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63 Comments
- valkyries, on 12/07/2008, -1/+55well the ping is going to suck, seconds not milliseconds.
- Haptick, on 12/07/2008, -7/+532Mbps by the year 2011...woah, they're not holding back, amirite?!
I understand the importance of developing new routes to provide broadband without having to lay thousands of kilometers of new lines, but seriously, shouldn't they at least have more ambitious goals than to provide mediocre broadband by today's standards, 3 years from now? - Equinox1, on 12/07/2008, -2/+25Time to hack the planet.
- groo68, on 12/07/2008, -0/+20some rural areas have very slow dsl connections. 2mbs will bring the baseline speed up to an acceptable rate.
- DarkShroud, on 12/07/2008, -1/+16By then FIOS should have more coverage if not National and Comcast will finished converting their entire network to DOCSIS 3. Hopefully Comcast uses proper hardware unlike in their test area.
- linagee, on 12/07/2008, -0/+13Any satellite internet will have crappy latency though, even if the bandwidth is huge. It's a limitation of physics.
- radicalchaos, on 12/07/2008, -0/+13Who knows, by 2011 that might be considered obsolete even for rural customers.
- AstroZombie138, on 12/07/2008, -1/+14The increased satellite coverage will be nice for rural areas. It will also be good because satellite connections are relatively expensive and this should drive the price down. As mentioned above, the 2mbps isn't too impressive, but I believe the biggest problem is the latency. Satellite connections typically have ~400ms latency (long ping times) which will make services like IP Telephony and video conferencing quite difficult even with TCP acceleration.
- bob1029, on 12/07/2008, -0/+11Mathematically, best case scenario for latency over satellite internet is defined as follows: Geostationary orbit is ~22,236 miles above the surface of the area being covered. Speed of light is ~186,000 miles/sec. This provides for 22236/186000 = .119 seconds. This is 239ms round-trip latency. This could only be possible if the satellite has ideal routing, the ground station has no delay, and the web server has no delay. In practice, the satellite's transmission must be multiplexed with about a million others, so the time division multiplexing adds hundreds of milliseconds of delay to each bitstream. If the satellite were to be maxed out, was operating with a carrier of 4GHz and each client was allocated 500 cycles per division, there would be an additional 250ms delay added just for the signal processing portion of the trip. Again this accounts for no overhead or other telecommunication shenanigans.
There needs to be some serious attempts at getting alternative systems such as solar-powered ultralight aircraft in holding patterns at several miles above the earth using on-board batteries. This could provide negligible latency increase and support the same number of users. - anaphylaxis, on 12/07/2008, -0/+11Hmmm, wonder how hard it is to put an "unplanned" satellite into orbit
- dweeb79, on 12/07/2008, -0/+11I don't consider this a this a cost effective solution. Rural areas are starting to solve this problem by using wireless internet, this can offer comparable speeds along with better latency. Four or five years ago this would have been a cost effective product, but in two years we'll be talking about this like a floppy.
- mooninite, on 12/07/2008, -0/+11Satellite service has even worse plans than Comcast or Time Warner. Imagine being able to only download a few GB per month at 512kbit speeds for $50/month. Point to point wireless is marginally better, but still, it's all monopolized, very little innovation, very high prices.
- bsmang, on 12/07/2008, -2/+11I can't believe they even call it "broadband". I've been using satellite for 5 years and it sux. I'd take a slow DSL connection over it any day. I already get 1.5-2mbps, but when you add the 1000-2000ms latency, it just screws the pooch right over. The only thing it's any good at all for is downloading the latest Linux distro.
- DigitAl56K, on 12/07/2008, -0/+9Yes, then you'll be able to get downstream of up to 50Mb/s!*
* 50Mb/s for the first 10MB of your download**
** As long as it's not BitTorrent - RipleyIsDead, on 12/07/2008, -0/+8What ever happened to the communications blimps?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic ...
They can be easily upgraded and they don't cost $$ millions to launch. - DarkoKun, on 12/07/2008, -0/+7The track going down hill?
- radicalchaos, on 12/07/2008, -2/+9Maybe they can use the XM & Sirius Satellites, which by then will be idle.
