
Look up - okket
https://blog.apnic.net/2017/04/05/look-up/
======
hashkb
> There have been efforts by various countries located under the equator to
> claim the geostationary slots directly overhead as some part of their
> territorial domain, but these claims have not managed to gain any credence
> in the international community.

Sorry, you're too poor to enforce your claim so we're going to launch the
satellites ourselves and charge you for usage, kay?

------
Neliquat
Completely broken on mobile.

------
forgottenacc57
Can someone gimme the gist of this, I'm not interested in reading for 39
minutes for an unknown point.

~~~
ghusbands
Using satellites to provide good internet access is achieveable and avoids
somewhat stagnant cable-based ISPs. Technical details and upcoming commercial
ventures are discussed.

~~~
mirimir
And with LEO, latency can be ~3 ms.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Would internet require geosynchronous satellites? That's ~35,000 kilometers
out rather than hundreds. That adds about 600ms.[1]

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_Internet_access](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_Internet_access)

~~~
mirimir
Nope, that's why Internet requires LEO, or at least MEO.

It's basically a mixnet. Like how cellular works. Except it's not you that's
moving.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Objects in Low Earth Orbit have an orbital period of 88 minutes to 127
minutes.

How many satellites would be required to provider continual coverage for any
particular large city?

~~~
mirimir
Given how it works, it doesn't make sense to focus on particular cities.
Orbital footprints, perhaps, but that's probably not workable.

From the article:

Iridium used 77 satellites in polar orbits at 780 km.

Planned LEO:

LEOSAT 108

OneWeb 648

SPACEX 4000

~~~
qmarchi
One of these things is not line the others.

~~~
xenadu02
Launching with SpaceX is already 50% cheaper than other providers, sans
reusability. If SpaceX owns the network they can launch at cost. Let's say
that puts them at a 70% advantage (When they perfect reusability maybe 90%).

Satellite technology is also cheaper and smaller so you can put a lot more
tiny satellites up with each launch.

I have no problem believing SpaceX can blanket the globe with 4000 satellites
at reasonable cost. As bandwidth needs increase they could simply launch more
of them.

For the sake of competition in the US (and access in other parts of the world)
I hope they succeed.

The only other risk I see (beyond losing money if the venture doesn't gain
enough customers) is that nations like North Korea, China, Iran, etc will not
be happy that their citizens can subscribe to an ISP they can't control or
filter and without any way to block it. I can definitely see China (credibly)
threatening to blow up the satellites if SpaceX sells access to Chinese
customers.

~~~
mirimir
Back in the day, some of us had that dream for the US too.

SWANsat LEO network with WiMax, plus a VPN. So you get anonymous VPN
connection via satellite. Pretty cool, no?

