Group plans to beam free Internet across the globe from space

Originally posted by bajunga
This is/would be amazing, however I fear that shortly after it's debut, if they succeed, there would be a "malfunction" or some other excuse as to why it is not working.

Folks like you said the same thing about the Internet....

reply to post by HunkaHunka


I'm sorry i don't understand what you are trying to say... I think you misunderstood what i was trying to say. All I was implying was that anything free in this world is very hard to come by without some sort of catch and I don't think tptb would aprove of this so they would be the ones who cause the "malfunction". I just don't understand your "internet example", please explain.

We believe that Internet access is a tool that allows people to help themselves - a tool so vital that it should be considered a universal human right," the website for Buy This Satellite stated. "Imagine your digital life disconnected. Without access to the 100 million man-hours that have been put into Wikipedia, how much do you actually know?"

"Big ideas, that can improve our society as a whole, are worth doing, and this one will be done," he added. "It's the logical next step in communications: a network available to anyone everywhere for minimal cost."

This is a great vision. I hope they succeed!

S+F OP

Originally posted by kwakakev
The Iridium network did have some bankruptcy during its days, en.wikipedia.org...

Although the satellites and other assets and technology behind Iridium were estimated to have cost on the order of US$6 billion, the investors bought the firm for about US$25 million

A cheep way to get rid of some debt, sounds like some dodgy stuff is going on somewhere with it. You are going to need a lot more than one satellite to provide Internet coverage to the world. With one you can either give one region constant coverage or move around the world with intermittent coverage. There is also a big bandwidth issue if too many people try and use it which will just jam the system. Also need the equipment on the ground to send and receive. There are lots of issues for anyone trying to get into space and it does get expensive. I wish them well in their endeavours, if they can get some business model working with one satellite it will make it easier to expand to others.

I agree. Sirius Sat Radio operates in US and Canada and has two satellites and Dirct TV is the same. To cover the entire world your talking I don't know 16 or 20?? Plus Sirius almost went bankrupt because they were losing millions upon millions. I think the only thing that saved em is getting in with GM I think it was getting their radio's into new models and a free year subscription to get folks into it then they merged with XM to get their subscribers together. Unless Gates and Ted Turner or NASA climb on board to give em the money these guys are dead in the water. It simply costs too much.

Yay! Someone listened! I've been saying we need our own satellite for years. One that's for the people and out of the clutches of the corporment. This is a projects a person can get behind.

Of course eventually, the ads and greedy monsters will catch up and try to buy them out or shoot it down, but maybe by then we'll figure out a better way again.

The group hopes to raise $150,000 to finalize a business plan, investigate the legal and business aspects of submitting a bid for the satellite, and hire engineers to turn the plan into a reality. After this initial phase, the group plans to development an open source low cost modem that could be used to connect to the satellite and finalize plans with partner governments.

Hmm low cost modem and they want to raise only 150K? Maybe they can set up a kindergarten with that kind of dough. Also says they have raised 40K up to now. Isn't dialup almost free nowdays anyway? Yeah they're gonna do all this for free. Nice wish.

The backbone of the internet is still controlled by a handful of major corporations, and whether you get online via a subscribed ISP, free from a local wifi hotspot, or free via a satellite, it's still via that corporate backbone. That company will still have to subscribe to a service, with all the accompanying filters, data-shaping, and NSA-supplied eavesdropping that entails. I wish them luck but have a suspicion that by the time corporate America has their say, the TOS to use their satellite service might put off a lot of the privacy-minded folks.

Wireless tech is killing the planet. Beaming it across the entire globe would be catastrophic.

Good bye bees!

This proposed service would be asymmetrical. I believe it would require a terrestrial link for uploads so there's an added cost somewhere. I dunno, I think there's enough technology terra firma to provide what's needed but with so much talk of tiered Internet access it may not matter.

brill

One satillite won't work because of line of sight.you would need three minimum.Anybody remember independance day

Originally posted by EnhancedInterrogator
Wow! What a great idea! Give the world "FREE" Internet! And ...
...
... sniff all their data and stock-pile whatever might be useful for ... "later use".
Require a logon so that you can track everything per registered user.
Which registered user visited what sites.
Which registered user even just did DNS lookups for sites.
What protocol each registered user is running.
Sniff all their e-mail traffic for keywords.
Sniff all their instant messaging for keywords.
Transparent-proxy all their web-browsing to get that data too.
Do man-in-the-middle substitutions to present phony "certs" that appear authentic, that way you can even get "secured" stuff!
... The possibilities are endless!

edit on 2011-2-10 by EnhancedInterrogator because: (no reason given)

Which part of this do you not think happens now to every device connected to the internet?

There is nothing new or revolutionary about what they are attempting to do. It is a very noble cause and is really the heart of the story. However, the statement of providing free internet to the world is very grandiose indeed.

Ive had satilite internet and it stinks. Its very laggy latentence is horrible. You can not do viop with it there is a 3 second delay the bandwidth is very limited for one satilite. Wild blue had 2 up and a waiting list of 6 months not to mention if the wind blows a litttle u lose signal if it rains, snows, or is even foggy u lose signal its terrible all around and a useless way to provide internet imo this will never work its nice to be a young dreamer with no foot hold on reality though

It would only be in the Americas...
www.terrestar.com...

Provides coverage for the Continental United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Hawaii and Alaska

I guess they would need about 5 more sat's to cover the world.

If one billionaire wanted, he could launch 10 of these satellites into space and effectively change the world for the better. But of course, that won't happen.

To me, the internet is a basic human right.

Originally posted by bajunga
reply to post by HunkaHunka

 

I'm sorry i don't understand what you are trying to say... I think you misunderstood what i was trying to say. All I was implying was that anything free in this world is very hard to come by without some sort of catch and I don't think tptb would aprove of this so they would be the ones who cause the "malfunction". I just don't understand your "internet example", please explain.

edit on 10-2-2011 by bajunga because: (no reason given)

How much do you pay to post on ATS?

reply to post by HunkaHunka


lol I was drunk when i posted that, anyway guy i still don't see where you're going with your replies...

Originally posted by harrytuttle
How can they offer it "Free"?

More like every web page you view will have an HTML injection of ads across the top of the page. NO THANKS.

As opposed to 90% of websites that already have ads all over them?

reply to post by EnhancedInterrogator


They can do that already...

February 1, 2011
Oakland County reloads its free Wi-Fi effort

Oakland County will take another stab at providing free wireless access to residents, but on a smaller scale than the ambitious but unsuccessful initiative announced six years ago to cover the county in a "wireless cloud."

The county will give access to space on publicly owned radio towers to Air Advantage of Frankenmuth in exchange for the company providing free wireless access in downtowns of rural communities in the county. Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson made the announcement Tuesday in his State of the County address

www.freep.com...

This was originally started five years ago and was implemented in Troy, Michigan just North of where I live, plus a few other suburbs and then it all stopped. Internet should be free to everyone, with all the advertising we have to put up with I am sure it could be done easily, it is time for these advertisers to give something back to their customers.

It is my understanding that the interent is free in Japan and some European Countries or at the least a very small monthly fee.