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Canadian Firm Plans 78-Satellite Net Service

Posted by samzenpus on from the who-doesn't-love-satellite-service? dept.

matty619 writes "A CNET article is reporting on another try at low earth orbit satellites for internet access, reminiscent of Teledesic, an ill fated $9 billion Bill Gates/Paul Allen et al venture originally consisting of 840 low earth orbit satellites (LEO-SAT). From the article: 'MSCI, which stands for Microsat Systems Canada Inc., is trying to be a bit of a maverick with its project, called CommStellation. The company said today that its approach of using small, inexpensive satellites in low orbit — about 620 miles above the Earth — means better coverage of the world's population, quicker launch, and better network capacity.' Each MSCI satellite has a data-transfer capacity of 12 gigabits per second. The expected lifespan of each is 10 years, and they can be sent back into the atmosphere at the end of their lives to avoid more orbital clutter."

122 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. This will be great! by h4rr4r · · Score: 3, Interesting

    High ping, high jitter, low bandwidth once you factor in number of users and high cost, what could be better?

    1. Re:This will be great! by SomeKDEUser · · Score: 5, Funny

      But then, the alternative is Rogers or Bell, so...

    2. Re:This will be great! by medv4380 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      High ping, high jitter, low bandwidth once you factor in number of users and high cost, what could be better?

      Dialup

    3. Re:This will be great! by Galestar · · Score: 4, Funny

      I personally still vote for IP-over-avian-carriers. Think of how many pigeons you can buy for $9 Billion.

      --
      AccountKiller
    4. Re:This will be great! by DirtyCanuck · · Score: 4, Informative

      This is Canada bud, we have the most land per person with gaps in population not seen in most places in the world.

      Even in Northern Ontario where cell service and broadband exists, there are still consistent areas that have access only to dial up.

      I have seen customers first hand, who had no service while their neighbor across the road had High Speed Bell or Cogeco.

      When we start to take into consideration people that can't even access dial up it becomes apparent that there is a glaring gap in equal access to internet up here in the proper North.

      With Bell and Rogers running the show it becomes very evident that an ideal way to harness these customers is to offer some sort of over the air service not already in place.

    5. Re:This will be great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Think of how many pigeons you can buy for $9 Billion.

      Think of the "packet drops" from $9 billion worth of pigeons.

    6. Re:This will be great! by emt377 · · Score: 4, Informative

      High ping, high jitter, low bandwidth once you factor in number of users and high cost, what could be better?

      622 miles is really quite low and would only add about 10-12ms to the roundtrip. It's only a little more than the distance from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Jitter and bandwidth is a matter of pricing, and presumably there will be service tiers. Oversell it enough and it will be crap. Price it to manage demand and it could be excellent. If they can make this work anywhere in the world (why else 78 nodes) with an access device resembling a small book or hockey puck, then I predict monumental success.

    7. Re:This will be great! by shoehornjob · · Score: 1

      Avian Carrier Wave+ The Birds (Hitchcock)= A really bad idea.

      --
      "We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
    8. Re:This will be great! by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      Jitter is a matter of the constantly moving sats, you will be losing them over the horizon and pick up new ones. If you price it so that a reasonable amount of bandwidth is affordable you will not be able to afford launch costs.

    9. Re:This will be great! by ickleberry · · Score: 1

      Low earth orbit satellites are only a few hundred miles up, so ping isn't so much of a problem.

    10. Re:This will be great! by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      Those folks are not going to have the money for this kind of service. If they really want good internet service they could move closer to civilization.

    11. Re:This will be great! by Kenja · · Score: 1

      Only 6ms round trip. At that distance, you're looking at as little as 3ms each way (6ms round trip from ground to satellite and then back). Of course it will be higher then that, but its not going to be a major hindrance.

      --

      "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    12. Re:This will be great! by postbigbang · · Score: 1

      622 miles is one way. RT is 1244mi, presuming it's right above you. Add in the route to get to the uplink, if it's not your own dish. And as geography says that people mostly live in towns and cities, congestion of a specific sat is likely, and is unlikely to be able to effectively load balanced in any meaningful way. Depending on the freq, you may or may not have to have a clear sky path, and you may or may not need to align things to maximize speed.

      Then there's launching a lot of sats because you have a lot of revenue stream, all ready to go. Seems a sat phone business could arise out of that.

      Oh, wait....

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    13. Re:This will be great! by JonySuede · · Score: 1

      Hulu from canada:
      Sorry, currently our video library can only be streamed from within the United States

      --
      Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
    14. Re:This will be great! by afidel · · Score: 1

      This is why high altitude balloons with solar motors to maintain position make much more sense to me, higher payload, lower cost, easier to maintain (put up a second bird, repair the problem then use that to replace the next failing bird).

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    15. Re:This will be great! by bdrees · · Score: 1

      If you have a phoneline, you should be able to access dialup. Right?

      Not true, While living in the Lower Ugashik area of Alaska, my dial tone was partially carried by microwave. Microwave and Dial up do NOT mix.

    16. Re:This will be great! by guruevi · · Score: 1

      Probably closer to 7ms + equipment would be roughly 10ms. Still better than Comcast or Time Warner though.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    17. Re:This will be great! by Idbar · · Score: 1

      I'd keep some spare money to pay the people that keep the pigeons flying, aka Managers.

    18. Re:This will be great! by arhnold · · Score: 1

      So those weren't mass bird die offs, just a burst of dropped packets?

