Once again the flailing Australian National Broadband Network is in the news with a couple in Melbourne being quoted up to 1.2 million dollars to connect to the NBN. The primary reason for this is the the house in question is seven kilometres of fibre would be needed to connect the property. With the copper network being switched off around Australian, even in places where it is still viable, the only option is to switch to the NBN unless a competing network already exists. The NBN has stated that it can cost $30,000 to run fibre for a "few hundred metres". It is getting to the point where it can be cheaper just to move house if the internet is bad.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 14 2018, @05:43PM (2 children)
I have heard of the type of satellite service you are talking about. From GEO satellites.
LEO satellites do upload. While I cannot go into specificity, your mobile device would be assigned a certain channel and time slot both for upload and another for download. Handoffs occur frequently because LEO satellites are only in view for several minutes.
The issue is building a service that does this at more practical speeds suitable for the internet rather than for voice.
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(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday June 14 2018, @09:08PM (1 child)
The problem with uploads is the strength of the signal you can generate. Directv or somesuch, not a problem. Your phone? Problem. You can see this with sat phones. You'll be able to get a signal but can't make a call simply because the phone can't reach the satellite.
Handoffs aren't a problem. A satellite connection won't handoff any more often than a car going down the freeway, or in city driving surrounded by tall buildings. Now if you're in a plane on your phone then handoffs are a problem. You might have line of sight to a cell tower, but your puny phone has to pass through the plane and travel many a mile to be heard. We did a study in the early 90s that showed that by the time the handoff was complete it was time to do another handoff. Not a situation a carrier wants to be in. Most of the systems I've looked at have a path ground -> satellite -> plane -> satellite -> ground.
As for who is doing satellite internet, take a look at Viasat. They started with connecting planes to the internet but they're also looking at home internet service as well.
My ducks are not in a row. I don't know where some of them are, and I'm pretty sure one of them is a turkey.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 14 2018, @11:10PM
Don't sat uplinks have to be on frequencies that are not used for any other porpoise to prevent drowning out your signal?
We haven't even talked about doppler shift, which would be significant. And the doppler shifted frequencies would have to be part of the allocated spectrum reversed for use by the satellite system.
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