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Could We Beam Broadband Internet Into Iran?
abenamer writes "Some reporter at a recent White House press briefing just asked the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, this question: Was 'the White House....considering beaming broad capability into Iran via satellite so the opposition forces would be able to communicate with themselves and the outside world?' 'Gibbs said he didn't know such a thing was possible. (Is it?) But he said he would check on the technological feasibility and get back with an answer.' I'm not sure what the reporter meant by beaming broadband into Iran: Do they even have 3G? Would we bomb the Iranians with SIM cards that would allow them to get text messages from the VOA? Or somehow put up massive Wi-Fi transmitters from Iraq and beam it into Iran? How would you beam broadband into Iran?"
Getting a signal TO them is easy. You just have to set up a source with sufficient power. Satellite, ground, shortwave, whatever. I think it would be feasible (I'm not radio guru) to beam them FM from space or Iraq. Basiclly you'd be breaking all the transmit power limits to further your cause.
The problem with networking is they don't have any devices powerful enough to beam the return signal BACK to us. Sure, we can broadcast them a packet 1000 miles away, but their hardware only has the power to return it 1 mile back... Yeah, you can tweak the sensitivity of your receiving equip, but not enough for this. And the idea of cells is that you are counting on a signal only reaching a certain distance, so you can reuse that frequency in another location. Even if they all put 100,000 watt amplifiers on their wifi cards, on our end it's just jumbled garbage.
By the time we got any hardware to them to let them communicate with us, this revolution will be over... R&D, Procurement, Distribution...
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
There's a number of places that offer satellite internet to geosync satellites. http://www.wildblue.com/aboutWildblue/how_it_works_demo.jsp http://www.ussatellite.com/how-satellite-internet-works.html
There already are various Satellite Providers that offer Internet Connectivity also in Iran, just try to :google it .
I'm pretty sure the US Army already has it's own satellite ISP that works in Iraq, which means it also works in Iran, they'd just have to be so generous to let the Iranis use it, they don't really need special equipment for this, they can buy satellite capable phones in Iran, they just need the access to the US army networks, or commercial networks. Just give them some access to satellite providers, then they can set up their own networks on site if they're the least bit organized, otherwise it's no use anyway.
Wifi from Irak isn't really possible, It would work around the borders, but that's all, Iran is a pretty big country, it's meaningless, satellite is the only option, either that or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers .
There are two possible technologies (among other similar ones)
With DVB-S2/RCS you have a bidirectional satellite system that requires a 1.2 meter dish antenna and a satellite terminal composed of an indoor unit (about the size of a bulky cable-modem) and an outdoor unit (transmitter and receiver horn mounted on the focus point of the satellite dish. This costs around US$1000 dollars and it takes about 30min to install (if you are an experienced installer).
With BGAN you have a very portable terminal (about the size of a netbook) that only requires you to point it in the general vicinity of the satellite location in the horizon.
Both systems use GEO (geostationary) satellites, which means that they have a fixed location in the horizon. They are actually located over the equator (0Â latitude) and they orbit the earth in 24h cycles, thus appearing to be stationary.
With DVB-S2/RCS you can have a 50Mbit/s in the downlink, although most services provide less than 10Mbit/s. The usually upload speed is 1Mbit/s. This speeds are shared between all terminals within a beam (similar to Internet over cable, where you share your Internet within a residential area of about 1000 persons).
With BGAN you only have 492Kbit/s in both the downlink and uplink. On the other hand, it is designed for mobility.
Fear is the mind-killer.
The Tor project has taken it upon themselves to help out the resistance in Iran. They have instructions to setup Iran only Tor bridges to provide secure/anonymous internet access to and from Iran.
https://blog.torproject.org/blog/measuring-tor-and-iran
Too bad the press isn't paying attention to the (very successful) efforts by the Tor project in helping out the people of Iran get communications in and out of Iran. No need for the White House to do anything, the good folks and volunteers at Tor are taking care of it in a much more practical way.
Also, whoever wrote this article/said that comment has no idea about physics and technology. Some of the comments here talking about how unbelievably implausible "beaming broadband" into Iran is are very funny.
You can't just throw internet into a country.... not in any practical way anyways, especially from a satellite without proper ground equipment.
The majority of the country lives in mud huts with goats in their yards and are lucky to have electricity for even part day if at all.
And that's where Ahmadinejad got his 60% of the vote. It might be interesting to enable the 'intellectual elite' of Iran living in the big cities to make their displeasure known to the rest of the world. But as long as they have a semblance of a democratic system, their fundies are going to run the place.
Have gnu, will travel.
I see plenty of good reasons. But just having a good reason isn't enough to do something. We have limited resources. There are many oppressed nations around the world. How about instead of rushing to interfere with Iran, we simply stop supporting the oppressive regimes we prop up first?
Exactly right. The U.S. and Britain started this whole fiasco in 1953 by meddling in Iran's affairs and overthrowing Mohammed Mosaddeq in Operation AJAX. They installed the Shah, a ruthless dictator with a security apparatus as bad or worse than the current Iran Regime, SAVAK. The Iranian people hated the Shah so much they turned to the Islamists in the 1978/1979 Iranian revolution to overthrew him, and replaced the devil they knew with the devil they have now. Mossaddeq nationalized British run oil fields in Iran and the U.S. and Britain over thew him to regain control of the oil. It was one of the early and most vivid proofs that yes in fact the U.S. and Britain will do just about anything to control oil fields including coups and wars. All things considered if Mossaddeq had been left in power Iranian would have been a lot better and happier place.
Anyone with the slightest sense of history realizes the U.S. and Britain need to stay completely out of this because their involvement will just give the current regime a potent propaganda tool to say the protests are a western imperialist instigated counter revolution to the 1979 overthrow of the Shah. Its bad enough things like Twitter and Facebook are U.S. based.
@de_machina
Moral of the story: those we help will not always repay us with kindness.
Especially when the reason we helped them had absolutely zilch to do with altruism or genuine interest in their welfare or in the principles of democracy or anything high-minded, and instead had everything to do with our own self interest with complete disregard for how things turned out for them provided we got what we wanted.
We didn't really 'help' them. We 'used' them as pawns in our game of chess with the USSR. We didn't give a shit about what happened to them.
How is Palestine a civil war? Or are you talking about history? The last civil war in that area took place a couple thousand years ago, which makes sense seeing as how that was the last time the area had sovereign rule against which to start a war.
It was in reference to criticism that the US government wasn't doing enough to help or encourage the protesters overturn the election and/or government.
I tore these out of your symbol, and they turned into paper.
How is Palestine a civil war? Or are you talking about history? The last civil war in that area took place a couple thousand years ago, which makes sense seeing as how that was the last time the area had sovereign rule against which to start a war.
it seemed pretty civil warrish when Hamas booted out Abbas by using guns.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
You might need a lesson in history.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
Current production has nothing to do with it. Future yield, in a world with ever diminishing supplies, is all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves#Estimated_reserves_by_country