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Can We Get Global Broadband From Low-Earth Orbit Satellites? (blogspot.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the we-could-call-it-Skynet dept.

"The internet is unavailable to and/or unaffordable by about 50% of the world population," writes Larry Press (formerly of IBM), who's now an information systems professor at California State University. But he's also long-time Slashdot reader lpress, and reports on new efforts to bring cheap high-speed internet to the entire world. SpaceX, Boeing, OneWeb, Telesat, and Leosat are investing in very large projects to deliver global, high-speed Internet service [using low-earth orbit satellites]. This could be a significant option for developing nations, rural areas of developed nations, long-haul links, Internet of things, and more by the mid-2020s.
Parts of Alaska could see internet-via-satellite as soon as 2020, according to Larry's article, which adds that the technology could even be used to bring high-speed internet access to ships at sea.

3 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. Why not? by nospam007 · · Score: 5, Informative

    We already get internet by satellite from a dozen companies.

    Here are the top ten.
    http://www.toptenreviews.com/s...

    1. Re: Why not? by dszd0g · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not even if it went around the world across the Atlantic ocean, Europe, Asian, and the Pacific ocean rather than directly unless you made a trip out of the way (for example, from Europe to northern African along the way).

      Current satellite Internet uses geosynchronous orbits of 22,000 miles away. The equatorial circumference of the earth is about 24,900 miles.

      The circumference at the Chicago and New York latitudes of 41.9 and 40.7 respectively is less. The radius of the earth is about 3,959 miles.
      The circumference at a latitude of 41.3 is approximately:
      =2*pi*r
      = 18,687 mi
      Or you can also do:
      (equatorial circumference) * cos (latitude in radians)
      24,900 miles * cos((41.3/180)*pi)
      = 18,706 mile
      Which is slightly different because the earth isn't exactly a circle.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
      http://mathforum.org/library/d...

      --
      This message is encrypted with Quad ROT-13 to protect the author's copyright under the DMCA.
  2. Latency is the Crucial factor by mysidia · · Score: 3, Informative

    LEO Satellites at 1200 miles up will have a minimum Earth-Ground latency of 24 milliseconds and Earth-Ground-Earth Latency of 48 milliseconds because of the speed of light ---- this is a major latency issue unless there are MANY infrastructure Earth stations at major colocation facilities AND the traffic can be efficiently routed, so we're not landing traffic in a NEW YORK internet exchange that then needs to be routed to SAN FRANCISCO, or Atlanta, and thus appending another 50 milliseconds of ground latency after the satellite hop, for example.