Re:FTC Seeks to Examine the Privacy Practices of U.S. Broadb...
by jrockway on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @04:12PM
(#19495583)
The next generation of satellite Internet is not going to be based on satellites in geostationary orbit. They are close to the surface of the Earth and form a mesh that can make paths that are shorter than the great circle distance.
This should fix all three of your problems, except maybe total bandwidth.
Re:FTC Seeks to Examine the Privacy Practices of U.S. Broadb...
by ekimekim on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @04:53PM
(#19495909)
> form a mesh that can make paths that are shorter than the great circle distance
I think that's a slight mis-wording - you can't beat the great circle distance over the surface unless you go underground, but you can definitely beat a packet-switched, zig-zagging network running through the ground with a more or less direct point-to-point mesh running 100km above it.
1. Latency. 600-700 ms RTT is typical on satellite, and it's bounded by the speed of light. This makes a lot of real-time services, like voice chat and video games, essentially unusable.
2. Bandwidth. The satellites you're communicating with have a limited capacity, and provisioning more capacity is nontrivial. As a result, most satellite services have very low data caps, typically 10 - 100 GB/month.
3. Physical concerns. Satellite connectivity requires an antenna with a clear view of the equatorial sky (e.g. south for northern hemisphere). This is often unavailable in cities, apartments, or hilly areas -- if there's a tall building or a mountain between you and the satellite, you can't use their service.