Company plans to beam free Wi-fi to every person on Earth from space

Mail Online ^ | February 5,2014

[Hojczyk]

Title

Forget the Internet - soon there will be the OUTERNET: Company plans to beam free Wi-fi to every person on Earth from space

An ambitious project known as Outernet is aiming to launch hundreds of miniature satellites into low Earth orbit by June 2015

Each satellite will broadcast the Internet to phones and computers giving billions of people across the globe free online access

Citizens of countries like China and North Korea that have censored online activity could be given free and unrestricted cyberspace 'There's really nothing that is technically impossible to this'

Known as Outernet, MDIF plans to launch hundreds of satellites into orbit by 2015.

And they say the project could provide unrestricted Internet access to countries where their web access is censored, including China and North Korea.

Using something known as datacasting technology, which involves sending data over wide radio waves, the New York-based company says they'll be able to broadcast the Internet around the world.

The group is hoping to raise tens of millions of dollars in donations to get the project on the road.

'There isn't a lot of raw research that is being done here; much of what is being described has already been proven by other small satellite programs and experiments.

There's really nothing that is technically impossible to this'

But at the prospect of telecoms operators trying to shut the project down before it gets off the ground, Karim said: 'We will fight... and win.'

If everything goes to plan, the Outernet project aims to ask NASA for permission to test the technology on the International Space Station.

And their ultimate goal will be to beginning deploying the Outernet satellites into Earth orbit, which they say can begin in June 2015.

https://www.outernet.is

[GeronL]

A surcharge on every subscriber subsidizes the cheap service for the “poor”. The government is encouraging internet providers to do this, they probably get benefits.

[Nifster]

traffic jam in earth orbit

[wideminded]

Plus there’s the problem of latency. 1/4 second. No way to overcome that one.

That would be for geosynchronous satellites. Apparently this system involves a large number of satellites in much lower orbits. Anyway, apparently the initial implementation will be one-way broadcast only.

[Moonman62]

This is a one way communcations mode, similar to talk radio using hypertext markup language instead of loudmouthed white men."

They shouldn't talk about Ed Schultz like that.