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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

#351

Post by vedranm »

irrational wrote: post #322
geuis wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect this is just a phase. I don't have any hard stats at the moment to back it up, so it's just a feeling. Internet culture is still very young. At least in the US based on the election last week, the majority of people 18-25 voted progressive in most states. These are people who have never known the world without internet access. I guess that the people who voted the other way are folks who have transitioned i…

I was with you up until "I believe that in general, younger people have become better at filtering out bullshit because they've had access to much more information than older folks did growing up." Um, have you actually talked to any younger people? I both teach young adults and have teenagers/kids in their 20s. They seriously believe anything they come across on the internet. They have no filter. It's incredible how…

As a former teaching assistant at a university, I can confirm this is true.

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

#352

Post by M4v3R »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #318
manachar wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spreading true (well, at least less wrong) information is a noble goal. Unfortunately, I'm not sure we're not seeing such information availability providing avenues towards a smarter, more progressive planet. Instead, the internet seems to be helping people create cocoons of ignorance and "evidence" to support even the most specious claims - such as the world being flat. Knowledge does not seem to be enough. Wisdom a…

The flat earth thing is a joke, no? I mean it's gotten pretty elaborate, but it seems as though they're always dropping sarcastic hints here and there...

No, unfortunately it is not a joke. There are people sincerely believing that the earth is flat (some also believe it is hollow and we live inside it) and actively trying to convince others to believe the same. Search for "flat earth" on YouTube and you will see hundreds of videos by many different authors, sometimes with tens of thousands of views. They try to come up with arguments for pretty much any proof you will toss at them, like saying that things disappearing over the horizon are due to perspective or "light bending".

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

#353

Post by shams93 »

If they can pull this off it would be amazing because the technical challenges to meet this goal are pretty considerable if you've ever tried satellite internet in the past it was the worst thing ever. If he can pull this off just the technical feat alone would be pretty amazing given the challenges involved.

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

#354

Post by vedranm »

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?

That's a very good point. I love seeing how many people on HN assume that, if everyone had access to the knowledge they have, everyone would vote D. Which isn't true and which is precisely the reason why R won. Furthermore, Pew Research has shown a lead of 9 points for D in college-educated population, which isn't very impressive given the dominance of liberalism at colleges.

Overall, it's a hard problem.

[1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trump...

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

#355

Post by dasboth »

babyrainbow wrote: post #275
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).

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…

I agree with your key points, but I'm a bit skeptical about this:

> If you don't have enough motivation, then providing access to Internet, is not going to make a difference.

I'd argue that because the barrier to entry is smaller, you need less motivation to learn about things. Going to libraries, scanning huge books for the few pieces of information you want is much more effort than looking it up online.

I'm not doubting that the internet might only make a small percentage change in the people willing to do it though.

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

#356

Post by espadrine »

m1sta_ wrote: post #296
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).

What if it was only Wikipedia but it was funded by facebook? I mean, hypothetically.

I doubt it would have caused as much of a fuss.

The problem was that they picked popular low-bandwidth public-good informational websites (like Wikipedia, mostly text), and Facebook which isn't either. All US websites.

The website selection was almost comical. No Google Translate, but ESPN, which is only relevant culturally in America...

And there's also a problem related to having large companies harm local ISP markets, which only providing just the non-profit Wikipedia would have mostly avoided.

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

#357

Post by schiffern »

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).

>Free,

Not free according to Musk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHeZHyOnsm4&t=12m37s

>Well it can't be free. Because then we'll, like, we'll go out of business. [laugh]

>No, no, it can't be free to the user. I don't think so.

>This would be... this would cost a lot to build. Ultimately over time to build the full version of the system, we're talking about something that would be 10 or 15 billion dollars to create. Maybe more. And the user terminals would be at least 100, to maybe 300 dollars, depending on which type of terminal.

>And this is intended to generate a significant amount of revenue, and help fund a city on Mars. So looking into the long term, and saying, "what's needed to create a city on Mars?" Well one thing's for sure... a lot of money. [laugh] So we need things that will generate a lot of money.

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

#358

Post by messel »

update

23Gbps * 4425 satellites is

- 100k simultaneous 1Gbps users

- 1 million 100Mbps users

- 10 million 10Mbps users

Doesn't seem like much of a subscriber base to recoup a fraction of the costs

(My) Estimated cost for satellites and ground stations: 50-100+ billion, maintenance cost: few billion/year?

Might I propose instead genetically modifying insects to pass photosynthetic light signals in massive swarms controlled by ground stations (just for cool visuals) and spend the rest on ground microwave towers or anything else.

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

#359

Post by ratchet123 »

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).

Please, no. Keep your political views to yourself. Respect the others. We don't need more "democratized" countries like Lybia or Siria.

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

#360

Post by flukus »

the8472 wrote: post #336
flukus wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but cables can be duplicated, wireless bandwidth can't.

lasers are wireless and don't compete for spectrum. beam-forming with phased arrays is not quite as good, but still gives you more capacity than naively shared spectrum would.

This is laser based? Are the building ground stations everywhere too?
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