Satellite Company Partners With Jeff Bezos' AWS To Bring Internet To 'Whole Planet' (cnbc.com) 60
Iridium Communications is partnering with Amazon Web Services to develop a satellite-based network called CloudConnect for Internet of Things (IoT) applications. "We're really covering the whole planet [...] with terrestrial networks today it's still only 10 percent or 20 percent" of the Earth, Iridium CEO Matt Desch told CNBC. "Everybody today can connect pretty easily with very little effort. Now that Amazon has put our language into the cloud platform, they can extend their applications to the satellite realm." From the report: CloudConnect, which the company expects to launch in 2019, makes Iridium "the first, and only, satellite provider now connected to" Amazon Web Services, Desch said. The CloudConnect network will focus on "where cellular technologies aren't," Desch said, bringing the rest of the world within reach of AWS. The company is nearly finished putting its Iridium NEXT constellation of 75 satellites into orbit. SpaceX is launching the $3 billion satellite network for Iridium, with the eighth and final launch happening later this year.
Once online, Iridium NEXT will offer services such as higher broadband communications speeds and global airplane tracking. Iridium describes the IoT aspect of the network as a "catalyst for strong subscriber growth." Desch said the network hosts "about half a million" active devices, growing at a rate of about 20 percent per year for the last three years. With AWS onboard, Desch gave a very bullish estimates for his IoT services: "Easily this could expand to tens of millions of devices."
Once online, Iridium NEXT will offer services such as higher broadband communications speeds and global airplane tracking. Iridium describes the IoT aspect of the network as a "catalyst for strong subscriber growth." Desch said the network hosts "about half a million" active devices, growing at a rate of about 20 percent per year for the last three years. With AWS onboard, Desch gave a very bullish estimates for his IoT services: "Easily this could expand to tens of millions of devices."
Bezos is not used to platform neutrality (Score:2)
This Amazon collaboration with Iridium is going to be interesting to watch on the Net Neutrality front.
As long as Bezos operates an independent walled garden then he's in the clear to make up his own rules, but as soon as he turns CloudConnect into a global ISP (if that is what he is intending) then he'll come under Net Neutrality rules wherever they apply, and that means on most of the planet. The small minority of people who reject Net Neutrality in USA for party political reasons is entirely irrelevent
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As long as Bezos operates an independent walled garden then he's in the clear to make up his own rules, but as soon as he turns CloudConnect into a global ISP (if that is what he is intending) then he'll come under Net Neutrality rules wherever they apply, and that means on most of the planet.
On the contrary, once the worldwide satellite network is fully operational, all the petty world governments will fold as the Orbital Mind Control Lasers find their targets. And normal tinfoil hats won't help, you'll need special tinfoil only available on Amazon. That's why Bezos is the richest CEO - he thinks these things through.
Can't wait (Score:1)
To spend $5 to send 1KB from my IoT platform
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overage is $15 meg at full speed or $0 / meg at 56K speed.
Countries must control their own communications (Score:1)
Did you learn nothing from the NSA and CIA leaks? If you let an American company run your communications infrastructure, then both them and their government will be all up in your internets.
This also requires avoiding American communication equipment. You cannot afford the risk to take the deal offered by Juniper, Cisco, and other American vendors, so they can get inside your networks. A good choice would be Ericsson or Nokia telecom equipment, since they are both neutral and have no allegiance to any gove
Now Downloading Monetization, Pls Wait For Toast (Score:3, Insightful)
Great, more bandwidth for my fridge. And once they run out of repositioning fuel there'll be 75 more pieces of space junk in orbit. I wonder how many 'dark satellites' there are in orbit that are technically functional yet have been abandoned because they're no longer able to maintain the desired orbit. I bet enthusiasts could do some interesting things if given access to those.
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That's not how satellites work. Their fuel budget includes a burn for deorbit (LEO) or pushing out into a graveyard orbit (GEO).
Re:Now Downloading Monetization, Pls Wait For Toas (Score:5, Informative)
Great, more bandwidth for my fridge. And once they run out of repositioning fuel there'll be 75 more pieces of space junk in orbit.
Actually, Iridium's NEXT constellation [wikipedia.org] is for a lot more than just IoT, they are for L-band (up to 1.5 Mbit/s) and K-band (up to 8 Mbit/s) communications. These are extremely desirable and will only go out of use if they enter an uncontrolled orbit. Each satellite has a deorbitting system. "From 2017, several first-generation Iridium satellites have been deliberately de-orbited after being replaced by operational Iridium NEXT satellites"
I wonder how many 'dark satellites' there are in orbit that are technically functional yet have been abandoned because they're no longer able to maintain the desired orbit. I bet enthusiasts could do some interesting things if given access to those.
Communication satellites like this? I can answer that: Zero.
