Loon flight systems create a network in the stratosphere similar to terrestrial based cell towers. The difference is on the ground, cell towers are fixed and transmit their signals to moving cell phones. With Loon’s solution, both the cell towers and the people are moving... More here: https://loon.com
Ask HN: How Belarus can keep connected despite internet blackout?
41–50 of 162 posts
Re: Ask HN: How Belarus can keep connected despite internet blackout?
#42The penny has just dropped with me. This scenario is exactly where Starlink[1] can shine (no pun intended). Find a way to get uplink routers into the locked down country and it would be impossible for totalitarian governments to block internet access completely. -- [1] https://www.starlink.com/
What did I say wrong? Care to explain the down-votes?
Re: Ask HN: How Belarus can keep connected despite internet blackout?
#43The penny has just dropped with me. This scenario is exactly where Starlink[1] can shine (no pun intended). Find a way to get uplink routers into the locked down country and it would be impossible for totalitarian governments to block internet access completely. -- [1] https://www.starlink.com/
What did I say wrong? Care to explain the down-votes?
Re: Ask HN: How Belarus can keep connected despite internet blackout?
#44Re: Ask HN: How Belarus can keep connected despite internet blackout?
#45Re: Ask HN: How Belarus can keep connected despite internet blackout?
#46The penny has just dropped with me. This scenario is exactly where Starlink[1] can shine (no pun intended). Find a way to get uplink routers into the locked down country and it would be impossible for totalitarian governments to block internet access completely. -- [1] https://www.starlink.com/
What did I say wrong? Care to explain the down-votes?
Article 18 of the ITU Radio Regulations was mentioned in the comments on another post. It basically states that nobody can use radio in any country without permission from that country.
Re: Ask HN: How Belarus can keep connected despite internet blackout?
#47For large gatherings you can have Bluetooth connected mesh networks. There are apps that already implement this out of the box like Bridgefy or Briar. You can have a network of consumer radio walkie talkies with privacy codes, each node spread with a range of about 20km, depending on the weather and terrain. But this is would need dedicated hardware which I assume is not easily sourced in the current restricted envir…
Are there any documents describing the actual user experiences of using Bridgefy or Briar in a real life scenario. They seem like cool tools using interesting technology but I am not convinced that they work well in practice and it is difficult to find much information about where they have been used successfully.
Re: Ask HN: How Belarus can keep connected despite internet blackout?
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because it doesn't work yet? Maybe it's useful in the future in other places.
Ah good point. My bad.
Re: Ask HN: How Belarus can keep connected despite internet blackout?
#49Re: Ask HN: How Belarus can keep connected despite internet blackout?
#50This is an important area in which I feel development has been disappointing, mainly because the commercial value isn't there. There are a few off-grid mesh dongle products that have been released in the past few years. Unfortunately, they're all crazy expensive. Examples: https://gotenna.com/ https://beartooth.com/ https://www.gotoky.com/ https://fogo.io/ They all rely on your phone and themselves cost more than a w…