    19. Re:This will be great! by ThurstonMoore · · Score: 2

      Dial-up has lower latency than satellite, I speak from experience, when I play online poker I use dial-up. Factor in the Fair Access Policy and you can download more through dial-up in 24 hours than you can through satellite. Dial-up: 5MB/hr x 24hrs=288MB Satellite: 200MB FAP limit per 24hrs for the $40 plan.

    20. Re:This will be great! by ThurstonMoore · · Score: 1

      If you have unlimited long distance or live in the area you should use http://www.freedialup.org/ .

    21. Re:This will be great! by dgatwood · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I would think that the 10-12 msec estimate already took all of that into account. If the bird is right above you, a 1244 mile round trip is a little over 6 msec. at the speed of light. Also, bear in mind that LEO satellites don't use a dish---they use a normal antenna---so no alignment is involved. You can't realistically track a bird whose twenty minute ground path is the size of North America using a directional aerial. The whole point of LEO constellations is that there are always multiple birds overhead, so you talk to the one that provides the strongest signal or whatever.

      But you're right about load balancing and cities. The flip side of that coin is that these can cover areas that can't feasibly be covered by cellular coverage due to low population density. You know, like most of Canada, where this company is based. It's a tradeoff.

      --

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

    22. Re:This will be great! by dave562 · · Score: 1

      The only time I ever worked with a satellite connection was at a power plant in the middle of California's Central Valley. The latency was constantly above 2000ms and establishing a VPN connection back to the main office in Los Angeles was a real challenge.

    23. Re:This will be great! by ewieling · · Score: 1

      It is about 800 miles from New York City to Chicago. These will be orbiting at 670 miles above. If there are latency issues, it is not because of the distance.

      --
      I really shouldn't have used someone else's email address for this account.
    24. Re:This will be great! by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      NO CARRIER

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    25. Re:This will be great! by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      Well, if you have no copper or fiber coming to your area, let alone house, I think that this sounds like a GREAT idea.
      The simple fact is, that northern Canada is fairly desolate and loads of space from local to local. The same is true of much of this planet.
      These guys are going to make loads of money.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    26. Re:This will be great! by X0563511 · · Score: 1

      Hilariously enough, carrier pigeons are not actually extinct either:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_pigeon
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_Homer

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    27. Re:This will be great! by ohiovr · · Score: 1

      Now we just need wifi that uses pidgin poop for power. (PPfP)

    28. Re:This will be great! by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      I think they're called "routers".

    29. Re:This will be great! by AK+Marc · · Score: 3, Informative

      LEO satellites will have lower latency than dial-up. Using experience with a GEO service to represent all possible satellite services is silly.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    30. Re:This will be great! by green1 · · Score: 2

      But that was a geostationary satellite, this is talking LEO, there's a huge difference.
      Geostationary is the reason satellite internet has a bad reputation, you're sending a signal 36,000km each way, that adds a lot of time to your pings. The plan here is for the altitude to be only 1000km, or 1/36th the distance, so if your ping before was 2000ms then your new ping time would only be about 55ms which is quite acceptable.

      The downside is instead of launching 1 satellite, they are launching 78, so the big question remains as to whether they can make it cost effective, or if this will be another Irridium (which in and of itself isn't actually a bad thing, because the Irridium network, although not being run by the original company, does work, and does work very well.)

    31. Re:This will be great! by Surt · · Score: 1

      It's a really interesting question. $9B will almost certainly buy all the pigeons. But then, so would $1B. So then you have to ask, how much of a pigeon breeding industry can $9B create? What will happen to that infrastructure when the buying spree runs out? You have to feed your pigeons too, how much economy of scale can be achieved in pigeon food production? The pigeons have to keep going for ten years, what does the turnover rate look like, and is that sustainable when there's a risk of noncontinuation after the first decade?

      --
      "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
    32. Re:This will be great! by green1 · · Score: 1

      Or more likely, these guys will go broke, but whoever buys their satellite constellation will make loads of money...

      I really like the idea, but I see it going the way of Iridium, the up front costs are just too high to make any money in the near term. That said, Iridium is still around, and I've been quite happy with it every time I've used it (works much better than Globalstar) So if this does the same thing, I look forward to whoever buys the constellation. It will solve a really big problem of internet in rural Canada (and the rest of the world). Especially nice would be the ability to use it mobile (current satellite internet systems require a precisely aimed dish, a LEO system would not, and as such could keep you connected easily on a moving bus/plane/boat/car

    33. Re:This will be great! by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      That's the equivalent of stating that DSL is capable of 300 bps because it runs over the same copper you used to get 300 bps on last you tried it. Your ignorance of the technology isn't an effective argument. These satellites are about 1/10th as far away as the satellite you were likely using. Not to mention that to get 2000 ms response, you'd have to be on a crap service. Comparing the capabilities of "satellite" from someone so incompetent as to try running business services over a very oversubscribed residential service on a GEO satellite and doesn't know what LEO means doesn't seem like a good idea.

      And yes, I do run a large satellite-based ISP. What do you do?

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    34. Re:This will be great! by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      It's not just northern Canada - even better settled parts of Canada still can't get mobile internet. If this thing is reasonably priced, I'd gladly buy it just so I can have net access on the road. Not only could I use it all over Canada, but I'd be able to take it anywhere in the world, so I wouldn't have to worry about roaming charges or availability of service when I go visit Europe, or deploy to some third-world shithole. You can bet that it would be equally valuable to any businesses which do resource-exploration in remote areas, or paleontologists and geologists working in the field, or any number of people in similar occupations/hobbies. Why pay for a satellite phone if you can carry one of these devices and have internet access, plus make calls using VOIP?

