Elon Musk Confirms SpaceX Is Building Internet Satellites

[bloomington-lib]

Source: WSJ

The Wall Street Journal first reported on Friday that Musk is working with entrepreneur Greg Wyler, founder of a startup called WorldVu Satellites, that hopes to deliver fast Internet service using a vast constellation of small satellites.

Musk said an announcement is coming in two to three months. Responding to another Twitter user who asked if they are for cheap Internet access for the masses, Musk said “unfettered certainly and at very low cost.”

Musk and Wyler have discussed with industry executives launching around 700 satellites, each weighing less than 250 pounds, the Journal reported. The largest satellite fleet aloft today delivering connectivity from space is one tenth that size.

A spokesman for SpaceX didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read more: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/11/11/elon-musk-confirms-spacex-is-building-internet-satellites/?mod=trending_now_1

[DetlefK]

1. Remember how the Tessier-Ashpool-dynasty in "Neuromancer" made their fortune:

Internet-servers in space.

(Okay, the novels precede the word "Internet", but it was basically the same.)

[SpankMe]

2. It's an old idea.

And by old, I mean it was proposed in the early 90's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledesic

[Locrian]

9. man I can't wait to fire up the old Ono-Sendai !! --n/t

[Demeter]

3. This is a really bad idea

The security issues....if they are built to keep NSA out, the USA will use them for target practice.


If they don't keep the NSA out, nobody will use them.

[SCVDem]

12. Target Practice? I Think Not!

There is so much space junk already in orbit that adding to it could cause a cascade of shrapnel, wiping out many satellites, NSA also.

I like the idea of intersat. Screw getting overcharged by Verizon.

Maybe President Obama knows about this and this is his ace for getting net neutrality passed. Bless competition.

[drm604]

5. I would think there'd be lag due to the distance.

I also wonder about bandwidth.

[Gore1FL]

6. Latency. No one ever considers Latency. n/t

[wtbymark]

14. with the new toys, latency is down below 20ms n/t

[Gore1FL]

15. But new toys close are still better. Speed of light fast, but still finite. n/t

[onehandle]

7. Me want. Die ISPs, Die! nt

[drm604]

10. This would also be an ISP.

[PSPS]

8. Ask any DishNET or HughesNET (formerly DirecWay) subscriber about how well it works

In short, it's quite horrible and finds a market only where there is no other alternative at all. But the US has enormous swaths where internet is still available only through dial-up, so this would be of value in the same market.

[Treant]

11. What's the upstream?

Telephone line to send your request, and the satellites beam it back?

Barring some really interesting technological twist, it's great for people who aren't in locales with even semi-adequate connectivity. But for most cities, no--you can do better just with a DSL line.

[wtbymark]

13. Well I suppose...

..that if all the sats were Ka band and everyone had a little 15watt amplifier/tx, in MPeg4/H264; it would be fast(up to 22MBps), especially down. You'd have to share the uplink bandwidth though, but you could pay for access to multiple transponders
HughesNet and the such is Ku band in MPeg2/DVB-S, the bandwidth limitations are well...undesired; Fine for TV, not HD though. I can fit an H264 stream into 3.9mbps where as the same video quality in DVB-S would take at least 12-14Mbps. 5 mbps in Ku costs you the client = $7/min. edit to add) This pricing is breaking news, sports uplink, etc. not for a permenant uplink situation. Although it's around $1million a year to be up on DirectTV. Now go and do the 'Link Budgets'