SkyOrbiter UAVs Could Fly For Years and Provide Global Internet Access 48
Zothecula writes The internet has become a critical means of communication during humanitarian crises and a crucial everyday tool for people around the world. Now, a Portuguese company wants to make sure everyone has access to it. Quarkson plans to use SkyOrbiter unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to transmit internet access "to every corner of the world."
Naming (Score:5, Funny)
Please, please, PLEASE can the folks who are setting this up call it "Skynet"? Thanks.
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Comcast will love that... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Wireless will never have the same potential for bandwidth that wired internet access has. It's up to the wired providers to actually implement enough bandwidth that wireless can't keep up. Given the shitty near monopoly incumbent cable operators we have in the US there very well could be faster wireless providers.
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So how are they going to finagle fees from us for this? Decoders?
It is scandalous that we have to pay through the nose just for the right to be spied on ....
Taxes.
People think it's bad that corporations control the internet. I'm sure the NSA loves that particular conspiracy theory because what do you think the alternative to corporations is?
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"Provide Global Internet Access" (Score:4, Insightful)
And, just as likely, surveillance.
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could they over ride local wifi with high gain directional antennae for surveillance?
CIA? NSA? Re:"Provide Global Internet Access" (Score:2)
SkyOrbiter UAVs Could Fly For Years and Provide Global Internet Access
They should have called it Complete Internet Access. They should also clarify that there will be No Surveillance Allowed.
As for the name,
satellites? (Score:2)
Isn't this already here with satellites? i.e. unmanned aerial vehicles
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At 150km or higher than that your little cubie satellite will fall off the sky.
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"Satellites have much longer ping times"
Satellites at geostationary orbit have long ping times, but you can have satellites at lower orbits like a few hundred miles. It only adds a few ms to the ping time.
Re:satellites? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:satellites? (Score:5, Informative)
Sattelites come in two main varieties both of which have their problems.
GEO sattelites can cover the world with a handful of sattelites but they are a LONG way from anything on the ground and a long way up the gravity well. That limits the data rate possible with a given antenna size and RF bandwidth, it also makes them expensive to launch and makes the latency high (best case for round trip time on a GEO based sattelite internet service is ~500ms, protocols for on-demand upstream bandwidth allocation will make that much worse).
LEO sattelites have much lower radio path loss and much lower theoretical latency but each sattelite has a relatively small coverage area and worse the sattelites are constantly moving which makes use of high gain antennas difficult, requires frequent handoffs, makes it impractical to focus coverage on areas with the most demand.
A flying platform would be even closer to the ground than an LEO sattelite and would stay in a more or less fixed position allowing it to serve a fixed area. The question is can you make an economical permanent flying platform (either by lighter than air flight or by heavier than air flight with solar power)
lots of wishing, no information. Nuclear powered? (Score:5, Interesting)
On their web site, I see a lot about what they wish they could do, and very little about how they'd manage to do it.
They say their HA series is designed to stay aloft for up to five years at "all latitudes". "All latitudes precludes the use of solar power since it's dark for six months at a time at far north and far south latitudes, and most of their pictures clearly show no solar panels. So are they hoping for a magic battery that will last five years but not weigh hundreds of pounds, or are they planning on nuclear power? Submarines that stay out for years use nuclear power, so that is a proven option.
Another option that's known to be somewhat workable at some latitudes is a hot air balloon, where the black balloon continually absorbs heat from the sun to keep the craft aloft. Their pictures show model planes, though, not balloons.
Do these guys have any idea how to solve the most fundamental physics problems in the way, or do they just have a wish and nothing else? Their web site doesn't seem to indicate they've thought about how to do it, just how to get people to hand over cash, with no actual plan published.
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Submarines that stay out for years use nuclear power, so that is a proven option since there is an ocean in the sky.
Fixed that for you. :-p
Otherwise, I agree with you.
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Well, the sky is just a little less dense than the ocean so you need to work on your buoyancy.
true, not proven for flight, but endurance vehicle (Score:2)
That's a valid point, of course. Perhaps I should have been more specific and said the concept of a long- endurance vehicle being nuclear powered has been proven, but keeping the nuclear power source aloft for years is another question.
Power for long-range airplanes is a tricky thing. More endurance requires more fuel, but that additional fuel is more weight, which increases fuel consumption. Many options would be counterproductive, weighing more than can be kept aloft by the energy they provide or s
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Use a radioisotope thermal generator then? The power may be not that much, but they are simple, relatively low tech and the power is always-on for years. Such generators were precisely built and operated to provide permanent power for years or decades without maintenance and in inacessible places. Might still be too heavy, and they're hardly more appetizing than nuclear waste.
You sure would want to collect the generator safely after you're done with it, and even then I would be worried about people trying t
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Their website is giving me a WordPress Error page after a lengthy timeout:
Warning: mysql_connect(): Lost connection to MySQL server at 'waiting for initial communication packet', system error: 95 in /usr/share/wordpress/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 1147
Before bringing the "internet to every corner of the world", they need to bring a better database to their Wordpress.
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They could be thinking that. 10Km antenna on plane (Score:2)
They could be thinking of microwave energy. Of course that means they need a 10Km rectenna on the plane, which would be problematic to put it mildly. From their web site, there's no way to tell what they're thinking, or if they're thinking.
It has to be really cheap to succeed (Score:2)
This service has to be really cheap and fast to succeed. Iridium and GlobalStar already offer a satellite-based service. Iridium really does cover the entire planetary surface; GlobalStar has most of the planet, but not the polar areas. So it's all about being price-competitive.
It's been tried... (Score:2)
Funny enough it's been tried as a business concept, though under different circumstances. In the mid-90s a company called AngelCorp wanted to build a series of manned aircraft that could loiter at high altitudes for long periods of time to provide high speed internet access. This was shortly before DSL, CableModems, WIfi and T1/T3 connectivity at the workplace would pretty much saturate that market. Bad timing.
Scaled Composites built one ship, the Proteus [wikipedia.org], a beautiful, revolutionary aircraft that is s
deja vu (Score:2)
something tells me I've read this before.
http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/p... [unvienna.org] (viability study from this year)
http://www.neowin.net/news/78-... [neowin.net] (MSCI corporate venture to provide 3G backhaul from LEO (news from 2011). To date, I think about 0 have been actually deployed).
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/h... [bit-tech.net] (oh yes, this is one of the more recent ones by Google - again, nothing came of it).
I don't think any of the microsats being launched from ISS are intended for trunking wireless. ICBW.
We live in the post wikileaks era (Score:1)
Quarkson plans to use SkyOrbiter unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to track you "to every corner of the world."
Quarkson (Score:2)
POWER!!
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This could be the best internet... in the world.
Also, ah-so karate chop.
Facebook and Titan Aerospace (Score:2)
Simpsons did it! Oh, I mean there are other players in this same field. It'll be interesting to see who, if anyone, makes it to market.
Perfect for 3rd world countries.... (Score:2)
Like the USA and our barely working Internet infrastructure.
Alternative to Drone Strikes (Score:3)
If all the money spent on military action in the Middle East were diverted to blanketing the area with these UAVs, together with an air-drop of 50 million tablets, the political outcome would be favorable to the West.
We need a free, open and neutral Internet! (Score:2)
I prefer to go with balloons with a control tether (Score:2)
This looks like a cheaper approach https://smartech.gatech.edu/bi... [gatech.edu]