    35. Re:This will be great! by dave562 · · Score: 1

      Hostile much? It was business class satellite. Definitely not Dish. I will figure out who it was and get back to you. I'm going to laugh if it's your company.

    36. Re:This will be great! by Nadaka · · Score: 2

      You are just spoiled by modern technology. You could reach your FAP limit with pixelated pinup jpegs at 36kbps, it just took a little longer than with hardcore hd live video streaming on a multi-megabit connection.

    37. Re:This will be great! by Nadaka · · Score: 1

      No. In parts of stone county, MS phone service is available but varies between light static to drowned in static will not allow dialup to carry data. I frequently called it a 3rd world county when I lived there.

    38. Re:This will be great! by AchilleTalon · · Score: 2

      It's not because they are leaving very North they do not have money. Some are quite rich in some areas. Others are communities which could afford a link to share.

      --
      Achille Talon
      Hop!
    39. Re:This will be great! by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      And I'll laugh if someone sold you Starband or WildBlue or such as a "business class satellite."

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    40. Re:This will be great! by themba · · Score: 1

      Hilariously enough

      You were probably thinking of passenger pigeons, which most certainly are extinct.

      --
      /t
    41. Re:This will be great! by khallow · · Score: 1

      High ping, high jitter, low bandwidth once you factor in number of users and high cost, what could be better?

      A lot of stuff could be better. But you know what's worse? No service at all.

    42. Re:This will be great! by Ironhandx · · Score: 1

      Seriously?

      Learn the market before you talk.

      You should check out a company called Northwestel. They're not even in a monopoly position and they've made over 25 million a year in PROFIT on average for the last 10 fucking years in ONE town of 6-9 thousand(population has been growing obviously). At peak pop thats around 3k per person per year. Given that they're charging and making similar profits, all across the north, and that population is somewhere in the quarter to half a million range for just the Canadian territories, not counting Alaska... yeah... you're right, no money to be made here.

      So yeah, you know everything. The huge company that is about to sink billions into the scheme hasn't done their market research at ALL.

      The big tell however, will be service and reliability. Those are kings. The problem with a lot of these other start-ups is they failed badly on one or both counts with a price point higher than the crap that is already in place. Plus zero local advertising. If people don't know you exist and that you work up here, you're screwed.

      The existing competition leaves a LOT to be desired however. Any company deploying new technology should have zero problems ousting them almost completely. At least if they don't, the existing will be forced to dump some of their profits back into upgrading their own infrastructure.

    43. Re:This will be great! by DirtyCanuck · · Score: 2

      "Maybe the Canadian government should be requiring all phone companies to upgrade their switching stations to DSLAMs. 50k to 500k is a big jump, and is the difference between being able to watch hulu.com or not."

      Actually Bell has a monopoly on the lines. Such a mandate was issued then rolled back in terms of definition of both coverage and required bandwidth.

      I worked as an employee of Bell up until a week ago as I am switching jobs and where I live. We use a program Called Iris to determine availability of High Speed based on address. We would often figure situations where a next door neighbor had high speed available where next door they did not.
      Same goes for cellular Coverage: http://www.bell.ca/shopping/PrsShpWls_Coverage.page

      Look how things get patchy into the North. Even around North Bay a city of 60 000 plus people with a University extremely modern Hospital and other thriving industries.

      Laptops (Which I sold) were often sold based on whether they had a 56kb modem in them, typically Toshiba facilitated this. Our USB Modems were sold out, always.

      People in the North are far from poor. Some people I know own 1000's of acres worth millions but choose to live a modest life.

      They can't justify paying bell THOUSANDS to have a line run to their property.

      But they certainly can afford to pay a premium for an alternative to the tyranny of the monopoly.

    44. Re:This will be great! by QuantumRiff · · Score: 1

      Anyway people make a conscious choice - they can live near a city with all the various services but the view sucks, or the country where services are few but the scenery is beautiful.

      Try replacing "Services" with Mail. Or "roads". Then, think about where your food you eat comes from, and the natural resources you need to live. (yeah, I know, china, but think back 15 years)

      Then, think about how much of a difference internet can make in rural areas. Low priced goods can be purchased. Things that aren't even available in the small town stores. Information can be spread much more cheaply. Less trips to the store saves a fortune on gas, etc.

      --

      What are we going to do tonight Brain?
    45. Re:This will be great! by green1 · · Score: 1

      That 25 million profit won't get their first satellite off the ground, and they need 78 of them. They also have no existing market share to work off of, and are competing with entrenched players. They also can't rely on people in any town or city as those people will always be better off on DSL, Cable, or Fibre. (this will necessarily be slower, and more expensive than those options where they are available)

      They have a great market niche to look forward to, but the start up costs truly are "out of this world"

      Iridium was done by a major corporation with lots of market research, they bombed, badly. This company likely hasn't done even as much research as that...

      As for "learning the market" I work in telecommunications and I do pay attention to what is happening in the market, There are MUCH larger players in Canada than Northwestel, making MUCH more money, and none of them would consider a venture like this because of the large expense, and high risk.

      There is money to be made, but there's also a LOT to be spent, and recouping all your costs from a large population who have never heard of you and are already on your competition is just not easy.

