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Also possible Google and SpaceX are teaming up. That constellation isn't going to manage or sell itself and Google put $1 billion into SpaceX two years ago.
by agildehaus 10y ago
Also possible Google and SpaceX are teaming up. That constellation isn't going to manage or sell itself and Google put $1 billion into SpaceX two years ago.
- iainmerrick 10y agoWhat does that have to do with Google Fiber?
- martindevans 10y agoGoogle fiber and the spacex internet constellation are both ISPs
- Retric 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_satellite_constellation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_satellite_constellation The idea is by sticking with LEO satellites vs geosynchronous the ping stays reasonable (~700 miles ~= 9ms vs ~22,236 miles ~= 279ms ping ping) and the bandwidth is much higher than traditional satellite internet. Further you don't need any effort aiming a dish thus vastly reducing installation issues.
- CountSessine 10y agoTech companies and entrepreneurs have been pitching LEO satellites for internet delivery for a very long time. Even Bill Gates had a kick at this can. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledesic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledesic It's interesting to me that our cities and their governance are so awful - with their limited voter participation, poor cost control, class warfare politics, crazy fringe political advocacy, and unreasonable franchise agreements - that going into space is considered easy compared to working with city governments to get fibre in the ground.
- agildehaus 10y agoA satellite constellation like this will actually be more efficient for long distance communication than fiber as hops will be more or less a straight line between a few sats whereas fiber on the ground often takes crazy paths due to terrain and politics. If SpaceX can prove reusability, which is looking likely, putting up a constellation like this will become significantly cheaper. They also can just reuse first stages that their own customers already paid for (their customers pay for the flight, not the stage itself).
- lsjdfkljdfwkwdf 10y agoEfficient? Long haul fiber (DWDM) capacity is measures in Tbps....
- Retric 10y agoI don't have SpaceX numbers. But, a constellation like this was supposed to provide ~200 Gbytes per month for 5 billion people, which works out to ~3000 terabytes per second or ~5 terabits per second per satellite at a minimum. (More if they are modeling the ocean.) http://www.popsci.com/samsung-wants-launch-thousands-satellites-bring-everyone-earth-internet http://www.popsci.com/samsung-wants-launch-thousands-satelli... ED: Here is the paper. https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1508/1508.02383.pdf https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1508/1508.02383.pdf
- agildehaus 10y agoIn terms of latency, not raw capacity.
- Retric 10y agoSpaceX is looking at much lower costs to LEO which very much changes this equation. They charge around $2,500 per pound right now, but with reusable rockets there internal costs may be under 1,000$/lb. Putting up ~1,400 * 600lb * 1,000$/lb is less than 1 billion dollars to get into space. Worst case they are looking at ~3 billion in launch costs which is hardly an issue for world wide infrastructure. Now, the costs of these satellites and receiver's will make or break this idea. But, it's surprisingly viable even if they only cover the continental US to start. PS: Iridium NEXT (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellatio...) is aiming for some data bandwidth. Though presumably at very high costs.
- iainmerrick 10y agoBut why should that make any difference to whether Google Fiber is a viable business? Since when did Google try just one thing at a time?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- indolering 10y agoAFAIK there is a maximum number of phased arrays in an area, something like one array per 5-cit blocks. So this is great if you are in a rural community but it isn't a substitute for high-speed fiber.