2 / r [equation for centripetal acceleration]. For an object to maintain a constant speed in a circular path, it must accelerate at a rate of v^2 / r perpendicular to the direction of motion, where v = velocity and r = radius of circle.
      (2) a = m_Earth G / r^2 [equation for gravitational acceleration]. The acceleration must be due to the Earth's gravity alone, so we use the equation for acceleration due to gravity. m_Earth is a constant (the mass of the earth); G is the gravitational constant.
      (3) v = 2 pi r / t_rotation. For the orbit to be geosynchronous, it must take the same length of time to complete one orbit as it takes the Earth to complete one rotation (t_rotation).
      (4) r = r_altitude + r_Earth. The center of the earth is the center of the satellite's orbit; the radius of the circle is the altitude of the satellite (distance from satellite to surface of the Earth) plus the radius of the Earth at the equator (distance from the surface of the Earth to the center). It must be at the equator because the direction of motion of the satellite must be the same as the direction of the Earth's surface below the satellite.

      Solving these equations simultaneously for r_altitude, you get:
      r_altitude = (m_Earth G t_rotation^2 / 4 pi^2)^(1/3) - r_Earth

      Plug in approximate values for the constants:
      m_Earth = 5.97 * 10^24 [kg]
      G = 6.67 * 10^(-11) [m^3 / (kg s^2)]
      t_rotation = 86400 [s]
      pi = 3.14
      r_Earth = 6.38 * 10^6 [m]

      And you get 3.59*10^7 meters, or 22,300 miles. You can substitute in the mass, time of rotation, and radius of any other planet/moon/etc. to find the altitude of a geostationary orbit around something other than Earth.

    18. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You'd really not even need BT to download to a fast server: Your BT speeds, on the whole, will be unaffected by the satellite lag. BT expects packets to be slow in coming. It doesn't care.

    19. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by tylernt · · Score: 1

      Not to mention that your dish has to 'track' the satellite to get a decent connection time. Then it has to swing back to the 'start' position to pick up the next satellite in orbit.
      Don't use a dish, use something like a collinear array that has it's gain spread along a thin line (the path of the satellite as seen from earth). You'll need a reflector of course. You only have to aim it once (if the satellite is passing nearly overhead -- won't work as well if the sat is describing an arc nearer to the horizon, though).
      --
      DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
    20. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by drspliff · · Score: 1

      We have a number of customers using VoIP over satellite connections, it takes a few seconds to get used to it for both people on the call but after that it's hardly noticable.

    21. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by doggiedoll · · Score: 1

      Well, this link will become a bandwidth for anything bulk. Your ISP will QOS it first before they choose the right connection for you. Imagine, but how can you connect to the Internet from pacific ocean. Fast fiber optics is not your answer.

    22. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by a_nonamiss · · Score: 1

      Dang, your maths are right on. I have some (bad) experience with satellite connections. I always assumed the relay back and forth to the satellite was responsible for a few milliseconds here or there, but I always thought that the majority of the delay was due to processing at the satellite or a sucky head-end from the ISP. 477ms of latency just due to the speed of light, so really there's no way that they are ever going to be able to offer anything good based in space, unless they figure out a way to use networked satellites in a much lower stable orbit. They wouldn't be geosynchronous, but I bet there's a creative way they could mesh satellites together to relay data.

      --
      -Arthur
      Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
    23. Re:Geosynchronous Latency by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but saturating your pipe both ways like bittorrent does, will make the latency even worse...
      Also your upstream won't be as good, so not great on those ratio trackers.
      Easier to just download over night when your not trying to use the connection for other stuff, and let your fast server build you a good seeding ratio.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
  7. Re:Remember Pearl Harbor!! by palegray.net · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Remember Hiroshima; don't let anyone have nukes.

  8. Re:Remember Pearl Harbor!! by LingNoi · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't know what is worse..

    The fact that you posted this racist crap in the first place or the fact that you posted anon so you could mod down anyone that responded to you.

  9. Molniya orbits by mangu · · Score: 2, Insightful

    a Molniya orbit would only require three satellites for coverage ... The round-trip latency for 400 km would be (400*4/300,000)

    Problem is, a Molniya orbit requires three satellites for coverage at the apogee, which is at about the same altitude as the geosynchronous orbit. At the perigee the satellites move faster, so you need more of them to keep one always on sight.
    1. Re:Molniya orbits by TheLink · · Score: 1

      How about having a geostationary satellite with a 30000km tether earthwards to the "dish"? This will reduce the latency problem a bit. Doing this might be good practice for the space elevator stuff that people are talking about.

