191–200 of 540 posts
napkin math (chemistry style): (4425 satellites * 23Gbps) / ((60,000PB of fixed internet traffic / 1 month [1]) * (12 months / 365 days) * (1 day / 24 hours ) * (1 hour / 60 minutes) * (1 minute / 60 seconds) * (8 bits / 1 byte) * (1024 Tera / 1 Peta) * (1024 Tera / 1 Giga)) = An astounding O(54% of global internet traffic) [2]! Obviously there are many many more variables in this [3]. Nonetheless this will be super…
Something I find interesting about this: what does it mean for countries who monitor and filter/block content (think China)? Presumably since this isn't using their national infrastructure they would lose all control of it, no? I wonder how those countries would respond to SpaceX wanting to let their citizens use the service. Unless I'm missing something it seems to me like they wouldn't really be able to stop it.
A government still can get control practically. They cannot stop the service itself but can regulate payments from their citizens to the service. It is like online casino. Of course, there may be some loopholes for payment and some citizens who access the service as well as online casino.
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Satellite communication at the moment is very expensive (like dollars per kilobyte expensive) not because of the limitations of long distance wireless communication in general, but because most of our satellite equipment up there is old and outdated. At some point as we developed world wide communications, laying down long distance fiber became cheaper than deploying communication satellites, and the existing satelli…
It's nowhere near that expensive (dollars per kilobyte). I used the GlobalStar network on a project. The bigger cost for overage is 0.35 cents per second on data. The effective rate for a scp transfer (e.g., after all overheads) is about 750 bytes/ second. So you are looking at less than half a cent per KiB. http://www.globalstar.com/en/index.php?cid=1470
Perhaps dollars are an overstatement, but your numbers are also for a best case scenario, when you have an application where you need to send data infrequently, in bulk, in an area with good coverage (not at sea) and no guarantees.
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Since Tesla will be making solar panels that look like tiles, they could also make mesh networking antennas that look like chimneys...
That is simply brilliant. Faux bricks which connect together to create a phased array antenna that create a mesh network between connected homes. Now if it was low enough power to run on the heat differential between the flue gases and the ambient air I would know I was in the future.
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The canonical example of harvesting the heat differential is the biolite stove[1] it uses a thermoelectric generator[2] to provide up to 4 watts (peak) of power. [1] http://www.bioliteenergy.com/products/biolite-campstove [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_generator
I'm on beer fuel atm and have only read it briefly, but isn't that pure, free energy? With a solid state device. Why do we not have some of these things around our fridge etc.
In most places you can use significantly more efficient devices to turn heat differences into electricity.
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).
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…
Consider that for many people on Earth, getting access to the internet takes them from the knowledge shared amongst the members of their community to the collective knowledge of world. That's quite a leap, and I'd argue that having to read flat-earther nonsense once in a while is a price well worth the benefit
napkin math (chemistry style): (4425 satellites * 23Gbps) / ((60,000PB of fixed internet traffic / 1 month [1]) * (12 months / 365 days) * (1 day / 24 hours ) * (1 hour / 60 minutes) * (1 minute / 60 seconds) * (8 bits / 1 byte) * (1024 Tera / 1 Peta) * (1024 Tera / 1 Giga)) = An astounding O(54% of global internet traffic) [2]! Obviously there are many many more variables in this [3]. Nonetheless this will be super…
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no one saw it coming? they anounced this in 2015. Here is a video where elon explains the system very well in 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHeZHyOnsm4
People also speculated that this was the reason Alphabet invested in SpaceX. (Which was around the same time as that announcement) http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/technology/google-makes-1-...
you're all idiots.
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This is wild, wild overexageration. >millions (if not billions) of people paying for internet You're vastly underestimating the challenge in attracting millions (let alone "billions", that's so ridiculous it's not even worth commenting on) of costumers. >This would replace cellphone plans too remember... You can't just hope to replace 4bil+ users in a snap of the fingers... Even if you had a hypothetical magical prod…
You think $300 for internet at gigabyte speeds ANYWHERE is a lot? Are you serious? Right now people are paying Comcast $100/month for 25mbps, and Verizon $100/month for 5mbps at a cap of 10Gb... I grant you you wouldn't hit a billion users at those prices, but you wouldn't need to at those prices. I guarantee internet like this will start at a premium, maybe $500/month. Then as more people adtop it'll quickly drop to…