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SkyOrbiter UAVs Could Fly For Years and Provide Global Internet Access
Zothecula writes The internet has become a critical means of communication during humanitarian crises and a crucial everyday tool for people around the world. Now, a Portuguese company wants to make sure everyone has access to it. Quarkson plans to use SkyOrbiter unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to transmit internet access "to every corner of the world."
Please, please, PLEASE can the folks who are setting this up call it "Skynet"? Thanks.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
So how are they going to finagle fees from us for this? Decoders? It is scandalous that we have to pay through the nose just for the right to be spied on ....
And, just as likely, surveillance.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
On their web site, I see a lot about what they wish they could do, and very little about how they'd manage to do it.
They say their HA series is designed to stay aloft for up to five years at "all latitudes". "All latitudes precludes the use of solar power since it's dark for six months at a time at far north and far south latitudes, and most of their pictures clearly show no solar panels. So are they hoping for a magic battery that will last five years but not weigh hundreds of pounds, or are they planning on nuclear power? Submarines that stay out for years use nuclear power, so that is a proven option.
Another option that's known to be somewhat workable at some latitudes is a hot air balloon, where the black balloon continually absorbs heat from the sun to keep the craft aloft. Their pictures show model planes, though, not balloons.
Do these guys have any idea how to solve the most fundamental physics problems in the way, or do they just have a wish and nothing else? Their web site doesn't seem to indicate they've thought about how to do it, just how to get people to hand over cash, with no actual plan published.
Sattelites come in two main varieties both of which have their problems.
GEO sattelites can cover the world with a handful of sattelites but they are a LONG way from anything on the ground and a long way up the gravity well. That limits the data rate possible with a given antenna size and RF bandwidth, it also makes them expensive to launch and makes the latency high (best case for round trip time on a GEO based sattelite internet service is ~500ms, protocols for on-demand upstream bandwidth allocation will make that much worse).
LEO sattelites have much lower radio path loss and much lower theoretical latency but each sattelite has a relatively small coverage area and worse the sattelites are constantly moving which makes use of high gain antennas difficult, requires frequent handoffs, makes it impractical to focus coverage on areas with the most demand.
A flying platform would be even closer to the ground than an LEO sattelite and would stay in a more or less fixed position allowing it to serve a fixed area. The question is can you make an economical permanent flying platform (either by lighter than air flight or by heavier than air flight with solar power)
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
LEO sats go past quickly, so you need bigger power budgets in lieu of beam steering. You also give up bandwidth to manage doppler. Best to use a mix: LEO channels for small packets with low latency, GEO channels for bandwidth. Smart routing and channel bonding does the rest.
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
SkyOrbiter UAVs Could Fly For Years and Provide Global Internet Access
They should have called it Complete Internet Access. They should also clarify that there will be No Surveillance Allowed.
As for the name,
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If all the money spent on military action in the Middle East were diverted to blanketing the area with these UAVs, together with an air-drop of 50 million tablets, the political outcome would be favorable to the West.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Zothecula writes: "The internet has become a critical means of communication during humanitarian crises and a crucial everyday tool for people around the world." Very well put. I am not sure about all these schemes you read about to distribute Internet via balloon and now UAV. But the need is there. I suspect that some sort of distributed access scheme would help out in other situations. Many countries have segmented off "their" Internet from the rest of the world. I hear the Iranians have their own version of YouTube (Mullah approved) and everything. Looks like the Russians are following suit. Meanwhile in the good 'ol U.S. of A. you get the Internet that your corporate overlords say you get and anything they don't like is throttled or blocked. Perhaps a well thought out ad hoc Internet distribution scheme might help get around some of the censorship and interference that even first world countries currently enjoy.