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Canadian Firm Plans 78-Satellite Net Service
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."
But then, the alternative is Rogers or Bell, so...
Think of how many pigeons you can buy for $9 Billion.
Think of the "packet drops" from $9 billion worth of pigeons.
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?
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.