      It's still impractical though (more "research" than anything) - the trouble with satellite for "internet" is the connections/$$$ ratio is usually not very good. You're basically doing something like a "cell phone station" but with a very very big cell.

      If you can somehow have millions of users per cell up in the sky, someone will be able to do the same thing for cheaper/better on land. So you're stuck to selling to those in the ocean or in the air, or some niche (in the middle of nowhere).

      Satellite is great for broadcast - a few talk, billions listen (including a few from the CIA/NSA/Echelon bunch ;) ).

      Or for people who waiting for their "internet" cables to be repaired/installed ;).

      --
  10. Am I the only one... by wertigon · · Score: 1

    Who for a brief moment thought "Wait, they've developed a satellite with internet access that orbits the earth at insanely high speeds?" or something similar? Sleep-depraved mind FTW. :p

    --
    systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
  11. Re:Remember Pearl Harbor!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    What's worse is that our resident genius couldn't even be bothered to post his reply to your comment in the right thread.
     
    (By the way, the Japanese could easily nuke someone if they wanted to, but they're not stupid enough to start a nuclear war.)

  12. 175 miles by heroine · · Score: 4, Informative

    175 miles is the separation altitude for the rocket. Satellites usually boost themselves to geostationary orbit. The Delta IV heavy can blast all the way to geostationary orbit but no-one can afford it.

  13. Re:Remember Pearl Harbor!! by Adambomb · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Yeah, High population density + low land surface area is definitely not a position to start a nuclear war from heh.

    --
    Ice Cream has no bones.
  14. As a satellite dish internet installer & user. by Brad1138 · · Score: 1

    IT SUCKS!!! I install WildBlue, 1 of the 2 main Sat. ISP's. It doesn't matter how fast the connection speed is, the latency SUCKs. It averages 1200-1800 ms (no that's not a typo, check it out if you want). You can not play online games, outside of backgammon. The only thing I can say for it is, it is better than dial-up, although you can play some online games w/dial-up.

    --
    If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
  15. Re:Remember Pearl Harbor!! by bigpicture · · Score: 1

    I didn't see what the original comment was, but I am guessing it was not about the technical merits of satellite internet. There is a difference between the intent and purpose of launching a communications satellite, and shooting one down. Maybe got he/she this confused.

  16. PULL by lazy+genes · · Score: 0

    Just like shooting skeet.

  17. Re:As a satellite dish internet installer & us by TooMuchToDo · · Score: 1

    With regards to latency, it's pretty hard to make light go faster, well, then light. Damn you physics!

  18. Latency? What latency? by kentrel · · Score: 0, Redundant

    This might seem like a stupid question, but why would there be latency with a satellite link? With radio waves traveling at the speed of light what difference is 175 miles going to make?

    I always thought the reason for latency was a combination of signals going through slower copper wires and being processed by various routers and servers along the way.

    Can someone clear this up?

    1. Re:Latency? What latency? by Dunbal · · Score: 4, Insightful

      With radio waves traveling at the speed of light what difference is 175 miles going to make?

      175 miles? Try more like 22,230 miles. That's pretty much the only place you can put it unless you want your internet connection to only work 3 minutes out of every 90 minutes...

      The reasons are simple physics. Gravity causes everything to want to fall towards the center of the Earth. Satellites manage to stay in orbit because they are constantly "falling" ahead of the Earth. That's why things in "low earth orbit" are referred to as being "in freefall" and not REALLY in zero gravity. Gravity is still there, only the velocity of the satellite is so high that all gravity manages to do is curve the trajectory of the satellite, not cause it to lose height. This means your satellite is going to be moving VERY fast with respect to the ground.

      It's only at 22,230 miles out where the circle is so big that your satellite now appears fixed with respect to the ground. It's still moving. It's still "free-falling". But it appears to be hovering over a fixed spot over the equator - very useful for communication satellites since now you know where to aim your antenna and you don't have to bother moving it.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    2. Re:Latency? What latency? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      From the article:

      The satellite, equipped with two large multi-beam antennas, separated from the rocket and successfully entered its intended orbit 175 miles from Earth, JAXA said in a statement. I hope that's right. I'm so ready for fast satellite, weather balloon, stratellite or similar internet communications.