      I'm not saying it won't succeed, I'm just saying that the odds of one company with a vision making it work all the way from concept to implementation without loosing their shirt is rather small.

    46. Re:This will be great! by Snarf+You · · Score: 1

      Think of how many pigeons you can buy for $9 Billion.

      Think of the "packet drops" from $9 billion worth of pigeons.

      I pity the guy whose job it would be to wade through all of those "hex dumps".

    47. Re:This will be great! by purpledinoz · · Score: 2

      I wouldn't be surprised if Rogers and Bell got involved in developing anti-satellite missiles.

    48. Re:This will be great! by wesleyjconnor · · Score: 1

      your internet has a FAP limit?
      what the hell else do you do with it?

      --
      http://www.awfullybigmoustache.com
    49. Re:This will be great! by wesleyjconnor · · Score: 1

      Genuine question, once your talking to the satellite with that latency, how does the satellite pick up the rest of the internet?
      Do they all talk to each in LEO as part of the LAN or does the Sat your talking to talk to base stations all round the world connected to the grid via fiber?
      I'm imaging thats how it works and so you would need to factor in that lag.

      --
      http://www.awfullybigmoustache.com
    50. Re:This will be great! by dryeo · · Score: 1

      I'm in Canada, about 40 miles by road from downtown Vancouver which is as close as I can afford to live. My dialup bill just went up to $29 a month for unlimited time. I guess they needed to jack up the price to pay the guy who pulled the plug on usenet.
      I get 26.4 down and on a good day 14.4 up. Since the government sold the phone company things have really gone down hill.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    51. Re:This will be great! by 91degrees · · Score: 1

      They're at about 1000km altitude, so straight-up distance adds about 3.3ms. Geostationary gives about 120ms (up to about 240ms apparently, of you're further around the planet). If you're right below a satelite and next door to a ground station, that will be 6.6ms delay. Except you won't be. The satelite typically cover 7 million square miles. Assuming a circle, that's a radius of 1500 miles or so. Pythagoras gives us a travelling distance of 1600 miles or 2600km, which gives 8.5ms. We need to get back to the ground station, so worst case is probably the same. Worst case total delay 17ms plus whatever latency there is on the rest of the connection.

      So I make it between 6.6ms and 17ms latency for LEO compared with 250ms for Geostationary. This is quite naive but probably the right ballpark.

    52. Re:This will be great! by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

      And probably a lot of people living on a location to which no roads leads and with 2 months of access by boat or a 6 months by ski/snowmobile.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    53. Re:This will be great! by Dabido · · Score: 1

      I hope your entire $9 Billion isn't spent on buying pigeons. Think of the costs of housing them, feeding them, training them, and then if they last less than the 10 years the satellites last, you need replacement pigeons (once again requiring training etc). Then, devices for them to carry the information, such as thumb drives, plus hardware to attach these to the pigeons. In the long run though, large amounts of data over short distances would be a lot quicker.

      --
      Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
    54. Re:This will be great! by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      It makes you wonder who they are targeting. There are few places left in the civilised world where you can't get internet access via mobile, wifi or dial-up. Presumably you will need some sort of receiver/transmitter dongle for your computer so mobile devices are out too.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    55. Re:This will be great! by spammeister · · Score: 1

      My parents don't even have proper cell phone coverage at their house. One has to climb up a hill, stand on a rock and tilt into a strange configuration to maybe get a connection. Actually I find it qutie freaking awesome when I head down there to visit to not have anything other than TV as a modern distraction.

      --
      I tried to think of a good sig, and this wasn't it.
    56. Re:This will be great! by dwandy · · Score: 1

      Mesh networks are used in various 3rd world countries w/o wired internet and since we're quickly and actively working on becoming a 3rd-world internet country it's time we start mesh networks. I've said before that it's the last mile we need to take back, and since the regulatory body has proven itself to be thoroughly corrupt or inept we need to come at this from another angle.
      Sure there will be no one to connect to when you start yours, but there will be someone for the second person in your neighborhood to connect to. I can see about a dozen wifi networks from my living room, and I live in a detached single family home: in denser neighborhoods I could imaging seeing closer to a hundred.

      --
      If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
    57. Re:This will be great! by dimeglio · · Score: 1

      Haven't they used the missiles already vs Bill Gates/Paul Allen's sats?

      --
      Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
    58. Re:This will be great! by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      I have seen customers first hand, who had no service while their neighbor across the road had High Speed Bell or Cogeco.

      Pretty sad when their neighbor won't let them get service to there and run wireless across the road.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    59. Re:This will be great! by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      What's dialup?

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    60. Re:This will be great! by Mikey48 · · Score: 1

      No, this isn't a geosynchronous satellite where the ping time would be on the order of a second, the altitude of these LEO satellites is only 620 miles. Ping times would be short -- the ping times from the East to West coast of the US would be much higher.

    61. Re:This will be great! by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Hilariously enough, carrier pigeons are not actually extinct either:

      Why's that hilarious? Don't they have pigeons where you live?

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    62. Re:This will be great! by tixxit · · Score: 1

      I think "Iris" is buggy. In one house I lived in for a year I got highspeed internet from Bell. It was always very flakey and very slow. I couldn't even play a game of Counter-Strike. Anyways, after weeks of complaining to Bell, I finally found out that my place was actually too far away from a DSLAM (or whatever) to have gotten High Speed internet (they should never have offered it to me). However, since my speeds were a hair over their broadband definition (the big problem was with dropped packets, which made games unplayable), they wouldn't refund me any money and since I had signed a year contract, I had to pay to get out of it. Ugh.