- theaceoffire, on 12/07/2008, -0/+7They nixed the idea.
Every time the net crashed, people would scream "Oh the humanity". - Nintendesert, on 12/07/2008, -0/+7At least you're consistent.
- jasdf, on 12/07/2008, -0/+6This is huge for the rural areas, who to be honest are the ones who will probably subscribe in the first place. 2 million connections would make a huge dent in this market.
- whoreable, on 12/07/2008, -1/+7boobies from space!!!
- yensed, on 12/07/2008, -0/+6Most people who live in the rural areas around here are still stuck with lousy DSL or cant even get DSL at all. And since Charter took over the town here in 2001, I haven't noticed any real expansion of their network availability to anyone who isn't immediately surrounding the town. So I really hope this type of broadband finally takes off.
- jasdf, on 12/07/2008, -0/+6What we need is a constellation of low earth orbit satellites similar to the GPS system. This would eliminate the latency issue as the round trip (up,down,up, down) would only be around 1,000miles.
- NicoNicoNico, on 12/07/2008, -0/+6Satellite internet sucks. Thought you should know. I was on it for six months, and the latency is killer. You have to wait a second for the page to *start* loading, then a second more for each packet of data. I just switched to wireless internet through the cell phone companies and it is wonderful. It's faster than the DSL back when I used to live in an area that actually had broadband options (no DSL and no cable here).
Funny thing about cable. They are complete dicks around here. Cable is literally across the street, but they refuse to string it to our side because they're cheap. Our annoying neighbor with the millions of Christmas lights can have great internet, but we can't. To make it worse, I'm disabled and am taking online classes, so I'd pay for the fastest connection if they bothered to hook us up.
But yeah, long story short, rural areas need better broadband access. We need cable and fiber optics, not this slow, annoying, expensive crap they try to pull on us. - beabis, on 12/07/2008, -0/+5Yes it finally is.
Some engineers were out at a bar the night of November 4th 2008. When they saw how the election results were going they decided to design the ViaSat-1 satellite. By 2 AM they had the design finalized and by 8 AM the satellite was fully assembled. The big disappointment came when they called Arianespace in France to schedule the launch for January 20th 2009. The French ruined everything when they said the earliest launch they could get was in 2011. - G-RaZoR, on 12/07/2008, -1/+6Wait. What? People don't spend entire lives online? How is this possible? Can someone explain this, I just don't see how this is even remotely possible.
- motters, on 12/07/2008, -0/+5Satellite of love...
- Cglass, on 12/07/2008, -0/+5I don't think you even read the article.
While it is very true everything you have said, the whole point of this satellite is that it's much much faster and has a higher capacity than current satellites. While it is very true, many people will be using fiber/cable/dsl in 2011, a large handful of people in odd areas will still need alternative solutions, and this sounds like a great way to get respectable internet in remote locations, and they claim at a decent price. - mpwoodruff, on 12/07/2008, -0/+5I think a lot of people are missing the point. The great thing about this is that it will create competition in markets where there is little. They will have to offer a cheaper price due to latency and speeds, and if they are cheap enough to get people to switch from cable/dsl/fiber, then those prices should follow. Which means cheaper broadband for us, more competition to develop faster broadband speeds to get the prices back up, which in turn means faster broadband available.
- akula89, on 12/07/2008, -1/+6not necessarily., if it is a low orbit satellite, it could be usable for gaming (adding <50 ms delay)
- theGoodness, on 12/07/2008, -0/+5This might have the benefit of deterring traffic shaping, companies are more likely to listen to their customers if they don't preside over a monopoly and the customer has a variety of options.
- MonkeyFit, on 12/07/2008, -0/+4@theaceoffire
You are a horrible person for making such a joke and will surely go to hell. I'll see you there. - marc54, on 12/07/2008, -1/+5I certainly hope they upgrate that satellite before launch, because going back to dialup is not something I want.
- xexx, on 12/07/2008, -0/+4Eh, every other option where there was previously none is great, but this seems pretty underwhelming to me.... 2 million people isn't many at all and the speed isn't very good at all.