    3. Re:Latency? What latency? by Nosklo · · Score: 1

      From the article:
      The satellite, equipped with two large multi-beam antennas, separated from the rocket and successfully entered its intended orbit 175 miles from Earth, JAXA said in a statement.
      I hope that's right. I'm so ready for fast satellite, weather balloon, stratellite or similar internet communications. Your application of bold formating is misleading. Try mine instead and you will see the truth:

      The satellite, equipped with two large multi-beam antennas, separated from the rocket and successfully entered its intended orbit 175 miles from Earth, JAXA said in a statement. Editors.
      --
      find -name "*base*" -exec chown us {} \; ; ln -s /dev/zero /dev/chance ; make time
  19. But... by kitsunewarlock · · Score: 1

    Did they paint it red so it'll go 3 times faster than a normal Satellite connection?

    --
    Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
    1. Re:But... by Cheerio+Boy · · Score: 1

      Did they paint it red so it'll go 3 times faster than a normal Satellite connection? Of course not! Don't be silly!

      All good satellite people use a trusted brand of Satellite Wax!
      --

      "Bah!" - Dogbert
    2. Re:But... by kitsunewarlock · · Score: 1

      Obviously my mobile suit gundam references are wasted on this site. Fine, I'll make my own tech news site for nerds! With blackjack, and hookers... You know what, forget the website and the blackjack! Eih, screw the whole project.

      --
      Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
    3. Re:But... by n6kuy · · Score: 1

      Their transmission rate adjustment knob goes up to 11...

      --
      If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
  20. 6Mbps uplink by Horizon_99 · · Score: 1

    Any Idea how the uplink is supposed to work? Can thousands of 45cm dish all communicate with the satellite at 36,000km simultaneously? I know that years ago you needed a DSL/Dial-up connection for the uplink, is the not the case anymore?

    1. Re:6Mbps uplink by DarthBart · · Score: 1

      Probably the same TDM multiplexing that Hughesnet and the other 2-way providers use. Each customer transmits in a burst in sequence. Each satellite has several TDM channels and each channel will support X number of customers.

  21. Now what we need by fishthegeek · · Score: 1, Funny

    is something to solve the last "175 mile problem." Okay. What if we replace all of that empty space with something that we'll call "FIBER". Only instead of running all of the fiber to the satellite and back we could just run it over land. Barring any service interruptions by 30 story lizards breathing fire all over the data center this might just work!

    --
    load "$",8,1
  22. Fantastic ! by ultranova · · Score: 1

    This means that new series are available to fansubbers even sooner than previously ! Yarrrr !

    --

    Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  23. What happens when (not if) ... by Art+Pollard · · Score: 3, Insightful

    With all this reliance on satellite technology for GPS, communications, and weather prediction what happens when (not if) the sun hits a more active solar cycle eliminating all of these satellites in one fell swoop? We have become terribly dependent on satellite technology (that I agree is cool). However, there have been solar storms that would knock out all of our satellites in recent memory -- only we did not have any satellites up yet. Now the satellites are up and the next large solar storm is just lurking out there getting ready to strike.

    As usual, beware any significant reliance on any one technology.

    1. Re:What happens when (not if) ... by Kristoph · · Score: 1

      what happens when (not if) the sun hits a more active solar cycle eliminating all of these satellites in one fell swoop

      We launch more satellites, possibly with additional radiation shielding?

      ]{

    2. Re:What happens when (not if) ... by Art+Pollard · · Score: 1

      Well, yea, sure. That is easy to say when only one or two satellites are affected. The bigger point is what happens when ALL (or a significant percentage) of our communications, GPS, and weather satellites go out simultaneously. Can the world deal with greatly reduced phone, internet, GPS, service for any appreciable period of time?

    3. Re:What happens when (not if) ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now the satellites are up and the next large solar storm is just lurking out there getting ready to strike.


      Do not anthropomorphize large solar storms. It makes them cranky.
  24. Latency by aflag · · Score: 0

    From my calculations the latency to go up to the satellite and come back would be about 1ms. I don't think that's bad latency at all. Am I missing something here? What I did: 281,635.2m / 299,792,458m/s = 0.00093s

    1. Re:Latency by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

      You're missing a few decimal places... The distance is 35,000 kilometers times 4 for a round trip of latency. 140,000,000/300,000,000 = ~0.5 sec

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
  25. Here is the solution for ISPs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ISPs complain about having videos delivered through their networks, or that upgrading their networks (fiber) to support video delivery would be too expensive. Here is the solution ! Put a satellite in orbit above US for massive data delivery (big (sec) latency is not an issue when starting to watch an HD movie), and keep the old "pipe" network for web apps, games (low (msec) latency).

    Actually, I think that US gov should put such satellite in orbit and rent it to ISPs, but that the socialist in me talking :)
    This country needs true high-speed internet to compete with the rest of the world. How ironical it is, that a big part of the web innovation comes from the US, but most of us can not even access it (online gaming, VoIP, IPTV, etc.) ? Hopefully, the next president will understand the advantage to have a high-speed internet available in the country.