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This won't be used for consumer stuff, it's way too expensive and too bandwidth limited. They won't be able to deliver ads to your fridge over satellite. That will use your wifi.
This is for stuff like monitoring pipelines and remote parts of the environment. Drone ships at sea.
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This is for stuff like monitoring pipelines and remote parts of the environment. Drone ships at sea.
It's cheaper to just run a wire down the pipeline, and connect with a normal satellite installation. But drone ships at sea? Absolutely. Or just anyone who needs to be moving around. You have to re-aim satellite every time you move it.
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Wow, that is just stupid. You have no idea how Iridium works. Hint, it's not like that.
Wow, you are cowardly. I'm obviously talking about typical satellite internet systems and not Iridium there. Granted, I didn't make it clear, but it's equally clear that your parser is broken.
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Great, more bandwidth for my fridge. And once they run out of repositioning fuel there'll be 75 more pieces of space junk in orbit.
People partially have already commented, just as anonymous so here is my summary:
1. Satellites: nowadays technology allows for LEO (low Earth orbit) deployment of clusters of communication satellites, where there is still some drag from air molecules, which results in orbit decay, e.g. ISS has to boost its orbit regularly (also such orbits allow for low latency communication), additionally nowadays satellites are required to have either deorbiting capability or moving to so called "graveyard" orbits, where,
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They also don't have money to buy crap from Amazon, so why should Jeff give a fuck about them?
dystopian (Score:2)
This will be immensely useful when our masters begin using their robot army to genocide the global working class.
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What happened to similar Google plan? (Score:2)
What happened to similar Google plan?
This is actually interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
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I've got a cabin way out in the boonies where I can't get strong internet.
It sounds more realistic than the whole google balloons project.
They already have satellite internet that works anywhere in North America but it's expensive, slow, and really horrible ping times. It also requires a satellite dish. Not sure what this service actually is targetted at. When I think IoT, I think small devices and satellites like this are very low bandwidth. GPS gets away with small devices because it is only one way communication. Bulky low bandwidth devices seem to be a niche application for maybe some odd telemetry where regular internet doesn't exis
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They already have satellite internet that works anywhere in North America but it's expensive, slow, and really horrible ping times. It also requires a satellite dish. Not sure what this service actually is targetted at.
Expensive? Yes. But not horribly. Not, in fact, as expensive as Iridium service was. It's $100/mo-ish. Slow? Not by US standards. I can get 20 Mbps on Exede. Horrible ping times? Yes. They are ~1 second. However, you are not accounting for the biggest problem with satellite internet, aiming. There are currently zero North American mobile satellite providers. The best service you can hope to get is one which will let you re-aim three times a year without fees, and the aiming process involves a service call.
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I know dish has an autoaiming satellite for tailgating and RVs. I'm assuming a similar technology would work fine for satellite internet.
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I know dish has an autoaiming satellite for tailgating and RVs. I'm assuming a similar technology would work fine for satellite internet.
One would assume so, but I've looked around, and there is nothing like that on the market right now. Like I said, there's supposed to be something like that within a couple of years, and I could swear there used to be something like that, but it seems to be gone now.
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Just like GPS, pointing *anywhere* on the sky you hit a beam - you hear the packets with a piece of wire (though you need something reasonably directional if you want to transmit). The current issue with iridium is that most of the birds are jurassic 90s tech, low bandwidth and a lot of needless time multiplexing make it kinda suck. Modern birds can do 10-30ms at hun
Internet of OUTDOOR Things (Score:2)
Now, tell me when I can buy a $10 CloudConnect device from any of the usual chinese suppliers. That is when it will become an interesting technology. Just so long as the subscription fees are in the cent's p
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Amazons IoT cloud service !== "the internet" (Score:1)
We already have satellite internet service, this is just a power grab.
Sweet! (Score:1)
So people who need things like clean water or basic medical care can *finally* log in and see Kim Kardashian's new outfit made entirely of money?*
*actual article in the news today: http://www.tmz.com/2018/09/28/... [tmz.com]
High hopes in the 1990s ... (Score:2)
When Iridium was launched in the 1990s, with backing from Bill Gates and others, it was a promising project: internet access almost anywhere on the planet.
However, they required big hand sets with big antennas. But then GSM phones became ubiquitous where humans are concentrated (cities, towns, suburbs, ...etc.) and there was not much of a need for Iridium, apart from those who live, or work, or travel to, remote areas. Not much of a market.
The company went bust, and this iteration is an attempt to revive it
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IOW, setting up Iridium was HORRIBLY expensive.
Now, Iridum just did the second version with 50M / launch and 10 sats / launch, So for less than 4 launches from before, they did this entire new network.
Zero control over security? (Score:2)
lol. (Score:2)
I think that the net neutrality issue is about to go away.
It's time to break up Amazon (Score:2)
Whats next?
It is long past time to break up Amazon.
But isn't Amazon evil? (Score:1)