Satellite Uplinks For the Masses

kgeiger writes "Intellectual Ventures has spun out Kymeta to develop and mass-produce their mTenna product line. mTennas are based on metamaterials like the invisibility cloaks discussed on Slashdot and elsewhere. Metamaterials enable beam-steering that ensures an mTenna remains in contact with satellites even during motion. Kymeta will use 'established lithographic techniques' to make them. IMHO, these antennas may be as big a leap for mobile computing and remote communications as the invention of fractal antennas was for mobile phones."

Comments

Re:Coming from a microwave engineer

[Anonymous Coward]

Phased array stripline antennas have been done to death. To death.

Says you. I happen to have one with me right now. I'm putting it against my head. Nothing is happening. Now I'll put the second one against the other side of my head while making sure that if I do pass out that my body will hit the submit button. Okay, big whoop, nothing is happe

IV actually has a product?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Is this the same notorious patent troll owned by former microsoft bazillionaire Nathan Myhrvold? The company that makes nothing but taxes just about everybody in the tech world and claims to be doing God's Work by not actually selling a mosquito-killing laser gun?

It's just a phased array

[rgbe]

This is just a phased array antenna (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phased_array). The applications of a phased array allow you to have a direct "beam" to the transmitting tower, which means that you can use significantly less power, and possibly transmit over a larger distance. The idea has been around for a long time, almost 100 years.

It will be interesting if they get this to work, especially for mobile devices like laptops and mobile phones, because when you move your phone you need to immediately redirect the signal "beam" towards the transmitter / receiver. If you miss, you lose your signal. Not only that, calculating the direction of the beam and requires you to regulate frequency and intensity of hundreds of the transmitters on the phased array, this calculation will create a superposition of waves in one direction and cancellation of the waves in the other in the other directions. Hence a "beam" in one direction. The calculation of direction of the "beam" is computationally intensive, but I presume it could be optimised using a lot of hard coding.

For the masses?

[element-o.p.]

From TFS:

IMHO, these antennas may be as big a leap for mobile computing and remote communications as the invention of fractal antennas was for mobile phones.

I suspect not, actually.

There are certainly cases where this could be a useful technology, especially in rural or remote areas. I happen to live in a state (Alaska) that has far more area NOT covered by cellular or WiFi hot spots than IS covered by them, so I can certainly see niche use-cases for this tech. Yet I'm still skeptical that this is going to be a game-changer for mobile computing.

I rather suspect the author of TFS has never actually *USED* satellite links for any kind of Internet activity. About two years ago, the company I work for used satellite Internet to connect to a number of remote field sites. As a network administrator, I got the dubious pleasure (hah!) of trying to maintain routers, switches and even a couple of servers on the far side of that satellite link. CLI connections, like SSH, were slow...sometimes painfully so. GUI connections, like remote desktop or VNC required large doses of valium to even be tolerable (I kid, but not by much). Just to show that I'm not a high-bandwidth prima donna, I was using -- and reasonably happy with -- a 768k x 320k DSL line for my home Internet connection at the time.

Trust me -- if you have 3G, 4G or WiFi connectivity, I guarantee you will use it rather than satellite Internet. You won't save money by using satellite, and you will be very, very disappointed with your throughput.

Invisibility cloak

[Mister Whirly]

Invisibility cloak? I'll believe it when I see it...

Re:Antennas Aren't The Issue

[snowraver1]

That's not entirely true... Your sat phone connects to Iridium satellites, whick, IIRC site at about 450 km about earth. These satellites have low data capacity, and are generally not suitable for data.

For data, you need to go all the way out to Geo Sync, something like 65,000 km out there, so a bit further. We use self-aligning dishes to lock on to the sat, and they are a major pain in the ass. Any time there is a power inturruption, there is a good chance they lose their link. Then I have to arrange for some cook, or janitor to go out there and try and fix the thing. It's frustrating.

Needless to say, I am very interested in one of these.