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This May, sleuths at IEEE Spectrum revealed something exciting -- Facebook appeared to be secrely working on an experimental satellite that could beam internet down to Earth using millimeter wave radio signals.
Now, Facebook has confirmed to Wired and CNET that the satellite, dubbed Athena, is indeed a Facebook project -- and that Facebook is a believer in satellite internet technology.
"While we have nothing to share about specific projects at this time, we believe satellite technology will be an important enabler of the next generation of broadband infrastructure, making it possible to bring broadband connectivity to rural regions where internet connectivity is lacking or non-existent," a Facebook spokesperson told CNET and Wired.
But Wired does have more to share about this specific project. Using a Freedom of Information Act request, Wired says it obtained emails from the FCC that reportedly show Facebook plans to launch the Athena satellite in early 2019. In space launch terms, that's coming up pretty dang fast.
(Score: 5, Informative) by MindEscapes on Monday July 23 2018, @02:02PM (1 child)
I had Hughes Net Gen 5 for about 2 months.
It behaved exactly as they claim, decent bandwidth, ~600ms roundtrip minimum latency due to geostationary positioning (speed of light limitations). Your request bounces off the server, hits their receiver station where it goes to a backbone, returns to their station and is bounced off the satellite back to you, the 600ms is round trip from you to base station and back. Additional latency is from station to destination and back to station.
I was able to use Wordpress.com reasonably well, and played on Return of Reckoning (Warhammer online emulated server) but with those latency penalties. I was amazed that it actually was playable, just not competitively. We didn't try much streaming because of data caps but it supposedly does all right with streaming since it is lower interactivity.
It does not work that well with sites that use a lot of AJAX scripting and constantly hit a server for everything as the high latency becomes very obvious so you have to be patient. My wife was very disappointed in it because patience
with websites and computers in general does not come naturally to her.
We found out we were able to get terrestrial based Fixed Point Wireless (think private WAN with cable uplink) which nets us ~80ms roundtrip latency with a 5Mbs bandwidth, unmetered data for 1/2 the price so it made better financial sense to cancel and pay the termination fee and also made us both happier with the experience.
Satellite service is slightly cheaper than 4G Wireless for the amount of data you get per month (yes, data is metered) but the latency is considerably higher. If it is the only option, it is still light years ahead of dialup. Here would be my choice breakdown:
If Fiber is available and reasonable - Y:done, N:continue
If Cable is available and reasonable - Y:done, N:continue
If DSL is available and reasonable - Y:done, N:continue
If Fixed Point Wireless is available and reasonable - Y:done, N:continue
If 4G is available - Y:done, N:continue *
Satellite : done
*I chose Satellite over 4G but regretted the decision, we would have had the same concerns about data with the 4G plan but the experience would have likely been better. You do get a good bit more metered data on satellite vs 4G due to the over night extra allotted data on Satellite but it had to be managed properly by you to utilize it. This all needs to be taken into consideration with pricing in your area and your own usage requirements.
I hope this was helpful.
Need a break? mindescapes.net may be for you!
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday July 24 2018, @05:36AM
Thanks! That gives me a lot more perspective in tradeoffs.
The key words for me have been "reasonable" and "what I am getting".
In the upper echelons, I have been getting a lot of "when bundled with something I don't want", "up-to", and "STARTING speed" ( whatever that is ), with the price including undefined variables. Many have nasty contracts I have to sign to even see if they will deliver, yet guarantee them severance fees if they fail to deliver and I want out.
To me, its like buying an airline seat, but not knowing if they are oversold, and if they are, I am simply told no room for me... do I want to buy another ticket and hope for the next flight?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]