4 ms·

Could you expand on this? Do you think latency is the limiting factor for a LEO network?

• vorotato 9y ago
  A geosynchronous orbit is ~36000km 36000 km / speed of light = .12 seconds So thats a ping of 240, minimum. That's assuming everything else in the system happened instantaneously. If you can however manage to solve the whole aiming at a moving target 360 kilometers away then maybe you could do a LEO network, and yeah the ping would be closer to 1.2 assuming again literally everything was instantaneous.
  • jacques_chester 9y ago
    As you note, LEO is very different from geostationary. Moving target doesn't strike me as impossible. A LEO satellite has a very predictable path, a stationary dish has a predictable movement relative to that path and a mobile phone knows where it is at all times.
  • greglindahl 9y ago
    There are several companies building (and a few shipping) flat-panel phased array antennae that can "point" at a moving target 360 km away. They also can switch to a new satellite instantly.
  • foobarian 9y ago
    One has been online [1] since '98, so it's definitely possible. Question is probably in details around bandwidth and handoff performance. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellatio...