Nice bullish article for satellite internet access that was found by our friends on the yahoo thread.
sciam.com
Satellites:
The Strategic High Ground
If you want to see the future of broadband communications, look to the stars. The heavens could soon be filled with more than 400 satellites providing Internet users with low-cost, direct-to-the-home connections that are hundreds of times faster than today's dial-up modems. With unobstructed views of virtually the entire world, satellites are poised to deliver interactive broadband services in ways even advanced ground-based networks will be hard-pressed to match.
The new breed of satellites will act as powerful signal repeaters in the sky, receiving and resending radio transmissions from ground-based antennas. Costing far less per unit capacity than most satellites now in service, they will employ new digital technologies that will improve the capacity, reliability and security of data communications. Moreover, because the systems will operate at extremely high radio frequencies, they will use narrow radio beams capable of communicating with ultrasmall antennas that can be easily mounted on most homes.
Broadband Systems in the Sky
Two types of satellite systems have been proposed. Geostationary satellites will orbit 36,000 kilometers (22,000 miles) above the equator at the same speed as the earth's rotation and thus appear from the ground to be stationary. They will communicate with fixed-orientation dish antennas attached to customers' homes and use advanced signal processing to compensate for transmission delays caused by the great distances their radio signals must travel. Low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites, in contrast, will circle the globe once every two hours at altitudes under 1,500 kilometers, reducing the time needed to beam signals to and from the earth's surface. But they will require sophisticated subscriber antennas able to track and communicate with the fast-moving LEO satellites.
HOW SATELLITES CAN CREATE INTERNET CONNECTIONS
Both types of satellites will avoid many of the complications that plague ground-based networks. Specific advantages include the following:
Ubiquity. The dirty little secret of broadband is that the technical limitations of ground-based networks will severely restrict their availability. Digital subscriber line (DSL) signals decay on long telephone lines or on those of poor quality. Local multipoint distribution service (LMDS) signals cannot penetrate leafy trees, buildings or other obstructions. Cable performance deteriorates if too many households in a neighborhood log on at the same time. Fiber-to-the-home is so costly as a retrofit that it is usually considered economically viable only for new housing construction. For up to one third of the population in the U.S. and an even greater portion worldwide, satellite technology will not simply be a choice, it will be the choice.
Economics. Although costs for satellite systems are daunting?estimates range from $4 billion to more than $10 billion for global systems?their capabilities are even more impressive. The combined capacity of proposed broadband satellite systems would in theory be sufficient to handle all the world's voice communications several times over. In addition, satellites can dynamically allocate transmission capacity among subscribers to ensure it is available where and when needed. This improves the satellites' efficiency so much that a single system will be able to accommodate tens of millions of subscribers?thus reducing the system's cost to only a few hundred dollars per customer. (Each customer would also have to pay an estimated $500 to $1,000 for the rooftop antenna.)
Performance. In the bits-per-second race, satellites win hands down over all options except the much more expensive fiber-to-the-home. Research shows that broadband subscribers value high data transmission rates over other service attributes, and their "need for speed" more than doubles every year as Internet Web sites become more elaborate and data-intensive. Satellites are well positioned to serve this burgeoning demand for rapid Internet downloads, with maximum transmission speeds twice as fast as LMDS, three to six times faster than cable modems, and up to 12 times faster than DSL.
Competitive diversity. Although discussions of broadband communications tend to focus on technological and economic issues, the most important driver behind satellite services may well be the competitive aspirations of large, powerful telecommunications companies. There are simply more firms planning to market broadband services than there will be ground-based broadband networks available. Telecommunications companies that do not own and cannot buy telephone or cable networks in areas where they wish to operate will have to seek out other options, and satellites are uniquely capable of serving their needs.
Despite such obvious advantages, satellites receive scant attention compared with ground-based broadband options. This may reflect the telecommunications industry's discomfort with new satellite technologies or a bias for ground-based solutions to meet its future needs. Nevertheless, several companies are moving beyond the design stage and have announced plans to launch satellite systems in 2002, with broadband Internet services becoming available the next year. With market analysts expecting satellites to serve 15 to 20 percent of broadband subscribers, there should be room in the market for multiple competing systems to offer customers Internet connections in the sky.
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The Author
ROBERT P. NORCROSS is a vice president of Mercer Management Consulting in Washington, D.C. His work focuses on assisting companies that are seeking to enter new, advanced-technology businesses, primarily in the telecommunications industry. He can be reached at rob.norcross@mercermc.com. |