    63. Re:This will be great! by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      You're only talking a 600 mile data transport. Google is 3,000 miles from Illinois where I am, and I have no trouble getting YouTube videos to stream. When I was into gaming, I got fragged by people a lot farther away.

      Now, if they do it like satellite internet usually is now, with satellite downloads and POTS uploads, then yeah, it will suck. But if they do it right I don't see why it would be a problem.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
    64. Re:This will be great! by arkane1234 · · Score: 1

      They live in civilization, they just exist in the type of civilization that isn't packed tightly side by side in neat little compartments.

      --
      -- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
    65. Re:This will be great! by Tragedy4u · · Score: 1

      I feel you are a bit optimistic in your latentcy figures, are you taking weather into account? I had to setup a satellite data feed a couple times in my career, anytime the sky became thick with clouds, a bad rain or snowstorm the signal strength degraded significantly. 10-12ms was rarely achievable.

    66. Re:This will be great! by Ironhandx · · Score: 1

      You seem to completely miss the point. You also can't be working in the telecommunications industry in Canada or you would be aware of the large chunk of rural/out of the way people that have no internet access beyond dial-up, and not even dial-up in some cases. These are situations where they're comparing apples to apples, you're comparing apples to oranges. If they truly have a better service and are reliable, plus the price isn't totally out of this world.

      That was the problem with Iridium btw, I did use their service for business purposes a few times, but a $2000 phone and $150/month plus $3/minute usage, they couldn't compete against anyone, and anywhere that there was a permanent station it was/is much cheaper to set up your own sat-coms than try to use them. They priced themselves out of their market and had a very poorly executed market plan. The service was also bad. It was just barely use-able at the best of times.

      Sure its a long shot for a company to actually DO what they say they can. However if these guys do what they say they can and do it at a semi-reasonable price... They'll definitely succeed. There's still a lot of IF's left on their end... and a lot of cliffs for them to fall off of, but its still a good idea.

      Also: Northwestel IS the biggest player in Canadas North, which is the entire bit I was talking about.

      There are MUCH bigger players in Canada, like Bell, Rogers, etc. You are however getting into major centers before most of those are generally available, so your argument totally fails on lack of knowledge of service coverage for those "bigger players".

      Bell and Co. won't even lay out the cash to get 20-30 miles of copper out to a community of 1500 homes most of the time. They're in their entrenched markets and making their huge piles of money and don't really care to expand or risk anything.

      For starters, a company in Eastern Canada named Aliant ran more fibre and connected more new homes to broadband in a single year than Bell has in the entire 5 years since they bought Aliant.

      Big companies with fairly secure profit margins are lazy and fat. Don't look at them for any sort of 'new' venture, let alone one with some risk involved.

    67. Re:This will be great! by sglewis100 · · Score: 1

      You're only talking a 600 mile data transport. Google is 3,000 miles from Illinois where I am, and I have no trouble getting YouTube videos to stream. When I was into gaming, I got fragged by people a lot farther away.

      Now, if they do it like satellite internet usually is now, with satellite downloads and POTS uploads, then yeah, it will suck. But if they do it right I don't see why it would be a problem.

      Google may be 3,000 miles away from you, but the place in which your YouTube stream comes from is much closer. CDNs, anyone? Also, while a LEO system would have a much lower latency than existing satellite offerings, it's not going to be a "7ms" penalty. Like everything else, you'll be multiple hops away from the content you want. For example, you want YouTube on DSL, you don't get 1 hop access. You bounce from your machine to your modem to the local DSLAM, etc.

      Let's say 7ms is reasonable. It's 7ms up to the satellite. From there, it's 7ms round trip from the satellite to the provider's land based access. You've just doubled the latency. :) Still, much faster than a geostationary high earth altitude satellite, but it's not going to be merely 7ms.

    68. Re:This will be great! by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 1

      Have you looked at a road map of Canada recently? Over half the country is inaccessible via mobile, only hotspots are available for wifi, and dial-up requires a land-line.

      If you're traveling between Fort MacMurray and Dawson Creek, you're going to need another option. Same goes for almost everywhere around Hudson's Bay. In the north, many people still use satellite phones, and communities are connected to the internet via traditional satellite internet. This will be MUCH better.

    69. Re:This will be great! by X0563511 · · Score: 1

      Yep, that was it. Don't know why those wires got crossed.

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    70. Re:This will be great! by X0563511 · · Score: 1

      See this comment.

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    71. Re:This will be great! by BraksDad · · Score: 1

      This is Canada bud, we have the most land per person with gaps in population not seen in most places in the world...

      So the pigeon packet drops are not as likely to land on someones head or windshield.

      --
      Slowly waving my hand - "This is not the sig you are looking for."
  2. avoid more orbital clutter by countertrolling · · Score: 1

    Yeah, let's dump them in the ocean instead, along with the rest of our trash...

    --
    For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
    1. Re:avoid more orbital clutter by GiveBenADollar · · Score: 2

      More like vaporized in the atmosphere. Not really a big deal.

    2. Re:avoid more orbital clutter by countSudoku() · · Score: 1

      Unless you consider the massive waste of these multimillion dollar devices being turned into dust. Go for it though, I'm sure the base cost will be so low for the few consumers on the outer edges of CA will be able to afford this wonderful service while the carrier absorbs the cost of launch, lunch, and reentry. Makes good sense, and should be up and running SkyNet in no time! Damn the jitters, just drink more to cope!!1!

