Could We Beam Broadband Internet Into Iran? 541
Posted
by
timothy
from the extend-the-tubes dept.
from the extend-the-tubes dept.
abenamer writes "Some reporter at a recent White House press briefing just asked the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, this question: Was 'the White House....considering beaming broad capability into Iran via satellite so the opposition forces would be able to communicate with themselves and the outside world?' 'Gibbs said he didn't know such a thing was possible. (Is it?) But he said he would check on the technological feasibility and get back with an answer.' I'm not sure what the reporter meant by beaming broadband into Iran: Do they even have 3G? Would we bomb the Iranians with SIM cards that would allow them to get text messages from the VOA? Or somehow put up massive Wi-Fi transmitters from Iraq and beam it into Iran? How would you beam broadband into Iran?"
Nokia / Siemens could provide an answer (Score:2, Informative)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124562668777335653.html [wsj.com]
They don't have the hardware on their end... (Score:5, Informative)
Getting a signal TO them is easy. You just have to set up a source with sufficient power. Satellite, ground, shortwave, whatever. I think it would be feasible (I'm not radio guru) to beam them FM from space or Iraq. Basiclly you'd be breaking all the transmit power limits to further your cause.
The problem with networking is they don't have any devices powerful enough to beam the return signal BACK to us. Sure, we can broadcast them a packet 1000 miles away, but their hardware only has the power to return it 1 mile back... Yeah, you can tweak the sensitivity of your receiving equip, but not enough for this. And the idea of cells is that you are counting on a signal only reaching a certain distance, so you can reuse that frequency in another location. Even if they all put 100,000 watt amplifiers on their wifi cards, on our end it's just jumbled garbage.
By the time we got any hardware to them to let them communicate with us, this revolution will be over... R&D, Procurement, Distribution...
Satellite Internet exists (Score:5, Informative)
Google it (Score:3, Informative)
I'm pretty sure the US Army already has it's own satellite ISP that works in Iraq, which means it also works in Iran, they'd just have to be so generous to let the Iranis use it, they don't really need special equipment for this, they can buy satellite capable phones in Iran, they just need the access to the US army networks, or commercial networks. Just give them some access to satellite providers, then they can set up their own networks on site if they're the least bit organized, otherwise it's no use anyway.
Wifi from Irak isn't really possible, It would work around the borders, but that's all, Iran is a pretty big country, it's meaningless, satellite is the only option, either that or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers [wikipedia.org] .
DVB-S2/RCS or BGAN (Score:5, Informative)
With DVB-S2/RCS you have a bidirectional satellite system that requires a 1.2 meter dish antenna and a satellite terminal composed of an indoor unit (about the size of a bulky cable-modem) and an outdoor unit (transmitter and receiver horn mounted on the focus point of the satellite dish. This costs around US$1000 dollars and it takes about 30min to install (if you are an experienced installer).
With BGAN you have a very portable terminal (about the size of a netbook) that only requires you to point it in the general vicinity of the satellite location in the horizon.
Both systems use GEO (geostationary) satellites, which means that they have a fixed location in the horizon. They are actually located over the equator (0Â latitude) and they orbit the earth in 24h cycles, thus appearing to be stationary.
With DVB-S2/RCS you can have a 50Mbit/s in the downlink, although most services provide less than 10Mbit/s. The usually upload speed is 1Mbit/s. This speeds are shared between all terminals within a beam (similar to Internet over cable, where you share your Internet within a residential area of about 1000 persons).
With BGAN you only have 492Kbit/s in both the downlink and uplink. On the other hand, it is designed for mobility.
Re:Use Wildblue (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.wildblue.com/aboutWildblue/how_it_works_demo.jsp [wildblue.com]
WildBlue's two satellites, located 22,500 miles above the Earth's equator in geostationary orbit
So no, that isn't LEO.
The Tor project is already doing this (Score:5, Informative)
The Tor project has taken it upon themselves to help out the resistance in Iran. They have instructions to setup Iran only Tor bridges to provide secure/anonymous internet access to and from Iran.
https://blog.torproject.org/blog/measuring-tor-and-iran
Too bad the press isn't paying attention to the (very successful) efforts by the Tor project in helping out the people of Iran get communications in and out of Iran. No need for the White House to do anything, the good folks and volunteers at Tor are taking care of it in a much more practical way.