- Kratos76, on 12/07/2008, -0/+41000ms = 1second.
- sfgeek, on 12/07/2008, -0/+4WiMax is the future, and I am hoping that Google's partnership with Sprint bears some fruit.
The real future however, should follow the WiMax model as well as the original model of the XO laptop. If enough people have WiMax, the networks won't have much of a leg to stand on in urban and suburban areas. That being said, the cost will likely be passed on to those living in rural areas that are out of WiMax ranges. - theaceoffire, on 12/07/2008, -0/+3sings
- tbom, on 12/07/2008, -0/+3...only if its users are underneath the satellite, along a similar ground track and circling the globe in ~90 minutes. Or there were a large number of these satellites...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_Orbit#Human ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary#Communi ... - Nasterisk, on 12/07/2008, -0/+3HACK THE PLANET!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drJWxMLrpE0 - beabis, on 12/07/2008, -0/+3Amen.
I have satellite internet and at this low traffic time of day my pings averaged 1236ms. Can't do much video and no torrents due to 12GB per 30 days limit and connection shared by 10 users. That's for $70 a month.
I would be delighted with a 768K DSL connection that wouldn't have a cap and would work during a rainstorm. Unfriendly neighbor 1/2 mile away could get DSL but I'm beyond the limit. - gkiltz, on 12/07/2008, -1/+4Keep in mind that satellites have that latency! It's inherent in the geosynchronous orbit!
The future lies will building out rural parts of the country in fiber, then strategically placing wireless access points at the population clusters, while leaving the lower-density rural areas, and even the fringes near the high density areas to connect directly to the fiber, either by fiber-to-device, or CAT-6 to the device, or, where the cost can be justified, wireless routers that cover a couple of rooms!
I'm no fan of the cable companies, but to give credit where it's due, they were smart to put fiber to the neighborhood, then roll to coax at the neighborhood level, and link individual houses and businesses to the system with COAX!
Now, they don't have an overwhelming investment to take that to the next level, and go fiber to the premises, leaving the COAX in place as a backup, and /or peak-demand circuit!
Starting from scratch, even linking wireless access points with fiber is going to be insanely expensive. Satellites are good for one-way streaming, but have some real issues when upstream and downstream traffic are close to equal volume, or where high latency is a killer, such as VOIP, or "Telepresence!"
The difficulty companies such as Verizon face is, they can go two ways. either try to modify the existing wireless network to carry more bandwidth, and while that has possibilities, there are spectrum-utilization and interference issues that are not going to be easy to get around, or they can essentially rebuild the wireline network with fiber. I suspect the solution will involve a fairly complex combination of the two! - kungfujedis, on 12/07/2008, -0/+3100,000,000,000 / 2,000,000 = 50,000
- Liam, on 12/07/2008, -0/+3There is an alternative to geostationary orbits; you can use a constellation of low-earth orbits designed so that there is always one in view in the service area. For example, satellite phone service works this way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_%28satellite% ... - mdaize, on 12/07/2008, -0/+3Hughes has had 2mbps for years...
They just released a service level that can hit ~5mbps over satellite ...
sure it is hella expensive and the usage policy is quite limiting - it works very well and is quite reliable!!! - inactive, on 12/07/2008, -2/+4Welcome to the 21st century, America.
- JDiZZle300Z, on 12/07/2008, -0/+2Plus your forgetting that its satellite. Which means ultimate wireless. 3Mbs can stream HQ video, and if i can stream HQ video on the go I am down with that.
- valkyries, on 12/07/2008, -0/+2what I got from the article, it was saying that there would be one satellite(at first). So it would have to be in geosync-orbit(so that its always over the States) that would put the satellite out at aleast 20k-26k miles from earth.
- soccer1105, on 12/08/2008, -0/+2yeah, did anyone else do that math? check me if i'm wrong, but if they want 2 million subscribers, with 2Mbps each, they're banking that only 2.5% of their customers will be using full bandwidth at any one time. In other words, the satellite is capable of 100Gbps; 2 million subscribers with 2Mbps each is 4 Tbps!
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