  26. Re:This just goes to show by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You DISGUSTING RACIST TROLL!

  27. Broadband Penetration by allscan · · Score: 1

    This should help with broadband penetration. I know, you'll never be able to use it for gaming. However, when the US isn't on a top ten list of connected countries, its really sad. Something like this could help those in very rural areas get connected.

    1. Re:Broadband Penetration by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 1

      However, when the US isn't on a top ten list of connected countries, its really sad.

      No, it's not. We were the first connected country. That others have leapfrogged with new technology is to be expected.

      If we were to adopt whatever is absolutely fastest today...and somehow roll it out to every house and business in the next 60 days...infrastructure, last mile, everything...by the end of the year, some other country would be 'more connected'.

      Every year, some new, faster tech comes out. You want to rewire the entire country every year or so? Not gonna happen.

    2. Re:Broadband Penetration by JordanL · · Score: 1

      Every year, some new, faster tech comes out. You want to rewire the entire country every year or so? Not gonna happen.
      Do they seriously come up with a completely new type of fiber every single year? Or were you extending what you know about Dell computers to network topography?
    3. Re:Broadband Penetration by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 1

      Do they seriously come up with a completely new type of fiber every single year?

      New type of fiber? No. New technologies and specs to deliver broadband to a house or business? Yeah, just about.

      In the last decade:
      DOCSIS - 1, 2, 3, and intermediate versions
      Multiple flavors of DSL
      FIOS
      WiMAX
      Satellite
      BPL

  28. Kizuna = "Bonds" not "Winds" by jmf · · Score: 5, Informative

    The name of the satellite has been mistranslated: 'kizuna' () means bonds (as in 'family bonds') and not 'winds', which makes a lot more sense given the satellite's function.

  29. Re:Remember Pearl Harbor!! by ARRG.ch · · Score: 1

    Whatever the country, the only winning move is not to play.

  30. Re:Remember Pearl Harbor!! by Adambomb · · Score: 1, Funny

    Unless you're pushing the button from your newly colonized extraterrestrial planet with a nice self-sustaining biosphere of its own =)

    --
    Ice Cream has no bones.
  31. Re:Kizuna = "Bonds" not "Winds" by tkh · · Score: 3, Informative

    I had thought the same thing, but that's not correct. If you look at the JAXA page on the nickname, Kizuna is the nickname and the official name is WINDS (spelled all uppercase) which is an acronym. It's very confusing though.

  32. Re:Remember Pearl Harbor!! by TubeSteak · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    or the fact that you posted anon so you could mod down anyone that responded to you. Next time you get mod points, log out, clear your cookies, and post anonymously.
    Then log back in and try to use your mod points in that thread.
    Anonymous isn't so anonymous.
    Maybe it's just IP based, but it could easily be more complex than that.
    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  33. Hmmm... Latency... (voice of Homer Simpson) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Geo-stationary sattelite + (Information) Teleportation = 0 Latency

  34. At least by okinawa_hdr · · Score: 1

    It's up there now...until the United States decides to shoot it down.

    1. Re:At least by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny! But seriously, when was the last time the US ever shot down a satellite without authorization? Ever?

  35. total system capacity of course is not mentioned by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Any satellite is power limited due to Shannon's law. That a 2.7 ton satellite in space can generate one (1) link at 1.2GBps to a dish 15 feet accross is the reality.

  36. Re:Remember Pearl Harbor!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Correction - it isn't really racist. What does race have to do with it ? It's nationalist. He just is worried about the Japanese nuking us as revenge. And hell, they did start the whole friggin thing.

  37. Bad idea. Too much latency. by tevslin · · Score: 1

    It's not only gamers and users of VoIP who can't tolerate the latency of a geostationary satellite; neither can ordinary web surfers or many other users of TCP. Ask anyone who uses Hughes DirectNet or WildBlue. A modern web page builds in many transactions and is "optimized" for latencies in measured in milliseconds; not half a second as this satellite will have at best. File transfer protocols also depend on interaction altho less so. Latency can be MORE important than bandwidth in determining the usefulness of an Internet connection. More at http://blog.tomevslin.com/2008/02/japans-internet.html

  38. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  39. Re:Kizuna = "Bonds" not "Winds" by Soulshift · · Score: 1

    It seems to be somewhat of a JAXA convention to have a Japanese nickname and an English official name. If you take a look at their lunar probe project, it is referred to as KAGUYA(SELENE).