      --
      This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
  3. Might benefit astronauts on the space station by caseih · · Score: 2

    With the satellites at 600 miles, and if they truly could cover the entire earth, they could provide internet access of some kind to the ISS. Would beat the current system of vnc over radio link.

    1. Re:Might benefit astronauts on the space station by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      Why would they use vnc over radio?
      It seems like there would be many better ways, using a caching proxy would be one. I don't see what vnc adds.

  4. Platinum! (or "but this one goes to 11!") by Thud457 · · Score: 2

    1 better than iridium!

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

    1. Re:Platinum! (or "but this one goes to 11!") by countertrolling · · Score: 2

      Exactly

      “COMMStellation is a completely unique solution born from non-traditional thinking,” *cough* GPS *cough*

      But wait! There's more!

      “Until now, no one in the industry has been able to find the manufacturing cost and scheduling efficiencies, and cost-effective microsatellite technology to enable an economically viable constellation of satellites to provide 100% global coverage.”

      So there you go, They've reduced the price.. How non-traditional! Most unique!

      They've reinvented the kerosene lamp..

      --
      For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
    2. Re:Platinum! (or "but this one goes to 11!") by Charles+Dodgeson · · Score: 2

      If I had mod points, I would mod the parent up. As it is, I will just grumble that Thud457 posted this before I did.

      For those with short memories, in the 90s Motorola proposed a similar project with 77 LEO satellites (thus Iridium with atomic number 77). I thought it was such a cool idea that I bought a bunch of Motorola stock. Things didn't pan out very well.

      --
      Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
  5. I'm not a rocket scientist by mewsenews · · Score: 1

    Could any of the higher ranking nerds on this site tell me if they design satellites to burn up during de-orbit without reaching the ground or ocean? Seems like it would be a pretty compromising design feature since they're trying to pack in as much communications equipment as they can into the smallest possible space.

    1. Re:I'm not a rocket scientist by evanbd · · Score: 4, Informative

      Satellites naturally end up with modest densities, not super tightly packed (usually). Weight tends to be at more of a premium than space, especially when you have bulky things like solar panels and antennas involved. A few small, dense pieces might reach the ground, but that's not normally an issue. They'll be deorbited over the ocean, for starters, and the total mass reaching the ground is small.

    2. Re:I'm not a rocket scientist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes, there are limits on the quantity of certain materials (metals) that can be used in the design of a satellite for exactly this reason. I believe the spec is AIAA S-110-2005e. For big projects there are exceptions to this (Skylab) but re-entry procedures for these are thoroughly reviewed by governing bodies.

  6. Orbcomm? by mveloso · · Score: 1

    Been there done that?

    www.orbcomm.com

    1. Re:Orbcomm? by ickleberry · · Score: 1

      orbcomm is a really low speed network used mostly for gathering data from remote sensors and tracking devices. not really comparable

  7. What happens with China? by DeltaQH · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Such a service, flying over the GFW, would theoretically give access to uncensored internet.

    Will the company filter traffic from China in exchange to get into that market.

    Will China shoot the satellites down?

    1. Re:What happens with China? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      Unless these satellites are crazy cheap compared to historical implementations of satellite communication, they'll probably do nothing about it.

      With occasional high-profile exceptions(often driven by diplomatic spats), China doesn't have much to gain by hassling well-heeled foreigners or the services that they use. They are too valuable as potential investors and sources of new technology, and tend to be ill equipped for local political disturbance.

      If local troublemakers somehow get their hands on the necessary transmitters, it would entirely unsurprise me if they get roughed up and find that their equipment doesn't make it out of the evidence locker in working order(or unbugged); but shooting at a bunch of foreign satellites is Serious Business.

      Iridium phones have allowed you to make phone calls from China for years; but they are politically irrelevant because of how expensive they are. Unless this is a fair few orders of magnitude cheaper, the odds that a bunch of disaffected students are going to be able to afford it, rather than a local landline or cell link, are basically nil, so why worry?

    2. Re:What happens with China? by Nikker · · Score: 1

      They would need LOS for an up link so as the satellite passes over China unless someone else provides an up link I doubt it would be able to be of any use to anyone.

      --
      A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
    3. Re:What happens with China? by DerekLyons · · Score: 2

      China won't need to - even relatively crude ELINT gear will more than suffice to locate the transmitters on the ground. That's the great weakness in such a scheme for providing uncensored internet, it's anything but stealthy.

  8. Self-destruct satellites by js3 · · Score: 1

    I've always wondered why satellites don't have a self destruct mechanism? Blow it up, burns up in orbit, problem solved?

    --
    did you forget to take your meds?
    1. Re:Self-destruct satellites by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      First, because then it might blow up on accident and there goes your very expensive satellite. Second, it might blow up at a bad time (launch) which would be very bad for the rest of the satellites on your launch. Third, if you blow it up you're going to create a lot of debris you can't track. Most satellites are in GEO and have their orbits raised at the end of life to open up there orbital slots. There's no point to blow those up since the debris wouldn't enter the atmosphere. If you're in LEO then you'd still have to make sure there aren't any satellites below you before you blow up since you'll lose control of all of the pieces, and if you can control the descent of one spacecraft into the atmosphere to burn up you may as well not blow it up. Space junk is actually a huge problem for satellites and it's likely only to get worse.

