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SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed

arstechnica.com

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Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed

#31

Post by digler999 »

katzgrau wrote: post #7

Free, global internet access is the next step toward a smarter, more progressive planet. I don't even care about the speed - if the only thing users could access was wikipedia, I'd still personally donate to the project. I cannot emphasize how important democratizing knowledge is to me (and many others).

you could totally do this, almost free. I think the entire (pictureless) wikipedia is ~8gb ? maybe more ? That file could be broadcast over multicast off these things on their unused frames. For instance, the bird knows that when it flies over some impoverished region, there's maybe 0-3 paying customers probably not maxing out the capacity at any given time. They could freely broadcast wikipedia or other educational books on a multicast basis. It would just require word of mouth and equipment to tell them what to tune into. After, say, 5 days, you eventually get all 8gb and can unzip it.

Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed

#35

Post by duskwuff »

nthdesign wrote: post #15

Will this high number of low-altitude satellites cause a tracking and collision nightmare for the world's space agencies? Sorry, I recently finished "Seveneves" and I have space debris anxiety right now.

Dead satellites and debris in low altitude orbits will experience orbital decay and burn up in the atmosphere within a few years. High-altitude objects (e.g, at GEO) are more of a concern.

Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed

#36

Post by LeifCarrotson »

nthdesign wrote: post #15

Will this high number of low-altitude satellites cause a tracking and collision nightmare for the world's space agencies? Sorry, I recently finished "Seveneves" and I have space debris anxiety right now.

Only if poorly managed. It's 4000 objects in an area greater than the surface of the Earth - so still very sparse. And they're low enough to deorbit from drag in 7 years, so if something did get lost or blow up, it would fix itself naturally.

Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed

#37

Post by elihu »

> “Optical inter-satellite links permit flexible routing of traffic on-orbit. Further, the constellation ensures that frequencies can be reused effectively across different satellites to enhance the flexibility and capacity and robustness of the overall system.”

Is optical communication between satellites an existing technology that's already known to work, or is this new? Also, is this sort of thing done (or expected to be done) by aiming laser exactly at the destination satellite, or is it more of a non-directional blink-a-really-bright-LED sort of thing?

Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed

#38

Post by Nokinside »

whiddershins wrote: post #2

I don't understand the math. 800 satellites at 23 gbps seems to be able to provide 1 gbps to 18,400 connections at any given time. This seems to be many magnitudes off from what would be needed to have any impact. What am I missing?

It will be expensive bandwidth no matter what.

The way they can make this work is if they

1) are targeting traditional satellite internet customers (ships on the sea, commercial aviation, etc) and

2) integration with 5th generation mobile networks trough wireless network virtualization. Mobile network provider can sell a service where traveling customer pays extra for connection that works in the middle of nowhere. When the device is within normal cell network or WiFi, connection goes trough those networks, when they are sailing with their yacht, it can jump from the picocell in the boat or backpack to the satellite network. At any given time there may be millions of customers who pay little extra for coverage and just few tens of thousands who actually use it.

Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed

#39

Post by lettergram »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #13
mattzito wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw on another hn post about this that the satellites will have a 5 year lifespan, but will be decommissioned at the 1-2 year mark to insure they can be deorbited safely

seems so expensive for such a short lifespan

I'm curious if they can launch multiple at once. I assume they can, and on top of that, once they can reuse rockets My guess is the cost might be as little as a million (or less) for a satellite in orbit.

That would be, what, $9 billion? That sounds like a lot, until you realize they can spread that cost over 2-3 years and have millions (if not billions) of people paying for internet. This would replace cellphone plans too remember...

So that means SpaceX could probably charge a nice $100 - $300 a month and people would clamor for it. Seriously, this would probably make 10x return (easy) per satellite, if not more. Even 10 million people at $100 per month is $12 billion a year. Multiply that across a two to five year lifespan of a satellite and you'll have a very profitable business.

Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed

#40

Post by sergiotapia »

sgt101 wrote: post #20
katzgrau wrote: post #7

Free, global internet access is the next step toward a smarter, more progressive planet. I don't even care about the speed - if the only thing users could access was wikipedia, I'd still personally donate to the project. I cannot emphasize how important democratizing knowledge is to me (and many others).

Ok, given the election I have to ask.... Who's knowledge will we democratize?

Duh whatever Google and Facebook deem to be real news of course. The Ministry of Truth will root out all these evil white supremacist sites like Breitbart and Fox News.

I long for the day when only Salon and Slate are considered sources of truth.

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