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Satellites Providing Internet To the 'Under-Connected'
Taco Cowboy writes "Today, a Russian Soyuz rocket shot the first 4 of 12 satellites in a new constellation that are designed to provide affordable, high-speed Internet to people in nearly 180 'under-connected' countries. The orbiters, part of a project dubbed O3b for the 'other 3 billion' people with restricted Internet access, were built by the Franco-Italian company Thales Alenia Space. They will orbit at 8,062 km and will weigh only 650 kilogrammes (1,400 pounds) each. 'There are already geostationary satellites providing this type of services, but at a prohibitive cost for many end-users. Existing satellites generally obit at an altitude of some 36,000 kilometres (22,000 miles) above Earth, weigh in at a hefty four to six tonnes each, and take much longer to bounce a signal back to Earth—about 500 milliseconds to be exact, according to an O3b document.
"It is such a long delay that people speaking over a satellite link will shorten conversations, interactive web has an extremely poor experience and many web-based software programmes just won't function." Crucially, they will communicate with Earth four times faster, said the company, and six would be enough to assure permanent coverage. "O3b's prices will be 30 — 50 percent less than traditional satellite services," said the document. ... Launch company Arianespace, which will put the satellites in orbit, said the O3b constellation will combine "the global reach of satellite coverage with the speed of a fiber-optic network." ... The next four satellites will be launched within weeks, according to Arianespace, and a final four "backup" orbiters early next year.'"
... the gravitational field of this mass is next to none; whether it's 6 tonnes, 6 tons, or 6 gramounces.
Here's another similar plan hatched by a Canadian company .
I prefer something like Loon.. http://www.google.com/loon/
Satellites Providing Internet.. man That's So Cool.. Wish our country would able to get that service ..
Teledesic, Iridium, Globalstar, Orbcomm
Have gnu, will travel.
Woooooooooohooo - now the UN-privelidge can stream PRON all night
I was wondering when bandwidth would be available to those of us that live south of downtown.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Do the "Other Three Billion" really not have TV and radio? It seems like it'd be a lot more reliable to license space at existing antenna sites. Yeah you have to visit a lot of mountains and towers; but the whole thing isn't riding on a few space shots, and local companies could do it for you then you just grow by acquiring the local companies. I knew a guy who was doing this in rural Maryland. It's called a WISP. He did it for a few $100 to cover a few dozen people. It might have even made a small profit; but AFAIK he was more concerned about just getting connectivity for himself and his neighbors. He was a bank official and had bigger fish to fry.
Who needs satellites when we have Google's balloons providing internet to the whole world?
Google is trying something similar. Not from space though, but the stratosphere. Project Loon www.google.com/loon.
Today, a Russian Soyuz rocket shot the first 4 of 12 satellites
Well that's not a good start. Unless, of course, you meant "launched."
They will orbit at 8,062 km and will weigh only 650 kilogrammes
Science fail!
about 500 milliseconds to be exact
Well, which is it? About 500ms or exactly 500ms?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
IIRC the major reason for putting your communication satellites in GEO is that you can point a dish at one and leave it, and the dish will always be pointed at that satellite (barring satellite failure). Using LEO/MEO has cost (per satellite, but you need more satellites), signal strength and round-trip-time advantages, but you can no longer use a Big Dumb Antenna, but have to actively point at the satellite, and have some method to switch between satellites as they pass above/below the horizon. Does this O3b system use ground stations with multiple actuated dishes to feed a local fibre or POTS network (basically acting as a backbone in the sky), or is this intended for end-users with fancy phased array antennas and hilariously complex tracking systems?
oh, 50% of existing satellite bandwidth......
That equates to 500-1000 USD per MB depending upon geographic region. Is this what the under connected can afford? I want to be under connected!
In theory round trip latency should be 53ms. ( (8062km *1000) / 299792.458 = 26.8ms one way). That is almost a factor of 10 better than current satellite offerings. It may even make games playable.
Silence is a state of mime.
I actually RTFA and couldn't find a list of the "180 under connected countries" but as a satellite internet customer for several years the US should be on the list.
My Stats: ~900 ms latancy, 1.5 MBit, daily cap of 300 MB download, all for 3x the price of the lowest cable or DSL plan not available in my area.
It's amazing how all the telecom companies talk about providing great service until you live a mile and a half down a dead end road they have no plan to ever run lines down (Cable), or you are too far from the nearest DSLAM for DSL.
....but better than what we have now. It should be noted that when this article is talking about this service being "30 - 50 percent less than traditional satellite services," they are probably talking about VSAT in the respective areas of operation, not something like HughesNet here in America. Traditional VSATs are large (4-6 feet across and very heavy) and complicated to set up. They also easily run $1,200 - $1,500 USD/Month for relatively limited bandwidth (maybe 5/2.5 MB, contention ratio 1:5). In addition to VSAT, there are BGAN and other BGAN like services, which are very portable, but insanely expensive ($4,500 USD/Month) and have a limited bandwidth. By my estimations, the monthly service fee for this new O3B service would still be around $700 USD/Month, and still be fairly limited in bandwidth. Additionally, there is a maximum of 1.2 GB per beam, and assuming your ground terminal and your neighbor's ground terminals aren't moving around, this means you're certainly going to be sharing bandwidth, and maybe only get a relatively limited speed. I don't know what the diameter of each beam is (and I am too lazy to work out the math based on the numbers provided by this article), but for people anywhere near an urban setting, I would imagine space would be limited on the entire bandwidth spectrum, and there may even be a maximum number of slots open. So, basically, this is the next step in solving a very real problem, but the monthly cost is very much not in the price range of the average "under connected" person in the service area in question. Despite everyone groaning about internet costs in the US, this is NOT the solution you will be looking for. It WILL, however be awesome for: extractive industries, police and military, humanitarian and disaster response organizations, and large companies entering new and emerging markets. I bet the antenna (not a satellite dish as expressed in this article) will be fairly easy to set up too, making this way above standard satellite internet.