Almost all of the world ’s net data point zip fastener from plaza to place through underground and undersea cable’s length . Now , several companies are see to the firmament to amplify the internet ’s content and bring broadband coverage to everyone in the world , including thebillions of peopleworldwide who lack it .
SpaceX , OneWeb and LeoSat are in the early stage of launching hundreds , even thousands , of satellites to create an orbiting net mesh . One company is already up there . SES Networks , headquartered in Betzdorf , Luxembourg , has 12 satellites circling the ball with four more due to launch in 2018 and another four on order . Its fleet is delivering high - throughput data services to diverse place , many of which are outside or necessitous and could not afford to set up the infrastructure necessary to support cable television fiber . Think the Cook Islands , East Timor , Papua New Guinea , Chad , Madagascar , Democratic Republic of Congo , South Sudan , the Caribbean and many others .
" In the speedy maturation of the company , we ’ve been able to very rapidly deliver high mass data to distant parts of the domain and to enable them to connect to the internet , Facebook , Google , remote aesculapian support , humanitarian aid , and more , " says Stewart Sanders , executive vice President of the United States of technology for SES Networks .
" It ’s difficult to overrate the societal and economic benefits this has enabled for our customers , " he says .
Internet From the Sky
The fleet of satellites have their source in a company call O3b Networks , which SES acquire in 2016 . Entrepreneur Greg Wyler founded O3b in 2007 . Wyler spent the early 2000s setting up telecom in rural parts of Africa . While working with the post - war governing of Rwanda to institute peregrine telephone service online , the entrepreneur began thinking about a better direction to deliver to high bandwidth to the other 3 billion — hence " O3b " — people in the world who lacked access to the internet .
Because fiber was too expensive and vulnerable to breaks or power outage common in develop land , Wyler considered using satellites . He was n’t interested in the sort already allow for internet through fellowship like Dish web and DirecTV.These companieshave satellites flying about 22,000 international nautical mile ( 35,700 kilometers ) above the equator in geosynchronous Earth compass ( GEO ) — an orbit that has traditionally been used for telecommunications . At that height , the satellite ray signals that can deal immense swaths of the planet , intimately 2,000 miles ( 3,000 kilometers ) astray at a time . But the distance creates a time lag , or latent period .
" People always talk about home usage and ask , ' What ’s my throughput ? How much information am I pulling down ? ' " Sanders says . " But a primal factor that affects execution and the exploiter experience is latency . "
signaling from geostationary satellites can take about 500 msec ( 0.5 seconds ) to travel down to Earth and back up again . This amount of latency is n’t idealistic for providing net service .
Wyler settled on satellites that could fly at intermediate - Earth orbit ( MEO ) , roughly 5,000 mile ( 8,000 kilometers ) up , importantly depressed than the geostationary orbit . At that lower height , rotational latency is less than 150 msec ( 0.15 moment ) . The O3b fleet is now a part of SES Networks , which also flies more than 50 artificial satellite in GEO .
Each MEO artificial satellite has 12 irradiation , two of which are directed at gateways on the soil . Of the remaining 10 beams , five connect to one gateway beam and five to the other . These 10 beams are called user beam of light , and each one can ply a client with up to 2 gigabits per 2d ( Gbps ) throughput . SES Networks has nine gateway installed around the earth directly bear the O3b MEO Fleet , and Sanders says that at any given time , a satellite in medium - earthly concern orbit can see multiple gateways .
Launch Party
In 2012 , Wyler left O3b Networks to start out up OneWeb , which in addition to SpaceX , wants to launch satellites into low - Earth orbit — 111 to 1,242 miles or 180 to 2,000 kilometers — where the lower orbit could enable even lower reaction time . It also reduces the time a satellite can " see " a gateway , so the numeral of satellite required for global reportage is significantly higher , and that increases the system ’s complexness .
In November 2016 , SpaceX filed aproposalto launch 4,425 satellite into modest - ground orbit at 700 miles ( 1,110 kilometers ) and higher above the planet .
Getting that many satellites into orbit will take prison term and money , says Sanders . " The launching costs alone will be a significant portion of the investing , and the proficient challenges with the overall implementation will be significant , " he says .
But SpaceX , as well as the rocket company Blue Origin , possess by Amazon ’s Jeff Bezos , are developing reclaimable rockets , which could bring that cost way down . SpaceXtold Congressit intends to get going its ambitious planet launch political campaign in 2019 .
OneWeb think to launch720 LEO satellitesinto blank space , with plans to send up its first 10 trade in 2018 . By 2019,the companyaims to start providing modest latency broadband in 2019 .
As these space - based systems begin to come online , so too will the 5th contemporaries of wireless service , known as5G. This mean that people now living in the most distant region of the major planet as well those living far off the power system may soon be receive some of the fastest cyberspace service available .
" I ’ve been in this manufacture well over 30 years , and there ’s been more activeness in the last five or so years , than probably in the previous 20 , " Sanders read . " It ’s unbelievable . "