Also, whoever wrote this article/said that comment has no idea about physics and technology. Some of the comments here talking about how unbelievably implausible "beaming broadband" into Iran is are very funny.
You can't just throw internet into a country.... not in any practical way anyways, especially from a satellite without proper ground equipment.
Re:Nokia / Siemens could provide an answer (Score:3, Informative)
This was yesterday's news, and generally agreed to be a snow job by the WSJ. These companies sold network equipment. The same equipment that is probably allowing information to seep out of Iran. Please mod down this blatant hijacking, especially in light of the fact that it already has its own topic [slashdot.org].
Re:Soup cans and string (Score:5, Informative)
The majority of the country lives in mud huts with goats in their yards and are lucky to have electricity for even part day if at all.
And that's where Ahmadinejad got his 60% of the vote. It might be interesting to enable the 'intellectual elite' of Iran living in the big cities to make their displeasure known to the rest of the world. But as long as they have a semblance of a democratic system, their fundies are going to run the place.
Re:Ummm (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Ummm (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly right. The U.S. and Britain started this whole fiasco in 1953 by meddling in Iran's affairs and overthrowing Mohammed Mosaddeq [wikipedia.org] in Operation AJAX [wikipedia.org]. They installed the Shah, a ruthless dictator with a security apparatus as bad or worse than the current Iran Regime, SAVAK [wikipedia.org]. The Iranian people hated the Shah so much they turned to the Islamists in the 1978/1979 Iranian revolution to overthrew him, and replaced the devil they knew with the devil they have now. Mossaddeq nationalized British run oil fields in Iran and the U.S. and Britain over thew him to regain control of the oil. It was one of the early and most vivid proofs that yes in fact the U.S. and Britain will do just about anything to control oil fields including coups and wars. All things considered if Mossaddeq had been left in power Iranian would have been a lot better and happier place.
Anyone with the slightest sense of history realizes the U.S. and Britain need to stay completely out of this because their involvement will just give the current regime a potent propaganda tool to say the protests are a western imperialist instigated counter revolution to the 1979 overthrow of the Shah. Its bad enough things like Twitter and Facebook are U.S. based.
Re:Ummm (Score:5, Informative)
Moral of the story: those we help will not always repay us with kindness.
Especially when the reason we helped them had absolutely zilch to do with altruism or genuine interest in their welfare or in the principles of democracy or anything high-minded, and instead had everything to do with our own self interest with complete disregard for how things turned out for them provided we got what we wanted.
We didn't really 'help' them. We 'used' them as pawns in our game of chess with the USSR. We didn't give a shit about what happened to them.
Re:The question is wrong. Let Iranians figure it o (Score:4, Informative)
How is Palestine a civil war? Or are you talking about history? The last civil war in that area took place a couple thousand years ago, which makes sense seeing as how that was the last time the area had sovereign rule against which to start a war.
Re:Ummm (Score:4, Informative)
It was in reference to criticism that the US government wasn't doing enough to help or encourage the protesters overturn the election and/or government.
Possible to do dirt cheap one-way. Analog cheaper (Score:3, Informative)
The uplink is the difficult and expensive part. Receiving satellite multi-cast is cheap. Wifi is cheap. So it should be dirt cheap to produce lots of local satellite->wifi repeaters pumping out data, so long as you skip on the uplink. Have some sort of simple one-way streaming multi-cast protocol. (You'd only need to do multi-cast on the LAN, and depend on distributing lots of units to get wide area coverage.) You'd have to distribute a new piece of software so that RSS readers and web browsers could view the content. Opera Unite might be able to do this. Any kind of locally installable web browser would do.
Balloons are cute, but you wouldn't even have to do that. All you have to do is get them to locals somehow. Just make these things self contained, disposable, battery powered with lots of longevity. The locals could stash them in random places out in the open and it would be completely deniable.
Of course, FM radio is a *lot* cheaper. So is analog television.