    2. Re:Self-destruct satellites by edjs · · Score: 1

      The satellite wouldn't 'burn-up' in orbit. An explosion would just scatter the pieces of the satellite into various new orbits. Much of the shrapnel would hit the atmosphere and burn-up, but a significant amount would stay up there and just add to the debris problem, worse than if the satellite was left whole and in place.

    3. Re:Self-destruct satellites by geekoid · · Score: 2

      Becasue pices would go every where, including into a higher orbit.

      Also, launching with additional explosive material increased the risk in all phases of the launch.

      And it's not necessary, just de-orbit.

      Now, if you question is why don't satellites de-orbit when EOL approaches, that's just do to people wanting to save money. IMO they should be designed to de-orbit into the atmosphere at EOL.
      It doesn't have to be fast. A gentile 'nudge' that begins spiraling down over months would be fine.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    4. Re:Self-destruct satellites by Arlet · · Score: 1

      A gentile 'nudge' that begins spiraling down over months would be fine.

      Of course, this is only an option for satellites that are already in a low earth orbit. A geostationary satellite is going to need more than a nudge.

    5. Re:Self-destruct satellites by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

      Neither "blowing up" nor "burning up" have much effect on mass. In an atmosphere, "burning up" is pretty close to losing mass because various gaseous oxides just go floating off in the breeze. "Blowing up", similarly, tends to reduce something recognisable into little bits that blend in with the dirt/rocks/whatever.

      In space, neither usefully applies. To burn, you would have to bring your own oxygen, and you would leave a big, slowly expanding cloud of assorted oxides(I sure hope those don't like condensing on the solar panels or optics of other satellites...). An explosion just turns one piece of space junk, in a predictable orbit, into hundreds or thousands of shards, most travelling fast enough to ruin your whole day, in a wide variety of less predictable orbits(to be fair, some probably will be kicked into trajectories that force them to re-enter the atmosphere).

      Even if you vaporized the satellite completely, space is cold and doesn't have any sort of breeze to disperse the vapor. Once the vapor mass had cooled by radiation, it would likely start to recondense into delightful slowly-cooling balls of molten satellite.

      This is why the most polite practice is to nudge the satellite into an orbit that will decay fairly swiftly and re-enter the atmosphere, breaking up and burning in an area where people are unlikely to get upset if some bits hit the ground.

    6. Re:Self-destruct satellites by geekoid · · Score: 1

      Not really. I practice there is no perfect geostationary orbit. They need station keeping thrusters. So just turning those off means it will do a figure 8 twice a day, and eventually lose orbit. I just want to be sure it's a controlled failure.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    7. Re:Self-destruct satellites by Surt · · Score: 2

      In addition to the reasons listed by others, self destruct mechanisms have mass. Mass is very expensive to lift into orbit.

      --
      "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
    8. Re:Self-destruct satellites by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Not really.

      Yes, really. The energy needed to get them to deorbit is substantial. They just move them higher, it's cheaper, easier, and takes a reasonable amount of energy.

      I practice there is no perfect geostationary orbit. They need station keeping thrusters. So just turning those off means it will do a figure 8 twice a day, and eventually lose orbit.

      No. If you turn off the thrusters, it will drift. It won't crash in our lifetimes. Thrusters are needed because the earth isn't round. Thrusters aren't needed because the orbit decays that fast. They are so far out that they experience no appreciable resistance, so they'll go almost forever. That's what they plan of for decommissioning them as well, where they send them up higher and there they will also last "forever" and not be in anyone else's way.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
  9. CommStellation? Really? by MrEricSir · · Score: 1

    As if copying a failed business wasn't bad enough, using a pun-based product name isn't a good place to start.

    --
    There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
    1. Re:CommStellation? Really? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      "Skynet" had poor projected customer retention...

    2. Re:CommStellation? Really? by Nikker · · Score: 1

      Actually since Skynet will eventually retain us all I would beg to differ.

      --
      A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
  10. "sent back into the atmosphere"? by zill · · Score: 1

    The expected lifespan of each is 10 years, and they can be sent back into the atmosphere at the end of their lives to avoid more orbital clutter.

    In other news, Canadian forces is expecting to introduce their new kinetic planetary bombardment weapon in 2021.

    1. Re:"sent back into the atmosphere"? by Surt · · Score: 1

      Because it's hard to get licensed to put up a wire into the sky because of the risk of catching planes. Even in pretty remote areas.

      --
      "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
    2. Re:"sent back into the atmosphere"? by c6gunner · · Score: 4, Funny

      In other news, Canadian forces is expecting to introduce their new kinetic planetary bombardment weapon in 2021.

      We've been doing that for years - they're called paratroopers. Unfortunately they've recently acquired better parachutes, so their effectiveness has been greatly decreased.

    3. Re:"sent back into the atmosphere"? by Strider- · · Score: 1

      Eh, I thought that's what the Sea King helicopters were. Most countries drop torpedoes for anti-submarine warfare... we just cut to the chase and drop the whole damned helicopter.

      --
      ...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
    4. Re:"sent back into the atmosphere"? by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      Well, yeah, but the problem is they rarely stay in one piece long enough to hit the water, let alone damage the sub. 20,000 components falling on you is more of an annoyance than a bombardment.

  11. Back-haul alternate route? by grumpyman · · Score: 1

    Seriously, this thing provides 12 Gbps backhaul alternate route in four years? Capacity of 10% of a single strand of fibre?