    --
    node-def: a tactical hacking sim. Now in open beta.
  40. latency = what? by lpq · · Score: 1

    3.76ms? How do you figure? I used 175 miles * 2 = 350. 350/186,000 = 1.8ms, or does latency to a satellite take 4 trips?

    How are people computing latency?

    I saw this on the BBC News website:

    "Data sent over fibre optic networks is subject to the limitations of the speed of light, which means interactivity between the server and gamer will never have a latency below 70 milliseconds."

    70ms latency being a minimum over fiber optic networks? Is the speed of light slowed down in fiber optic cables?

    Speed of light would normally be able to travel over 13000 miles (>20800km) in 70ms. But the same article was claiming that consoles were on the way out and that 'flash' would be used to write online games, so maybe the technical expertise in that article is lacking a bit?

    1. Re:latency = what? by mysticalreaper · · Score: 2, Interesting

      lpq, you're smarter than the BBC. ;)

      First, the speed of light is slowed down by fibre optic cable, just as light is slowed travelling through any medium. Roughly light in optical fibre travels 2/3 the speed of light in a vacuum.

      So, to compute minimum latency, take the length of fibre, divide by the speed of light, divide by 2/3, and then double it, as the data must go there and back.

      Thus, if we had a 1300 km cable: 1300km / 299,792.458 km/s / (2/3) * 2 = 0.013009 s = 13 ms round-trip-time.

      So, for our 1300 km fibre optic cable, the RTT (ping time) propagation delay would be 13 ms. In reality, you'd have to add delays from routers at either end, but in modern high-end equipment operating at 1Gbps or more, the router delays are very small, something like 0.03 ms on a 1500-byte packet.

      To go back to the game server and the gamer latency, in real life, it could be as low as 0.1 ms if you were in the same room as the server, or around 5 ms if you were in the same city as the server. Certainly less than the 70ms minimum cited in the article.

      P.S. I just realized that if 1300km = 13ms latency, 6892 km = 68.92 ms latency, or very close. I never noticed this before, and i'm a bit shocked. I can now easily roughly guess the length of fibre runs using traceroute. Fascinating.

    2. Re:latency = what? by lpq · · Score: 1

      A slowdown of 33% in fiber? Wow...that seems like alot, but believable. This fiber is 'glass'?

      Do you happen to know about the speed of an electrical signal over copper? I.e. is fiber really any
      better in terms of speed? Or does its main benefit come from capacity?

      Here's an odd question, maybe... So fiber is "efficient" because the light stays fairly trapped within the fiber as it snakes along. What would be the effect if, instead of a solid core (glass?), one were to create a "tube" with the center being 'hollow', and the fiber surrounding the core -- would light tend to stay in the "empty" core? I.e. is the reflectivity of the surface of the fiber (which normally keeps the light within a fiber) 2-way? Would it also tend to keep a light beam within the empty space thus increasing the speed back up to the speed of light through air (presumption that it would be impractical to attempt to maintain a vacuum in the hollow core over any significant distance)...?

      I'm sure it's probably impractical for some reason or they'd be doing it...:-)

      Now if we could just induce an artificial wormhole within the wire....

    3. Re:latency = what? by witherstaff · · Score: 1

      latency to a sat takes 4 hops round trip. Think about it : Ground Up to Bird, Bird to Ground, Ground back to Bird, Bird back to Ground.

      Under 10ms to a satellite is impressive and would actually be workable in the real world. Time to get a fleet of these over the US to break the cable/DSL duopoly!

      With the 200 billion + the gov't gave to the baby bells to implement nationwide broadband you could easily build fiber to the home AND a fleet of these satellites.

    4. Re:latency = what? by kundziad · · Score: 1

      Would it also tend to keep a light beam within the empty space thus increasing the speed back up to the speed of light through air (...) ?

      No, it wouldn't. It is because the phenomena of total internal reflection occurs only when a beam of light tries to pass from a medium where it has slower speed to a medium where it has higher speed, e.g. from glass to air. It doesn't work the other way round, e.g. from air to glass. So light cannot be trapped in a hollow space.

      Apart from that, the delays are also caused by the fact that light doesn't travel directly along the fiber, but bounces off a lot of times and thus the length of its path is increased.

    5. Re:latency = what? by lpq · · Score: 1

      Ahh...yes...took me a bit for the picture....

      But other than satellites, there've been mumblings about possible geo-stationary *balloons*. Solar powered and tethered at a specific height. I think there was some mention of Google possibly doing it over a small area like the Bay Area to provide Bay-wide internet access. Apparently the cost of putting balloons up is considerably lower than putting satellites up, and maintenance is a tad easier as well (don't have to hire a shuttle crew).

