Re:The 5.2 billion dollar mistake.
by iwr on Monday November 01, 2010 @05:05PM
(#1858215)
UV light would penetrate clouds better.
Indeed, aiming the collimated beam would be a problem, but not an insurmountable one. Given the bandwidth benefits and the relatively small size of the transmitter (compared to microwave), many small (cheap) satellites could serve the same purpose as an Iridium constellation.
It wouldn't work indoors, but neither do satellite microwave links. The reason cell tower signals reach indoors is signal strength. It's prohibitively expensive to place equivalent transmitters into orbit.
Re:The 5.2 billion dollar mistake.
by mfukar on Tuesday November 02, 2010 @09:21AM
(#1860291)
UV wave generation requires significantly more energy consumption than microwaves. Plus, UV radiation is highly absorbed in the atmosphere, leading to low signal to noise ratio.
Indeed, aiming the collimated beam would be a problem, but not an insurmountable one. Given the bandwidth benefits and the relatively small size of the transmitter (compared to microwave), many small (cheap) satellites could serve the same purpose as an Iridium constellation.
It wouldn't work indoors, but neither do satellite microwave links. The reason cell tower signals reach indoors is signal strength. It's prohibitively expensive to place equivalent transmitters into orbit.