    1. Re:Back-haul alternate route? by guruevi · · Score: 1

      12Gbps per satellite system. It would cost you roughly $8k/gigabit/month without any profit margins and given that they have enough backhaul here on earth.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    2. Re:Back-haul alternate route? by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      Uh, no. Unless all 78 satelites are serving the same customers at the same time, there's going to be a lot more than 12Gbps for the whole system. Still expensive, but quite a bit less than what you quoted.

  12. how many pigeons you can buy for $9 Billion? by Phizzle · · Score: 1

    All of them!

    --
    I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
  13. Freq band by bugs2squash · · Score: 2

    I read the article quickly and may have missed it, but I saw no mention of frequency band. If they plan to use licensed spectrum then it will be interesting to see how they achieve licenses for all of their markets. and for unlicensed spectrum I don't see how they'll reach the throughput they are hoping for. Directionality/tracking capability of the ground equipment is an interesting question too. I would imagine that when all is said and done, the pitch of 12Gbits/satellite wherever it is in the world under any reasonable circumstances it is likely to encounter is probably wildly optimistic.
    A more interesting idea to my mind would be to have a "spectrum-administration-hopping satellite that can work on multiple bands and pick the most apt band for the area it is currently orbiting above. ie. perhaps use whitespace, licensed cellular where it owns licenses and UNII capacity when over north america and use something different when over Japan or Europe and anything the hell it likes when over the ocean.
    Any idiot can launch a satellite, launching a satellite that is expert in international spectrum licensing law would be something more special.

    --
    Nullius in verba
    1. Re:Freq band by matty619 · · Score: 1

      I dunno, how do they do it w/ GPS and Iridium?

    2. Re:Freq band by bugs2squash · · Score: 1

      Not at 12Gbit/s

      --
      Nullius in verba
  14. I have satellite now, it sucks by bobjr94 · · Score: 1

    No one has brought cable, dsl or high speed wireless to our area yet so that is all we have. Its double or more the price real internet, at peak times (5-11pm & most all sunday afternoon-evening) its can be as bad as being slightly better than dial-up, unreliable (goes out several time per day), ping times of 1000-1500 are common(no gaming), download limits smaller than many cell phone plans( watch more than a few youtube videos and your cut off for 24 hours)..No thanks And when the launch large numbers of these low cost satellites seems about 10% or more of them are DOA, they just drift around and cant be controlled or brought back down from orbit.

    1. Re:I have satellite now, it sucks by randallman · · Score: 1

      Note that there is a big difference from this and what you're speaking of. The satellites you're speaking of are 23,000 miles up. Adding in round trips for TCP confirmation gives you something like 500 ms latency. Low orbit satellites, being almost 40 times closer have latencies closer to 10 ms, which is pretty good. The reclamation was addressed in the summary, which I'm guessing you stopped short of reading.

    2. Re:I have satellite now, it sucks by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      The throretical bast case ping time to an earth based server for a GEO bidirectional system (that is user->satellite->server->sattelite->user) is just under 500ms.

      However all the reports i've seen seem to indicate much higher round trip times than that in practice from both LEO and GEO systems. Is there any actual evidence that this new system will be better?

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
  15. Count me optimistic by randallman · · Score: 1

    The company likes to spotlight its competition with the O3b, the Google-backed satellite project to improve Net access for the 3 billion people who live outside of wealthy, well-wired areas.

    Sounds like more options and much needed competition on the way. If it's not tied to another service the way DSL, Cable, and Cell service is, it could heat up the ISP market. I do wonder if and how RF saturation might limit the market potential for this tech.

  16. LEO? by Vectormatic · · Score: 1

    sure, putting these things in LEO rather then GEO has some advantages, lower launch cost, lower latency, but that means each satelite will be traveling in and out of your view, so you will be switching satelite connections every x minutes... i wonder what that will do to SSL sessions etc...

    --
    People, what a bunch of bastards
  17. Re:Yo by arkane1234 · · Score: 1

    Thank you, I agree fully.
    I pine for the day when I can move back out into the middle of nowhere and live like I did when I was a kid.
    Montana is waiting.

    --
    -- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
  18. Customer base is tiny.....potential fail by deadweight · · Score: 1

    Your customers: A - Live outside of normal coverage B - Can afford expensive internet. This number is relatively small, if Iridium is any guide.

  19. Limited Applications by DarthVain · · Score: 1

    Not everywhere has 3G or even cell coverage. This is one way to provide total mobile internet coverage. When considering mobile devices, ping, latency, and bandwidth are not as meaningful as when connecting with say a laptop or desktop. This could be very useful in a lot of places for tablets, hand helds, and WiFi cellphones.

    Making it affordable to the masses is the key. If the Iridium experiment showed us anything it is that there is a very limited market for high cost low performance sat communications.

  20. Re:Not quite as insane as it sounds by petermgreen · · Score: 1

    IMO The real questions are

    1: can they keep the latency down to a level that makes the service superior to conventiona GEO sattelite service. If not then IMO there will be little chance of them gaining much ground over existing services
    2: can they find a price point that brings them enough revenue quickly enough to cover the massive cost of launching such a network.

    Afaict all previous attempts to build LEO communications networks have failed to attract enough revenue quickly enough to pay the debt incurred and ended up in bankruptcy. IMO if you are investing in a new LEO satellite networks with the aim of making money* you are probablly a fool.

    *If you are doing it because you want to improve the worlds communications

    --
    note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register