      That could dovetail well into a rumored google phone that could might be able to tap into anyone's any land-to-balloon station -- which google could encourage customers to do 'acquire' by offering cheap or free internet access to those who agree to be a "land-station"...

      Time will tell how these things shake-out. Certainly makes sense over urban areas, though have heard it could be possible to use high enough balloons to blanket wide areas -- like satellites currently do, but at a fraction of the cost.

      Could be interesting. Someone needs to shake up the telco-cable monopolies. While they may not "strictly" be monopolies in that they have no competition, at least in the cell phone arena, they provide strong incentives to adopt one of the monopolies with their 2-year contracts and phone non-portability. Interesting how rates are much cheaper and service is better in other areas where phones are are 'portable' and unlocked. This makes it easy to change providers when the providers provide poor service or more costly add-ons... Amazing how the ability for users to easily change providers drives competition toward better service and lower prices. But for 'cheap' ISP's (that provide poor service), it seems AT&T and cable companies are often the only two games in town (presuming having even that choice in one's area). :=/

    6. Re:latency = what? by Muad'Dave · · Score: 1
      Do you happen to know about the speed of an electrical signal over copper? I.e. is fiber really any better in terms of speed? Or does its main benefit come from capacity?


      You're looking for velocity of propagation, which is limited in electrical media by distributed reactance, and by similar means in fiber. That article states the twisted pair ethernet cable can have velocity factors between .42 and .7 - that's pretty slow!

      Amateur radio operators have to account for this when making antennas and matching stubs - the 'electrical' length of a piece of coax != the physical length.

      --
      Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
  41. Re:Remember Pearl Harbor!! by Squalish · · Score: 1

    If you can realistically send enough people and equipment to start an entire human civilization & self-sustaining biosphere to the planet, you can sure as hell send enough nukes to destroy it, so long as they can be identified as the culprit, or there are enough nukes to point at everybody. Mutually assured destruction has a long reach.

    The Dune cycle's Golden Path involved doing whatever possible(up to and including genocide) to spread humanity far beyond the reach of any one human or organization. It's a nontrivial goal.

    --
    People in Soviet Russia, however, appear to be afflicted with amusing juxtapositions of the aforementioned situation
  42. What is the total bandwidth? by Charbax · · Score: 1

    How many people can get 1.2GB/s at the same time using this satellite? How much does the satellite dish to download and upload to the satellite cost? What is the expected price to connect using this satellite? Will customers be charged per GB transfered or a flat fee per month for a certain bandwidth? Is the bandwidth dedicated to each user or delivered at best effort depending on the bandwidth used by the other customers in the region or on the whole satellite? Someone please answer. I can't find any clear information in any of the reports on this story. If this satellite provide unlimited cheap wireless bandwidth, then I wouldn't understand why we aren't all using those, and why we aren't sending such satellites to cover Africa and other areas of the world that hasn't got a lot of broadband yet.

  43. LATENCY is not everything by ddoctor · · Score: 1

    What does latency mean if you're downloading a 5GB file? There are some applications that need low latency, some that need hight bandwidth. Why can't a network infrastructure can do both, and use smart routing to pick the right route for the job?

  44. misleading title by Digitus1337 · · Score: 1

    "Super-Speed," eh? How much faster does it orbit than other satellites?

  45. Re:This just goes to show by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    September 11 2007

    GNAA Unveils Chufter
    Paghtar Agga (Mujahideen Press/GNAP), Jalalabad

    GNAA today announced the official launch of Chufter, the web's first officially non-kosher media sharing portal. After six months of rigorous prebeta testing/DDoSing by a select committee of GNAA beta testers/packeteers, the worldwide public holiday of September 11th has been chosen to publicly list Chufter on international stock markets. Despite receiving little or no promotion since it's prebeta debut 6 months ago, Chufter exceeded all market analyst's expectations and has already become the de-facto non-kosher content provider.

    CEOs Rucas and pagga explain how Chufter came about: "The initial idea for Chufter came from our personal dissatisfaction with the strict 'kosher-only' content policy of mainstream clip sharing sites such as JewTube", barks Rucas. "Deletion of perfectly acceptable 'non-kosher' content by overzealous Hasidic admins was becoming increasingly commonplace, thus alienating the millions of proud, decent, antizionist gay niggers worldwide. Their rights to freedom of expression were being suppressed by these ZOG-funded sites, but with Chufter we feel we have given these gay niggers their voice back".

