Taco Cowboy writes:
On this Tuesday, a Russian Soyuz rocket will shoot the first 4 of 12 satellites in a new constellation that are designed to provide affordable, high-speed Internet to people in nearly 180 "under-connected" countries The orbiters, part of a project dubbed O3b for the "other 3 billion" people with restricted Internet access, were built by the Franco-Italian company Thales Alenia Space, will orbit at 8,062 km and will weigh only 650 kilogrammes (1,400 pounds) each
There are already geostationary satellites providing this type of services, but at a prohibitive cost for many end-users.
Existing satellites generally obit at an altitude of some 36,000 kilometres (22,000 miles) above Earth, weigh in at a hefty four to six tonnes each, and take much longer to bounce a signal back to Earth—about 500 milliseconds to be exact, according to an O3b document.
"It is such a long delay that people speaking over a satellite link will shorten conversations, interactive web has an extremely poor experience and many web-based software programmes just won't function," as stated in the said document
Crucially, they will communicate with Earth four times faster, said the company, and six would be enough to assure permanent coverage.
"O3b's prices will be 30 — 50 percent less than traditional satellite services," said the document
Launch company Arianespace, which will put the satellites in orbit, said the O3b constellation will combine "the global reach of satellite coverage with the speed of a fiber-optic network"
Project investors include Internet giant Google, cable company Liberty Global, satellite operator SES, HSBC bank and the Development Bank of Southern Africa
The first four satellites were due to be boosted into space on Monday but the launch was postponed by a day due to unfavourable weather conditions
The next four satellites will be launched within weeks, according to Arianespace, and a final four "backup" orbiters early next year
