In this lesson,
we're going to discuss satellite connections.
Now, satellite internet access is a method
of using communication satellites located in space
to connect a user to the internet.
Now up until recently,
satellite internet was really reserved
for a few special use cases.
For example, if you happen to live out in the countryside
or in a remote area where you can't get cable, cellular,
or fiber, you might want to look at using
a satellite internet connection.
Now the great thing about satellite connectivity
is that you can get it almost anywhere
because pretty much anywhere in the earth has a place
where you can look up to the sky
and see one of the satellites.
As long as you can mount an antenna
and has a clear line of sight up to the satellite overhead
and space, you'll be able to get
pretty fast Internet service.
Now for home users who live in a remote area
of the United States, for example,
you can use a commercial service like the older Hughesnet
or the more modern Starlink.
And when you use one of these,
you're going to put a small satellite dish up on your roof,
much like a Direct TV
or dish network might for satellite TV,
and then you use that to get
some decently high speed internet.
Now satellite connectivity will cost you
more than the equivalent home fiber or cable
or DSL service though, so you have to keep that in mind.
But if you're living in a remote area,
satellite might be your only option here.
Now remote users are one area
that satellite is going to be used,
but the real place where satellite service
really makes its mark is for mobile users who are on the go.
If you're somebody who's working out of an RV
or a truck in the middle of a large oil fields in Texas,
for example, you can still get serviced
using a satellite dish even if there's no cellular.
Or if you're a business traveler like me,
you could be flying around the world
on a commercial airplane
or taking a cruise across the ocean
and still remain connected to the internet the entire time
because these things have satellite modems in them.
For example, a few years ago, I took a cruise,
but I couldn't afford to be offline for 10 whole days
because I had to make sure
I could answer my students' questions.
So while I was on the cruise ship, I was able to get online
for about an hour a day and answer student questions
because the ship had satellite internet.
Now, it was a little bit expensive to use, you pay about 20
or $30 a day for it, but it worked pretty well,
and the speed was relatively good
using the newer satellite services
that they're using nowadays.
In fact, I could even stream things like Netflix
and Hulu movies if I wanted to,
as well as answering student questions
with no problems at all,
just as if I was sitting back home using my cable modem.
Now, satellite internet
does have some drawbacks you need to be aware of.
First, the speed is not going to be as fast as a fiber modem,
a microwave link, or even most cable modems.
Second, it's pretty expensive
for most satellite internet providers.
And third, there's actually quite a bit of latency
or lag when you're using an internet connection
over a satellite.
This is because communication satellites, for the most part,
use geosynchronous satellites located
around 22,000 miles above the Earth.
When I send the signal up that high,
it takes about 1/8 of a second
to go all the way up in space,
and it takes another one eighth of a second to go down
to your internet source provider's ground station.
Then it connects to the internet,
gets the data you requested,
and then makes that return trip
an eighth of a second up another eighth of a second down.
And this means you have about a half a second
or 500 milliseconds just from the space travel alone
regardless of all the other internet delays
that might be out there.
For comparison's sake, if I'm using a microwave link,
I can actually see a latency of around five milliseconds.
So if you're a big gamer, that 500 milliseconds
of latency will simply get you killed time and time again.
And so gaming over satellite is not a very fun experience.
Now when it comes to satellite,
things have really been changing rapidly here in the 2020
to 2030 timeframe.
Many companies have been racing into the satellite market,
and this is a great thing for us as consumers.
SpaceX, for example, owns Starlink
and they're a major player,
and they have launched thousands of satellites,
and they've gained regulatory approval to launch
up to 12,000 satellites in total.
Now, Starlink is a pretty low cost option for consumers
with monthly service fees ranging around 100
to $250 per month depending on the plan you get.
But the best part is that their latency
is actually only around 25 to 35 milliseconds
instead of the standard 500 milliseconds for most satellite.
So how did they do this? Well, they simply chose
not to use geosynchronous orbits.
Instead of putting these satellites all the way out in space
at 22,000 miles away, they came a lot closer.
You see, when you're using geosynchronous,
it's a great thing for you as a communication provider
because you only need three to six satellites
to cover about 90% of the world.
Now that's great, but that means
you have to be further out, such as 22,000 miles away,
and you can see about 1/3 of the entire Earth
with a single satellite.
But you now have to cover
that distance when you're communicating,
and that slows down the connection
and gives you more latency.
Starlink, on the other hand, opted to use what's known
as a low earth orbit,
and this means they're only about 340 miles above the earth.
That's really close.
Now, this is much, much closer,
and this is why the latency is so much reduced.
Instead of going 22,000 miles away,
we're going about 340 miles away.
Now, the trade-off is that since they're so close
to the earth, they actually can only cover a smaller area
with each satellite, and that's why Starlink has asked
for 12,000 satellites to cover the Earth
instead of using six like a geostationary orbit would.
So for Starlink,
each individual satellite only covers an area
of around 350 miles or around 563 kilometers.
And again, this is why Starlink
has to have a lot more satellites
to cover the whole world world.
And currently, they're launching them at a rate
of about one satellite per day to meet their demand.
So when it comes to satellite communication, I want you
to remember a couple of things.
First, satellite tends to be more expensive.
Second, satellites tend to be used in remote
or mobile environments such as planes, trains,
cars, and ships.
And third, if you're going to use satellite, you want to go
with something that uses a low Earth orbit
because that's going to give you much lower latency
and much higher speeds, such as using the Starlink system
or some of its competitors out there.