Re:We need internet that isn't owned by big telecom
by strictnein on Monday December 18, 2017 @12:12AM
(#15949597)
From the link:
> a 2015 proposal from Samsung has outlined a 4600-satellite constellation orbiting at 1,400 kilometers (900 mi) that could provide a zettabyte per month capacity worldwide, an equivalent of 200 gigabytes per month for 5 billion users of internet data
Re:We need internet that isn't owned by big telecom
by ehnto on Sunday December 17, 2017 @09:37PM
(#15948998)
That is actually surprisingly low. How many of those towers are due to georgraphic constraints rather than capacity constraints? Each town tends to have its own tower, and then a tower often exists between towns to fill dead spots. I can get 3g or 4g from almost the entire length of my state, and I can imagine in a few of those spots it's just me and a handful of others that are connected.
To put that in perspective, in Australia we have 13,400 cellular towers [1], with an extra 9,000 proposed to be built, to cover just 26.3 million subscribers [2]. This is to deliver 2.8% of the data downloaded over the last year (97.2% having been delivered over fixed line) [2].
So, with an LEO constallation, you might have a few dozen satellites over the populated parts of Australia at any one time, each of which has a finite amount of capacity (both uplink/downlink spectrum and capacity back to the ground station) shared between all the users.
I think this network could see a massive benefit for rural areas, developing countries, maritime markets, etc. but to think that the network would have the capacity to deliver anything rivalling cellular networks in metro/suburban areas to most subscribers is very far fetched.
1. https://oztowers.com.au/Statistics 2. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/mf/8153.0