    In a modern world where traditional, wholesome family content such as maresex, scat, mutilation, death and jihadist propaganda are deemed non-kosher under the Orthodox Hasidic laws that most media sharing sites operate, Chufter comes as a breath of fresh air. "We are excited and proud to be the first to break this Jewish monopoly on content. We hope to set a precedent which will be followed by the other major players within the media industry", says an erect pagga.

    Of course, this level of innovation wouldn't be possible without the latest bleeding edge technology. "Chufter is built on proven, scalable enterprise solutions", explains pagga. "Our primary datacenter is located within the GNAA Worldwide Headquarters in California, in contrast with most other media sharing sites which are hosted in Israel. Each layer of the system was built from the ground up with a focus on efficiency, stability and content delivery. As an example of this, we chose MurderFS as the platform's foundation. Due to the the sheer amount of data involved, there was no other serious contender out there". Already in the works is a European mirror hosted Auschwitz, with a Tehran-based middle-eastern node in the pipeline.

    After a relatively quiet summer, leading market analysts predict sharp increases in GNAA stock this fall. Since debuting on NIGDAQ this morning, shares in Chufter have already risen by 911 cents at time of going to press with no signs of slowing. In related news, industry insiders are hinting that Barack Osama is currently in discussions with Gary Niger about GNAA handling his 2008 presidential campaign. Watch this space.

    About Chufter:

    Chufter is a wholly owned subsidiary of GNAA ;]

    About GNAA:
    GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which gathers GAY NIGGERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GAY NIGGERS.

    Are you GAY ?
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  46. Re:Remember Pearl Harbor!! by myth_of_sisyphus · · Score: 1

    I think we all know biospheres are unsustainable. Pauly Shore proved it in the eponymous documentary.

  47. You Frickin' Dolts by fullback · · Score: 1
    1. Kazuna means "bond" ot "ties" in Japanese.

    2. WINDS is an acronym for Wideband IntNetworking engineering and Demonstration Satellite.

    3. Kazuna (WINDS) is the Satellite (PROJECT) name.

    4. The key part in the project name is "engineering and Demonstration." This means, kiddies, that it is a demonstration of the engineering requirements for a satellite network that will be used for:

    a. emergency and/or disaster communications where all you need is a frickin' dish in case all other forms of land-based equipment are destroyed, unusable or inaccessible.

    b. medical treatment for remote areas using hi-resolution imagery transmitted to specialists.

    c. education for remote areas.

    Your broadband internet service in the west is still in the last century (or non-existent), so you might want to look in the mirror before you leap into making fun of something you haven't even read about. It is not intended for gaming, you frickin' dolts.

    1. Re:You Frickin' Dolts by zakezuke · · Score: 1

      a. emergency and/or disaster communications where all you need is a frickin' dish in case all other forms of land-based equipment are destroyed, unusable or inaccessible. Or more likely a frickin' wok in the likely event that your dish took a swim.

      --
      There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
  48. Re:Remember MAD by reiisi · · Score: 1

    For what it's worth, none of the Japanese I know whose jobs get anywhere close to rockets and/or nuclear devices are at all interested in revenge for Hiroshima. The few crazies who don't understand MAD and don't understand the economics of letting us handle their defense basically aren't allowed to work any job at all.

    There are other things to worry about before worrying about whether Japan had nuclear missiles.

    --
    Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
  49. Re:Remember Pearl Harbor!! by pravuil · · Score: 1

    Yes the parent is small minded, I agree with my parent post on that point. There is a point to aggression though, just misguided. The first question is who will be able to gain access to the satellite? Can anyone subscribe or is it open for everyone? If it's open then won't the Chinese be able to access it for their own needs? If that's so then couldn't the Japanese monitor and gather information from a country that it has been in conflict for a long time? While there is a small bit of animosity for the US left because of World War II, they understand the limitations within the market. Especially the bureaucracy the US has setup for foreign interests within our own land. While it seems like it's an attempt for PR to show their efforts towards progression, who are they trying to show off to? The US? China? Europe? What does it mean for them in the long run? I'm raising a lot of questions here because things are changing quickly now and these questions need to be raised.

  50. so you're building a japanese internet satellite? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    got tentacle?

  51. Speed? How about slow but free global access? by Anonymous+Bullard · · Score: 1, Insightful
    OK. Speed is good. Super-speed is great. Low latency gets gamers all hot and bothered.


    But. Why can't we use the already existing technology to provide (initially) slow but "pervasive" internet access everywhere? The developed world could easily afford to build a network of satellites that provides both "super-speed" data capabilities for their own wealthy subscribers while offering slower but free access to anyone else interested. Free internet access (ie. communications), independent of the policies of local regimes, could easily be considered a modern human right.

