Musk files to provide Internet service from space • Hacker News Board

Re: Musk files to provide Internet service from space

#111

Post by mr_sturd » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 8:49 AM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #44

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…

It's pretty easy to ignore laws from space. Reference satellite TV in the middle east. Al-Jazeera is banned in many countries, but still has high penetration as users just ignore the laws. Saudi Arabia has an outright ban on satellite television... yet 97% of Saudis have access to satellite television. [1] Iran also bans satellite television, yet more than 70 percent of people Tehran watch banned satellite channels.…

I imagine it would be easy for them to ignore the individual requirements of countries. But individual users would have to be able to broadcast in order to communicate here, and would therefore be more at risk of being found by authorities - if they can get their hands on the equipment to do so.

Re: Musk files to provide Internet service from space

#112

Post by Robin_Message » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 8:51 AM UTC

brian_ wrote: post #58

coryl wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The speed of light is faster in space than it is in optical fibre. Could you elaborate? Thanks

My understanding of it is that when light passes through a medium, it does not do so in a straight line. So, while the actual speed of light remains constant, it takes longer to get from one end to the other.

No, the speed of light decreases in a medium – in fact, the proportional decrease in speed is the refractive index of the material.

So much for it being constant huh?

Re: Musk files to provide Internet service from space

#113

Post by Robin_Message » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 8:56 AM UTC

It worries me that they are launching satellites for the NSA whilst also build something the NSA would certainly love to tap into – I mean, realistically, the NSA are going to get their hands on the data if they want to, but giving them extra leverage over the company is a shame.

It also saddens me they are launching satellites for the NSA full-stop, at least until the NSA has been reined in a bit.

Re: Musk files to provide Internet service from space

#114

Post by bane » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 9:44 AM UTC

dankohn1 wrote: post #13

I was Director of Marketing with Teledesic, Craig McCaw and Bill Gates's Internet-in-the-Sky from 1995 to 2000. I'm a huge fan of what Musk is doing, with order of magnitude cheaper launch costs and satellite hardware. AMA.

If Musk achieves reusable launch vehicles, and that had been available to you guys back then, how much would that have changed things for you? Would the system pretty much be up and running today?

Re: Musk files to provide Internet service from space

#115

Post by acd » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 9:52 AM UTC

Besides enjoying Internet globally, I see hope freeing humanity from government censorship with Internet from satellites. This will also mean we will have cheaper global roaming prices for cellular access as if its more expensive with cell phone data people will just use the satellite based system instead.

How much power can such micro satellites transmit with? How much power does the earth based transmitter need to communicate back to the satellite in space?

Re: Musk files to provide Internet service from space

#116

Post by lmm » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 10:28 AM UTC

tdaltonc wrote: post #43

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…

I doubt he would, but just as a though exercise: What would happen if he started answering http requests from space for free? Would that be a crime?

Questions about "crime" are a bit academic when it comes to international issues like this - it's less confusing to stick to more concrete questions like "would anyone shut down his satellite?"

But to answer the question, I believe a satellite is like a ship in international waters: you're obliged to follow the laws of the country whose flag you carry (and if you don't fly under a national flag you're... not really a criminal so much as an outlaw).

There are international agreements about radio transmission but AFAIK none have the force of international law. There is a long and glorious tradition of "pirate" radio stations transmitting from international waters (at least around Britain), which were often perceived as shaky (and technically illegal to listen to), but never prosecuted.

Re: Musk files to provide Internet service from space

#117

Post by lmm » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 10:31 AM UTC

dzhiurgis wrote: post #95

greglindahl wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Call me crazy, but wouldn't it make sense to have servers on the satellite? Solar energy + lower latency. Cooling is still a problem in vacuum though.

Commodity hardware goes obsolete quickly and fails frequently. Satellite-grade hardware is much older and slower than what we use for today's websites. Putting anything into orbit is expensive. Energy is much more expensive in orbit than on the ground. And it's not like the majority of your customers are going to be satellite internet users.

Re: Musk files to provide Internet service from space

#118

Post by lmm » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 10:36 AM UTC

msravi wrote: post #90

toomuchtodo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.rpi.edu/dept/phys/Dept2/APPhys1/optics/optics/nod... Speed of light in vacuum > speed of light in optical fiber. Same reason high frequency traders are using microwave between Chicago and New York instead of a fiber connection.

Is it possible to build a multi-mode "fiber" with an air core so that a significant part of the light's path is through air? The outer sheath made of optically dense material would only be used for internal reflection to "guide" the beam...

No. The core has to be denser than the outside for the guiding to work; if you made a "fiber" like you describe the signal would just travel through the sheath - if it was heading towards the core it would internally reflect to stay within the sheath.

Re: Musk files to provide Internet service from space

#119

Post by dankohn1 » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 11:11 AM UTC

bane wrote: post #114

dankohn1 wrote: post #13

I was Director of Marketing with Teledesic, Craig McCaw and Bill Gates's Internet-in-the-Sky from 1995 to 2000. I'm a huge fan of what Musk is doing, with order of magnitude cheaper launch costs and satellite hardware. AMA.

If Musk achieves reusable launch vehicles, and that had been available to you guys back then, how much would that have changed things for you? Would the system pretty much be up and running today?

We were looking at about $10 K per kg to orbit, and we could barely make the economics work. It looks like SpaceX is offering $4 K. [0] Presumably, reusable launch vehicles will drop his costs another order of magnitude, but they shouldn't actually be necessary to make this sort of system viable.

[0] http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/1989/what-is-the-cu...

Re: Musk files to provide Internet service from space

#120

Post by dankohn1 » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 11:18 AM UTC

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.

Satellite broadband is likely to always be an order of magnitude more expensive than terrestrial. It also has a very limited capacity in any given area. I don't know if they're pursuing this, but at Teledesic, we looked at hybrid models where when demand got large enough in any given geographic area, you could use a blimp to serve customers in the existing spectrum with the same user terminals. So, it could prove very complimentary to Loon (assuming both actually work).