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I wonder if one could actually deploy a cheap satellite phone and data service now for the areas of bad coverage or to avoid international roaming, using a mesh
by cft 10y ago
I wonder if one could actually deploy a cheap satellite phone and data service now for the areas of bad coverage or to avoid international roaming, using a mesh of redundant and disposable microsatellites, launched via SpaceX? Or is someone already building this now?
- dukoid 10y agoNot sure about satellites. Facebook and Google are experimenting with solar-powered planes and balloons for this purpose. One problem with satellites is that you can't make them stay at the same spot, except for geostationary orbit above the equator, which is quite far away.
- brohee 10y agoHandover is a solved problem, so not that much of an issue. The article skims on some technical limitation tho, IIRC the number of simultaneous calls that could happen simultaneously in the continental US was in the low thousands, dunno if it improved since launch but that was definitely not mass market, even if the terminals got a lot cheaper...
- mikeyouse 10y agohttp://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/satellites/spacex-raises-1-billion-from-google-fidelity-for-satellite-internet-project http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/satellites/spac... Google invested $1B in SpaceX for this very purpose -- To launch on the order of 4,000 satellites to provide worldwide internet.