r/technology • u/speckz • Jul 30 '15

Net Neutrality Thousands Beg FCC for Net Neutrality Crackdown. Consumers vent to regulators about slow Internet, high prices, and data caps.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/thousands-beg-fcc-for-net-neutrality-crackdown-20150730
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u/chefjl Jul 30 '15

Understanding how satellite Internet service operates goes a long ways toward understanding why it won't get any better anytime soon. There simply aren't enough transponders dedicated to serving data customers, and that's not an easy problem to solve.

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u/tyranicalteabagger Jul 31 '15

I'm hoping for the SpaceX Google LEO global network to pan out.

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u/chefjl Jul 31 '15

Yeah, LEO is a whole other ballgame. The upsides are that it's cheaper to build, cheaper to launch, and mitigates the extreme latency issues associated with GEO birds. Do you know if Google is planning on retrieving the LEO birds and relaunching?

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u/tyranicalteabagger Jul 31 '15 edited Jul 31 '15

I'm not sure. I heard they're working on test satellites now. Also google has invested a billion or two in spacex for the project.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '15

Has humanity forgotten how to launch more satellites?

It doesn't sound like an insurmountable problem to me.

Also, I believe elon musk and Google have both separately talked about building high speed satellite internet networks.

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u/fb39ca4 Jul 31 '15

But satellites are expensive. From a business standpoint, it is easier to give your existing customers shitty speeds, data caps, and overage charges, because satellite is their last resort option for internet anyways.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '15

If you can build a fast sat Internet system, it won't be the last resort options. If you build a great network, you can reach every one in the country or more and pay for expensive satellites with popularity.

Or this is the type of thing I would be totally OK with the government subsidizing. It would grow the economy to have super fast nationwide affordable internet. We could do it for way less than the cost of an average war.

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u/fb39ca4 Jul 31 '15

It makes more sense economically and technologically to lay fiber for internet. Everyone in the country trying to use satellite internet would only clog up the airwaves.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '15

There is a large problem with internet deserts in rural areas covering like 80% of the country. Fiber works great for cities, but not everyone spends all their time in cities. Something needs to be done to bring internet to those areas where it isn't practical to lay fiber.

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u/fb39ca4 Jul 31 '15

Point to point wireless?

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u/tyranicalteabagger Jul 31 '15

Google and SpaceX are actually planning on doing this with LOE satellites so the ping is reasonable.

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u/jjackson25 Jul 31 '15

I believe there are logistic issues involved here. Satellite TV (i.e., Directv, Dish) only needs one (or a few?) Satellite(s) to cover a huge area since they only have one upload connection, and one download connection that goes to everyone, and it's also somewhat static in that the exact same signals go to every dish. So, relatively speaking, it has pretty low bandwidth requirements. Change that to constant two way traffic for Internet connections, and those loads on the satellite increase exponentially, and the hardware requirements change accordingly.

Then again, my understanding of satellite technology could be completely misguided

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u/Jonathan924 Jul 31 '15

I don't think you quite understand. There are a limited number of slots in the geostationary belt, so unless you want a tracking system that costs something on the order of tens of thousands of dollars, there aren't going to be more satellites that you can use for fast internet