4 ms·

> The director of SpaceX is developing a network of satellites above the Earth that could speed up web surfing and could provide access to isolated communities.

> The director of SpaceX is developing a network of satellites above the Earth that could speed up web surfing and could provide access to isolated communities. And the most interesting thing about this project is that it will use the profits to help colonize the planet Mars. Is there that much money to make in delivering internet to isolated communities??

TkTech 12y ago
Nope. Many people have theorized that this is to ensure that Tesla cars and other automated vehicles (land, sea, air or space) have access to the internet at all times, anywhere.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- greglindahl 12y ago
  This is an existing market called M2M [1], and interestingly enough, one of the existing players in this worldwide is Orbcomm, which is halfway through launching their new constellation on Falcon 9! 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_to_machine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_to_machine
jrlocke 12y ago
It's not about selling internet to people, certainly not initially. The money here is in bringing internet to sophisticated entities in isolated areas. Networked industrial control systems, mines, drilling operations, shipping, etc.
- matznerd 12y ago
  It's faster and more direct to go earth->satellite->earth for certain routes/types of data, than traversing through various routers and undersea cables. Roughly paraphrased quote from Elon Musk SpaceX Seattle Office Opening: "The speed of light in vacuum is 40-50% faster than in fiber. So you can do long distance communication through space(vacuum), a lot better than if you route it through fiber and use far fewer hops. Lets say you want to communicate from Seattle to South Africa, the path is extremely convoluted, follows outline of continent, goes through 200 routers and repeaters, if done with satellite network, it can be done in 4 hops" Video link to time of quote -> https://youtu.be/AHeZHyOnsm4?t=209 https://youtu.be/AHeZHyOnsm4?t=209
matznerd 12y ago
There is lots of money to be made in global business communications. The plan is to use the funds generated by this global communications network to fund a future colony on Mars.

TkTech 12y ago

Nope. Many people have theorized that this is to ensure that Tesla cars and other automated vehicles (land, sea, air or space) have access to the internet at all times, anywhere.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
greglindahl 12y ago
This is an existing market called M2M [1], and interestingly enough, one of the existing players in this worldwide is Orbcomm, which is halfway through launching their new constellation on Falcon 9! 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_to_machine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_to_machine

jrlocke 12y ago

It's not about selling internet to people, certainly not initially. The money here is in bringing internet to sophisticated entities in isolated areas. Networked industrial control systems, mines, drilling operations, shipping, etc.

matznerd 12y ago
It's faster and more direct to go earth->satellite->earth for certain routes/types of data, than traversing through various routers and undersea cables. Roughly paraphrased quote from Elon Musk SpaceX Seattle Office Opening: "The speed of light in vacuum is 40-50% faster than in fiber. So you can do long distance communication through space(vacuum), a lot better than if you route it through fiber and use far fewer hops. Lets say you want to communicate from Seattle to South Africa, the path is extremely convoluted, follows outline of continent, goes through 200 routers and repeaters, if done with satellite network, it can be done in 4 hops" Video link to time of quote -> https://youtu.be/AHeZHyOnsm4?t=209 https://youtu.be/AHeZHyOnsm4?t=209

matznerd 12y ago

There is lots of money to be made in global business communications. The plan is to use the funds generated by this global communications network to fund a future colony on Mars.