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Musk files to provide Internet service from space

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Musk files to provide Internet service from space

#31

Post by ohitsdom »

x0054 wrote: post #24

I wonder how it would compare to Exede Satellite service. I have Exede, it's the only thing available here in High Desert :( The speed is very good for what it is, I am getting 16-20 mbps down and 3mbps up. But, the latency is a huge issue for me. Most servers, even once in US, ping at 800ms, this makes it such a pain to do any kind of SSH server admin! With low orbit devices I would imagine the latency should be bet…

This article has some pretty good info on the different approaches to satellite internet:

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2015-01-22/global-inter...

Re: Musk files to provide Internet service from space

#32

Post by geomark »

From the article: "SpaceX would need permission from countries to operate the service, a process that could be difficult, if not impossible."

Yep. To operate in many countries an ISP has to block access to a lot of content. It differs greatly from country-to-country. Would they really get involved in that? That would mean taking orders from governments all over the world and implementing blocks per those orders. Or would they forget about providing access in those countries? That's a large number of countries.

Added: Forgot to mention one of the biggest obstacles to getting permission in many countries: surveillance. Beaming directly from a user to a satellite that relays to a ground station in another country is going to bypass local surveillance.

Another addition: Wikipedia article on internet censorship and surveillance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_and_surveil... Note some of the countries listed under "Pervasive censorship or surveillance": India, South Korea, UK and USA.

Re: Musk files to provide Internet service from space

#34

Post by [deleted] »

jes wrote: post #2

Musk claims to want to launch 4,000 or so satellites. The Goddard Space Flight Center indicates that there are 2,271 satellites in orbit now. I'm wondering to what degree this would make it more likely to have a negative feedback loop of satellite destruction in the case of a satellite being hit by space junk.

[deleted]

Re: Musk files to provide Internet service from space

#35

Post by greglindahl »

tdaltonc wrote: post #6

Interestingly, Facebook just announces that they are giving up on a project to do just that. http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-scraps-secret-plan-t...

Presumably the one big satellite was intended to be backhaul for the solar planes. They can probably buy that backhaul from someone else with less risk and effort.

Re: Musk files to provide Internet service from space

#36

Post by shmerl »

shabble wrote: post #26
greglindahl wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem has to do with cross-section -- these satellites will each be small, a few hundred kilograms each. In comparison, cubesats are 1-3 kg, and big satellites, which are most of the existing ones, are a few tons of mass each. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome Also, with satellites at 1,100 km, they'll be above all the crap in LEO.

and solves the other problem of Big High internet, which is latency. At 1000km you could have single-hop round-trips in <10ms.

What is the orbit for current satellite ISPs?

Re: Musk files to provide Internet service from space

#37

Post by [deleted] »

geomark wrote: post #32

From the article: "SpaceX would need permission from countries to operate the service, a process that could be difficult, if not impossible." Yep. To operate in many countries an ISP has to block access to a lot of content. It differs greatly from country-to-country. Would they really get involved in that? That would mean taking orders from governments all over the world and implementing blocks per those orders. Or w…

[deleted]

Re: Musk files to provide Internet service from space

#38

Post by greglindahl »

ourmandave wrote: post #3

If this were to ultimately succeed in cheap internet everywhere, it doesn't bode well for other projects like Google's Loon. https://www.google.com/loon/ Unless they can do it cheaper I suppose.

Google invested in SpaceX in order to fund this Internet satellite project.

Re: Musk files to provide Internet service from space

#39

Post by greglindahl »

geomark wrote: post #32

From the article: "SpaceX would need permission from countries to operate the service, a process that could be difficult, if not impossible." Yep. To operate in many countries an ISP has to block access to a lot of content. It differs greatly from country-to-country. Would they really get involved in that? That would mean taking orders from governments all over the world and implementing blocks per those orders. Or w…

Note that countries have not succeeded in stopping satellite phone users within their borders... for example, the Taliban in Afghanistan use satellite phones extensively.

Re: Musk files to provide Internet service from space

#40

Post by aarongray »

savage_platypus wrote: post #29
toomuchtodo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As opposed to current pipe dreams: * gigafactory under construction * freemont factory producing ~50K vehicles/year * spacex successfully, repeatedly delivering payloads to orbit (and successfully demonstrating their crew escape vehicle recently)

Just because something is being built with other people's money does not make something a success. None of the companies Elon has been involved with have ever actually generated a profit -- they have largely just taken advantage of speculative investors and their willingness to buy into his ideas.

I think PayPal was kinda profitable and stuff.
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