And the infosphere will become reality
SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed
341–350 of 540 posts
Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed
#342Is this going to scale? "Each satellite will provide aggregate downlink capacity of 17 to 23Gbps". Some 20 Gb/s per satellite times 4425 satellites spread around the globe is not that much bandwidth for any given densely populated area. We're going to keep having our local ISP in cities (they're giving between 0.1 and 1 Gb/s on fiber right now) but it will be great to get connectivity in the countryside and the mount…
>Is this going to scale? ...not that much bandwidth for any given densely populated area. We're going to keep having our local ISP in cities (they're giving between 0.1 and 1 Gb/s on fiber right now)
Except the goal isn't to replace fiber in densely populated areas. Musk said this during the initial announcement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHeZHyOnsm4&t=2m57s
>The goal will be to have the majority of long distance internet traffic go over this network, and about 10% of local and business traffic. Probably 90% of people's local access will still come from fiber, but we'll do about 10% of business and consumer direct, and more than half I think of the long distance traffic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHeZHyOnsm4&t=4m39s
>And then space is also really good for sparse connectivity. So if you've got large swaths of land where there's relatively low density of users, space is actually ideal for that.
>It would also be able to service, like I say, probably 10% of people in relatively dense urban and suburban environments. And so in cases where people have, you know, are sort of stuck with Time Warner or Comcast or something, this would provide an opportunity to... [unintelligible due to cheering]
>I wonder if there are chances that those antennas can be made so small to fit into a phone and tablet.
As revealed in the above video, it's a rooftop antenna about the size of a pizza box. No wall/roof penetrating spectrum.
Of course it automatically aims itself, so as a mobile AP it should be "plug and play" unlike current GEO internet user terminals which need finicky pointing.
Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because they're numerous doesn't mean they're not a lunatic fringe.
Just because you disagree with them doesn't mean they're any more lunatic than, say, Podesta.
True. Some believe in an open global community and some freedoms that come with that, in many different nuances. So a global communication network that supports that is great. With an open society comes freedom of speech and other related freedoms. Most certainly freedom of opinions, even when the actual opinions and fervent activities from some groups contrasts fully with foundation of the open society.
Mostly, interestingly enough, the premise of these contrasting groups and opinions are actually based on the idea that some third party external group is imposing on their freedoms and well-beings. Romans laid continents under their taxing rule by fear mongering, nothing new and you hardly need a free and open digital global communication network for that.
My personal belief here is that these developments will self adjust. Unfortunately through great friction and pain. Any open society that eventually submerges into the rule of a "Trump/Bannon" group, will eventually self destruct slowly. If the core premise of a society is fear mongering of a third party external group (Jews, Muslims, Republicans, West-, East-, Capitalist-, Communist.. ) the core problem is that you're trying to fix your head ache by shooting yourself in the foot. And then the next foot from that..
Power is profoundly addictive and corrupting. If you've been a failure up to now, and suddenly you're in power for blaming some low influence group, that blame will only grow stronger and stronger with the failures of making a positive impact for the desperate people that put you in power.
Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
> SpaceX expects its own latencies to be between 25 and 35ms Unless you're doubting their math, that's not a high ping at all. In fact, that's a pretty amazing improvement given that existing satellite internet is >500ms. I didn't realize the difference between LEO and geostationary was that high.
Geostationary birds are in a 42K+ km orbit. That's almost a quarter second round trip just taking the speed of light into account and assuming the satellite is directly overhead. Back when international phone circuits were mostly satellite, you'd find yourself continually starting a sentence at the same time as the other party because that short delay messed up the flow of the conversation.
Shiii now that just happens on every conference call and WebEx on the planet!
It is amazing how quickly tech has changed. In about 1991, my father telephoned us from the North Slope of Alaska, via satellite link. The RTT must have been at least 2 seconds.
20 years later I rolled into Prudhoe Bay on a motorbike, looked down at my iPhone, and saw I had 5 bars of 3G service, no satellite delay. And enough free wifi bandwidth to stream Top Gear.
Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed
#345Free, 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).
Sadly, this is a naive view, and perpetuated by people who wants to push more ad channels in the name of "empowering" communities... Access to information does not mean consumption. If you give access to internet to 100 people, 99 of them will use it for Facebook or Porn. 1. If you have enough motivation, learning about anything was already possible even before Internet (local libraries and resources) 2. If you don't…
Totally agree. I think the disappointment is that in its earlier days there was hope that the internet would end up changing the world for the better but it ended up just magnifying whatever good and bad already existed in world before it came to the scene.
Still, I wouldn't want to go back to pre-internet era. With all the crap, it seems the bottom line is still a gain to humanity and hopefully that gain will increase with time.
Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed
#346It is not unthinkable that the NSA has faked the moon landing and pictures of earth with photoshop / film equipment. You havent been above earth, so how do you know? I think you should be less arrogant at the prospect of somebody having a different opinion than you. Even the astronauts could be fooled, remember that they only ever see space through a sheet of glass, whether it's from inside the space station or their…
A mirror was placed on the moon. Organizations all over the world have pointed lasers at it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Laser_Ranging_experime...
Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed
#347OK that's it. This is why I need to build a large company and become rich. So I can get all kinds of ideas that I have done, instead of listening to people telling me how hard it would be. They would just get done. http://qbix.com/blog
This is the only reason why it is worth going through the hardships of becoming and being rich. Good luck.
Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/answers/articles2/X0095_The... >The Internet is a perfect reflection of the world at large. It has everything in it except homeless people and that's only because they can't afford the monthly hookup charge. The Internet is scary to people because it TRULY makes everyone equal. All the people who are invisible in the normal world (the world run by the rich and powerful), all those peo…
I think the quote contradicts itself: I find that "The Internet is a perfect reflection of the world at large" and "it TRULY makes everyone equal" are not compatible. I think the internet has gradually become a good reflection of the world at large, with plenty of its beauty and plenty of its ugliness and the person you responded to was just expressing sadness that we couldn't filter out the ugly. Also, the word "equ…
> Venting one's beliefs on the internet (whether wise or moronic) is possible for everyone but the amount of impact it will make will usually depend on the amount of resources one has.
This is so false I don't understand why you would write it. I listen to political commentary from this guy on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/Styxhexenhammer666/videos and he's just some guy with a camera and a microphone and he reaches thousands of people. More than ever are people able to share their beliefs and reach a huge number of people with little to no cost.
This is what scares the powerful and rich, and this is what makes everyone equal.
Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed
#349Free, 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).
Sadly, this is a naive view, and perpetuated by people who wants to push more ad channels in the name of "empowering" communities... Access to information does not mean consumption. If you give access to internet to 100 people, 99 of them will use it for Facebook or Porn. 1. If you have enough motivation, learning about anything was already possible even before Internet (local libraries and resources) 2. If you don't…
Sadly, this is a naive view,
Views like this created the internet and wikipedia and we need more of them. Wikipedia is still going strong thanks to them:
[1] Assuming good faith (AGF) is a fundamental principle on Wikipedia. It is the assumption that editors' edits and comments are made in good faith. Most people try to help the project, not hurt it. If this were untrue, a project like Wikipedia would be doomed from the beginning.
As an example, the story with the teens from FYROM creating false news sites for the americans[2] could be avoided with better education from both sides, not by "stopping the internet" or putting them to prison.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith
2. https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became...
Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with you -- but I want to point out another way that widespread internet access is insufficient. We need to update our laws to allow true information democratization. Right now, under dominant legal systems, information is far too easy for companies to box off and "own", even when they don't own it (extensive discussion about this earlier today on the thread about Google locking out people who resold their Pi…
Ok... where do we start?
I highly recommend reading Rich Falkvinge at [1]; he talks a lot about how copyright has to change for the modern day world.