Race Is on to Deliver Internet from Space • Hacker News Board

Re: Race Is on to Deliver Internet from Space

#11

Post by cmsmith » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 7:01 PM UTC

ryandvm wrote: post #2

Slow race. Motorola tried this once already and failed with the Iridium Constellation in the 90s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellatio... The venture went bankrupt and Motorola was actually on the verge of burning them up in the atmosphere when the Pentagon stepped in: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=119255 Another interesting thing about the Iridium Constellation is that the satelli…

The costs of building and launching small satellites has dropped significantly since the 90s. People are also traveling more and demanding more connectivity, so it seems that Iridium may have just been a bit to early to the game.

Re: Race Is on to Deliver Internet from Space

#12

Post by oxalo » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 7:16 PM UTC

Has anyone figured out how to deal with the issue of latency for space-based internet? Things like online games and video calls will just not work if the traffic hits space. I could see an ISP offering a service where traffic that needs low latency gets routed on land, while web pages and the like get routed through space. At a cost, of course.

Re: Race Is on to Deliver Internet from Space

#13

Post by mrfusion » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 7:19 PM UTC

__john wrote: post #10

mrfusion wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Geosynchronous wouldn't be over their borders. They fly around the equator.

Geosynchronous satellites don't have to be over the equator. Geosynchronous satellites that are over the equator are called geostationary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_satellite#Defin...

Interesting. Til I guess. But what's the purpose of not being geostationary?

Re: Race Is on to Deliver Internet from Space

#14

Post by mikeash » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 7:29 PM UTC

cmsmith wrote: post #11

ryandvm wrote: post #2

Slow race. Motorola tried this once already and failed with the Iridium Constellation in the 90s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellatio... The venture went bankrupt and Motorola was actually on the verge of burning them up in the atmosphere when the Pentagon stepped in: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=119255 Another interesting thing about the Iridium Constellation is that the satelli…

The costs of building and launching small satellites has dropped significantly since the 90s. People are also traveling more and demanding more connectivity, so it seems that Iridium may have just been a bit to early to the game.

Early, or late. One of Iridium's problems was that by the time they actually became operational, a huge chunk of their potential customer base had been eaten up by terrestrial cellular phones. The number of people who needed something more than a cell phone was a lot smaller in 1998 than it was in 1987.

Iridium service was also unbelievably expensive and not all that useful. (For that matter, still is.) If you had a choice between Iridium and a cell phone, the cell phone won every time. Iridium was a product for those with no other choice. If they had come in earlier, they might have had enough people with no other choice to make it. Later, and they might have been able to offer something that could actually compete with terrestrial services. As it was, their timing ended up being really bad.

Re: Race Is on to Deliver Internet from Space

#15

Post by __michaelg » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 7:30 PM UTC

oxalo wrote: post #12

Has anyone figured out how to deal with the issue of latency for space-based internet? Things like online games and video calls will just not work if the traffic hits space. I could see an ISP offering a service where traffic that needs low latency gets routed on land, while web pages and the like get routed through space. At a cost, of course.

This actually exists in some countries. E.g. in Europe there are (were?) several companies selling modem/ISDN+satellite bundles. All the upstream and parts of the downstream would travel through land-line while larger downloads would be routed via the satellite. This also saves you from needing to have relatively expensive satellite upstream equipment.

Otherwise, with GEO/GSO satellites there is no way to get below ~280ms round-trip times.

Re: Race Is on to Deliver Internet from Space

#16

Post by SEJeff » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 7:30 PM UTC

oxalo wrote: post #12

Has anyone figured out how to deal with the issue of latency for space-based internet? Things like online games and video calls will just not work if the traffic hits space. I could see an ISP offering a service where traffic that needs low latency gets routed on land, while web pages and the like get routed through space. At a cost, of course.

All of the past versions of "space internet" have been geostationary orbit, which is around 25,000-26,000 miles above sea level. The new iterations, such as SpaceX's idea, is to use many many more microsats and put them in LEO. Low Earth Orbit is closer to 750 or so miles above sea level. Since the ping latency of geostationary sat internet is around 500-700ms, it would be massively less for low earth orbit.

The two technical issues I'm aware of are the sheer number of satellites required for LEO internet, and the fact that you can't point your dish at a single place. There would need to be some sort of actuator or omnidirectional receiver for tracking to satellites at every client site. This makes the installation a bit trickier, but the ping times should be entirely reasonable provided someone gets the funding to put hundreds of satellites into an internet constellation.

Re: Race Is on to Deliver Internet from Space

#17

Post by mikeash » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 7:31 PM UTC

oxalo wrote: post #12

Has anyone figured out how to deal with the issue of latency for space-based internet? Things like online games and video calls will just not work if the traffic hits space. I could see an ISP offering a service where traffic that needs low latency gets routed on land, while web pages and the like get routed through space. At a cost, of course.

The new services are set to use satellites in low Earth orbit. That only adds a few hundred miles to the distance your data has to travel. The added latency is measurable, but not very high.

The problem with existing high-speed satellite internet is that the satellites are all in geosynchronous orbit, which is about 22,000 miles up. For a roundtrip, your data has to go up to the satellite, down to the ground station, then back up to the satellite and back down to you, for a total of almost 100,000 miles, or more than half a second at the speed of light.

Re: Race Is on to Deliver Internet from Space

#18

Post by mikeash » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 7:34 PM UTC

tarnquil wrote: post #4

I wonder whether China would consider any internet-supplying geosynchronous satellites over their borders as an affront to their sovereignty. Satellite internet (without a land-based backhaul) is surely the most effective way of subverting the Great Firewall.

They will probably be able to convince the service providers not to offer service within China. Flying the satellites over the country is fine, various international treaties take care of that, but once you start actually doing business in the country (even at a remove) then you'll run into trouble. It would be interesting for an outside company with no ties to China to just say "screw it" and ignore Chinese demands for restrictions or bans, but no company large enough to provide this service would start a fight like that in the first place.

You can see this at work already with existing services. Random example, check out the satellite coverage map here:

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/wif...

Note the distinctly China-shaped hole in East Asia.

Re: Race Is on to Deliver Internet from Space

#19

Post by InclinedPlane » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 7:46 PM UTC

ryandvm wrote: post #2

Slow race. Motorola tried this once already and failed with the Iridium Constellation in the 90s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellatio... The venture went bankrupt and Motorola was actually on the verge of burning them up in the atmosphere when the Pentagon stepped in: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=119255 Another interesting thing about the Iridium Constellation is that the satelli…

Oh, right, it was tried before.

Hey, remember the Newton? It's kind of a shame we'll never see an improvement on tablet computers since that failure proved it wasn't a viable idea.

Re: Race Is on to Deliver Internet from Space

#20

Post by seanp2k2 » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 7:53 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #14

cmsmith wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The costs of building and launching small satellites has dropped significantly since the 90s. People are also traveling more and demanding more connectivity, so it seems that Iridium may have just been a bit to early to the game.

Early, or late. One of Iridium's problems was that by the time they actually became operational, a huge chunk of their potential customer base had been eaten up by terrestrial cellular phones. The number of people who needed something more than a cell phone was a lot smaller in 1998 than it was in 1987. Iridium service was also unbelievably expensive and not all that useful. (For that matter, still is.) If you had a…

Interestingly, they're still popular with some very adventurous groups, e.g. Round-the-world sailors, motorcyclists going through remote locations, climbers and hikers in remote places / foreign countries, etc.

Very useful if it's the only thing that will work.