Re:The question is wrong. Let Iranians figure it o (Score:5, Informative)
How is Palestine a civil war? Or are you talking about history? The last civil war in that area took place a couple thousand years ago, which makes sense seeing as how that was the last time the area had sovereign rule against which to start a war.
it seemed pretty civil warrish when Hamas booted out Abbas by using guns.
Re:Nokia / Siemens could provide an answer (Score:5, Informative)
You might need a lesson in history [wikipedia.org].
Re:The question is wrong. Let Iranians figure it o (Score:1, Informative)
How is Palestine a civil war? The last civil war in that area took place a couple months ago,
The Palestinian Territories, those parts in which Israel is not involved, are divided between the Hamas and the Fatah, who have been actively (and as violently as war gets) fighting each other for years already:
the administration of the territories has been contested by two rival entities, with Hamas controlling the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian National Authority (with Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah in leadership) continuing to administer the West Bank. Both groups claim legitimacy over leadership of the Palestinian territories and neither recognizes the legitimacy of the other.
.
The world is not black and white. And with Google [google.com] and Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] at your fingers' reach, you literally have no excuse. But then your sig tells enough about you.
Re:Ummm (Score:2, Informative)
What's the point? NY doesn't have anywhere near as much (potential for) oil as Iran.
While Iran does have a lot of oil for it's population density, it's production peaked in the 1970s at something like 6 million bpd. I think now they struggle to keep it at like 3 or 4 million bpd.
Technically strictly speaking, the U.S. already pumps more than that domestically.
Re:We can support ideals not a leader (Score:3, Informative)
I see no reason why the US can't help promote general ideals (freedom of press, etc..) while not commenting on any one leader
Which we've been doing. The criticisms being leveled are that we're not doing more. They want us to state, "we stand with the protesters against the state", or even offer them material support.
repeat: YOU ARE IGNORANT (Score:2, Informative)
THE UPRISING IN IRAN IS NOT A FEW HIPPIES
REPEAT
THE UPRISING IN IRAN IS WIDE THROUGHOUT ALL IRANIAN SOCIETY
understand?
but why take my word for it. let an iranian tell you:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/opinion/19shane.html [nytimes.com]
recant your ignorance. or claim you know more about iranian demographics and the uprising than actual iranians
douchebag
Re:Eh sonny? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ummm (Score:4, Informative)
Current production has nothing to do with it. Future yield, in a world with ever diminishing supplies, is all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves#Estimated_reserves_by_country [wikipedia.org]
Re:Ummm (Score:3, Informative)
"but you mistakenly believe a wikipedia entry"
I'll take Wikipedia over you. Wikipedia has problems with pages on current events but their history is usually pretty good and it corresponds with everything else I've read about TPAJAX over the years. The CIA agent who planned it wrote a document about it, Clandestine Service History Overthrow Of Premier Mossadeq of Iran: November 1952-August 1953 by Donald Wilber [payk.net]. Like I said Obama recently officially admitted the U.S. staged the coup, though everyone has known it for years.
"a few people at CIA didn't and don't have the power to effect a regime change in a country like Iran"
I think we are arguing over splitting hairs. Of course the CIA worked with a native movement to stage the coup. They always used native movements because they are a clandestine agency. They used the Nortern Alliance to overthrow the Taliban but that was most definitely a CIA war. The role of the U.S. and Britain was much bigger than you are trying to make it sound. Britain started blockading Iranian oil exports as soon as the nationalization occurred and it was strangling the Iranian economy. The blockade alone might have eventually toppled the government.
The CIA gave General Fazlollah Zahed something like $5 million during the coup to fund it. There is a lot of irony that the U.S. and Britain backed Zahed because a few years early the British had him in jail during World War II because he'd tried to install a pro Nazi government in Iran. He was pretty much a Fascist and Nazi protege. Shows you how low their standards were for the new Iranian government that they helped a Nazi stage the coup. All they cared about was the new government sign a new oil deal and give the Western oil companies all of Iran's oil for next to nothing. Ironically the British lost their monopoly on Iranian oil because the new oil deal gave cuts to the U.S. and the Dutch. Actually a former Nazi was a pretty good fit for a U.S. coup in the 1950's because they could count on a Nazi to crush the communists in Iran. Crushing the Tudeh, the Iranian communist party was the other goal of the CIA coup.