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There are fewer than fifty days until the company building the [Australian] National Broadband Network (NBN) will blast its first broadband satellite 36,000 kilometres into orbit, with a planned launch date of October 1.
Blasting off from French Guiana, an overseas region of France, the announcement will be welcome news for those on the existing interim satellite service, which has suffered from slow speeds due to congestion.
Weighing[sic] nearly 6400 kilograms, it is one of the world's largest communications satellites and is the first of two that NBN will launch into space. The second will launch later next year "to ensure there is sufficient capacity to meet the needs of users in regional and remote areas", Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull said in a statement.
The satellites will deliver peak download speeds of up to 25 megabits per second regardless of where people live, Turnbull said, meaning that Australians living in rural and regional areas will have access to a satellite service "much better than they currently experience".
Scheduled to launch from Guiana Space Centre in South America, Sky Muster is set to progressively deliver broadband to more than 200,000 homes and businesses in rural and remote Australia from next year.
Julia Dickinson, NBN's company's managing space systems architect, said the satellite would play a crucial role in levelling the playing field between city and bush.
"Many rural and remote Australians do not have access to a quality broadband service and continue to experience dial-up level speeds,"; she said. "Sky Muster will help deliver world-class broadband services to the bush – it will offer better opportunities for distance education online through use of video-conferencing as well as improved access for specialist telehealth applications in the home."
-- submitted from IRC
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday August 14 2015, @05:39AM
(mmm... maybe you're right. It can happen again and worse).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gravis on Friday August 14 2015, @07:37AM
From the PoV of the result, why would it matter how we got here?
it matters because there is more then just the result, there is the future! implying they simply gave away their privacy has the undertone of people that don't care about having privacy at all and a populace that doesn't care will never strive for change. if you stay fixated on the present, you will be unable to prepare for the future.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 14 2015, @02:41PM
I really don't think that the bulk of the populace cares one whit about their privacy. Not when young women post their menstrual cycles to Facebook, among other things. There are actually tales on Facebook about difficult bowel movements. When people are posting, or reading THAT kind of nonsense, how can they possibly claim to value their privacy? Everyone hopes to be famous (or infamous) for fifteen minutes, and they're willing to toss any semblance of privacy for the opportunity.
About the only people who value privace, are criminals, geeks, and politicians - and a few more-or-less normal people here and there.