    Instead of the token complaints of lack of media and communication freedoms in countries like China and their vassal dictatorships in North Korea and Burma, the West could give these oppressed people access to the outside world, and the ability to communicate within their local "firewalls" without pervasive state monitoring. Of course the possession of unauthorized (ie. fully monitored) communication devices is criminalized in such countries, so the devices would have to be not only affordable but also compact, perhaps identical to existing smartphones or PDAs. In places where satellite dishes are allowed or somewhat tolerated, there should be a way of converting existing dish/decoder combos into simple internet terminals.

    I've no doubt that this could be done, but thanks to Dubuya's misguided quasi-religious "war of terror" and "partnering" with the likes of Putin and Hi Jintao (aka the Butcher of Tibet) and the resulting labelling of occupied Tibetans as "terrorists", the USA in particular seems to be in no mood for creating freedom of communications in such "partnering" countries, not when their dominant corporations would see no financial incentives in creating such network and in any case they tend to be extremely friendly with the ruling Chinese regime already. And god forbid if those dangerous prayer and freedom(!)-chanting Tibetan "terrorists" would be able to use their own language to communicate freely and even "terrorize" the occupying Chinese army with details of their oh-so-liberating policies in Tibet!

    Where's the union of peace- and freedom-loving democracies when we'd need it?

    --

    Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?

  52. Japan shames us again??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Besides the latency that everyone wants to talk about lets talk about raw bandwidth.

    In the US top speed for residential satellite broadband in the US is about 1.5Mbps down and 256kbps up, even in KA and Ku band. That's also expensive. Surely this sat is not going to sell 155Mbps down and 6Mbps straight to a residential customer?

    As someone so fracked over by the lack of broadband in the US that I'm super familiar with satellite internet I'm gonna be totally pissed if Japan has something 100 times as fast at probably half the cost. What regulators can I stab with a pitchfork? Where is the family of the telecom executive I can kidnap and torture for revenge?

  53. Re:Bad idea. Too much bloat and cruft by rubycodez · · Score: 1

    serious business web pages can leave most of that bloated interactive crap behind. Buying and selling and monitoring business can be done old-school: ssl and text and small images and forms.

    Even the maps and TV listings of yahoo have become just fucking annoying with all that interactive bullshit, classic mode is the way to go.

    web developers can quit turning webdom into a fucking goddam pinball machine.

  54. I can too be serious, if I want, but I don't want by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Surprisingly, "fuck comcast" (in quotes) resulted in only 4190 hits.
    Although twice as many, still less than I'd have thought.

  55. Reading this using Spaceway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm reading this while testing HughesNet's new SPACEWAY satellite. I'd love to know more details about how they've allocated their resources to get that kind of bandwidth.

    /Disclaimer, I work for Hughes.

  56. Finally, more for the isolated Australians by Shadow-Copy · · Score: 0

    This has been a very big issue for many Global Networks, and that about 95% complaints, internationally, have been over Australians with the complaint "Aye! Yankee AdMINS!!!, why do i get so much lag an dropped all the time?!!??!" which is basically because they are in the nowhere zone when it comes to networks.. they receive 100% of they're information via satellite which as several Private Corporations including Nasa, as well have been wanting a more World Wide instantaneous connection for the entire world..

    Having a instantaneous connection allows a broader range of connectivity so none of the Australians or other out of reach networks such as naval vassals, an what not, can Google at light speed an a lot more quickly then they have before.. Which the new satellites primarily aimed for media Internet Bandwidth so that all them happy Japaneses can not loose any data packets or connection loss when ever people are Buying merchandise on Sony.com...(jk)
    This isn't for just Asian countries this is for the entire world.. Which one of many that are planned to get up around the globe.. So that all our friends in the corners of the globe can stay.. better connected was the prime reason of theses new coming satellites that are being launched.. I can hear all the Australian gamers cheering cause they're unbelievable latency(lag) is comming to a end!

  57. Re:Speed is not everything... by JakartaDean · · Score: 1

    Well, I do live in South-East Asia (Indonesia), and I'm not as concerned about the latency issues as everyone else seems to be. The reason is that, for most people, internet access is slow anyway. Home connections are all capped at 128kb/s, even in the capital city. Cell phone time is dirt cheap, text messages even cheaper, so VOIP is not that big a concern for us (BTW, North Americans really get ripped off by phone companies). A 1/2 second latency delay in opening a web page isn't that big a deal, if it will take 10-20 seconds to get the page anyway. For people outside the big cities, I think this could be A Good Thing indeed. Dean

    --
    The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures (Junius)