This Lucky Gerbil Gets To Watch SpaceX Launches Live
There is a benefit to living in Florida, the chance to watch SpaceX do their thing in person which is what inspired The Tech Report to take a look at SpaceX’s Starlink project. The idea behind this venture is to place thousands of satellites in LEO, somewhere between 500 to 700km above the earth, to serve internet to a million clients or so which will not only pay for the project in the long term but will also provide a constant revenue stream for Ol’ Musky.
The trick to making this work is the large number of units in the satellite constellation, which allows you to successfully connect to a consecutive series of satellites Low Earth Orbit as opposed to a single satellite in a geosynchronous orbit located about 36,000km from the ground. The shorter distance reduces latency from ~100ms to a mere ~10ms, making LEO satellite internet viable. As for how it stacks up against fibreoptics, a bit of napkin math shows that if the linear distance between you and the endpoint of the connection is greater than four times the satellite’s height, satellite would be faster than fibreoptics.
It will be a while before this becomes an option, but for now you can learn about how it may work in the future at The Tech Report.