ETA: Upon reading more elsewhere, it seems this technology is more suited to high speed downlink to fixed terrestrial receivers. Imagine Dish internet on steroids.
Latency can affect internet usage but it depends on which distance they go with. High orbit geostationary satellites take 540 milliseconds. The benefit is they can cover more users with fewer satellites. SpaceX plans to use distances of 750 miles:
That requires thousands of satellites for coverage but it means 1/30th of the latency, which makes it competitive with cable.
This might be what Apple's been talking to Elon Musk about rather than Tesla (or in addition to it). Elon Musk doesn't have any userbase to market to easily where they can provide the hardware - it would need special antennas. Apple is one of the biggest mobile device manufacturers in the world with an eco-system that can deliver content.
They can build Beats with a satellite receiver on top of the headband and it would stream music from the satellite anywhere you go. They can use it for GPS on the Watch because it wouldn't have to talk to the geostationary satellite, the low orbit satellites would do that and the low orbit satellites can tell where the Watch is relative to them.
It allows high bandwidth downloads for all their software updates.
TV delivery this way would be easy. The big barrier to Apple delivering video content is the delivery network because running cables to every one of hundreds of millions of homes takes too many resources and they'd never get complete coverage. A few thousand satellites can get not only 100% national coverage but global and mobile. They can deliver UHD TV to you anywhere on the planet. Tim Cook's up in Yosemite mountains and missing his favorite TV shows.
The downside to satellite coverage is line-of-sight and having a dish/receiver of some kind outside the house and connection might be unreliable in transport but they can always supplement it with other hardware. In a plane for example, they can have special routers inside connected to an antenna outside.
This is how they can expand into developing markets too because to sell iPhones and iPads, they get people to subscribe to the network so paying for the device is not such a big deal.
Hmm... why not both? That is, use the low orbit satellites for applications where latency is key (for example, web browsing) but use the geostationary satellites for applications where bandwidth is key (4k video, etc).
Apple rolling their own proprietary GPS sure would be interesting. They might be the only company capable of earning a decent ROI on that (because of their wealthy, global user base).
Latency can affect internet usage but it depends on which distance they go with. High orbit geostationary satellites take 540 milliseconds. The benefit is they can cover more users with fewer satellites. SpaceX plans to use distances of 750 miles:
They can build Beats with a satellite receiver on top of the headband and it would stream music from the satellite anywhere you go. They can use it for GPS on the Watch because it wouldn't have to talk to the geostationary satellite, the low orbit satellites would do that and the low orbit satellites can tell where the Watch is relative to them.
It's not quite clear what the use case would be for Apple with one of a few of these, so I would have appreciated some suggestions on AI's part regarding potentials.
Totally "cut the cord" for all of North America? Or Europe. Phones with the form factor of an iPhone have been offered with dual satellite/cellular function: have a smartphone/iPad/Mac whose function is independent of cell tower distribution?
I'm with you on this. I'm drawing a complete blank as to how this would benefit Apple. Sure, I can see how Apple can do what others have done but I fail to see how this would benefit their operation over simply utilizing the satellites of others.
How many billions is Apple spending on data centers? Why not just lease those of others? They get total control of the specs and details and run the thing themselves for themselves and beyond that this particular satellite is a jump in performance/capability over what others have up there.
The next logical step in vertical integration is UP after all....
How many billions is Apple spending on data centers? Why not just lease those of others? They get total control of the specs and details and run the thing themselves for themselves and beyond that this particular satellite is a jump in performance/capability over what others have up there.
The next logical step in vertical integration is UP after all....
I'd understand if they were already controlling their terrestrial communication, but don't they still use Akamai, Amazon, and others quite regularly?
Geo-synchronous satellites orbit more than 22,000 miles out. Any message sent via that route traverses more than 44,000 miles. A fiber connection between Apple's most geographically disparate data centers would be no more than 10,000 miles long, and far less expensive than a satellite.
Without knowing more about Boeing's technology, it's difficult to say what use Apple might make of it. Motorola's failed Iridium project promised seamless global mobile communications. People still dream of that. I suspect this is the holy grail Boeing proposes.
ETA: Upon reading more elsewhere, it seems this technology is more suited to high speed downlink to fixed terrestrial receivers. Imagine Dish internet on steroids.
The distance would add latency, but that only makes it unsuitable for a very small subset of applications. No, you wouldn't want to play multiplayer games over this, but if you wanted to push a couple terabytes of video to a couple hundred (or thousand) cache servers spread around the continent like so many trading stamps simultaneously, this is just the thing. Because it uses an RF channel, each downlink station listens to that channel to receive the data, and you have a massive bandwidth multicast transmission - everyone receives it all at once, transmitting it only once. I worked for a company that used this to send large digital video files and other large transfers (VM disk images) to 2300 sites simultaneously without burying their datacenter, and it worked magnificently.
The earth is a big place, and when your satellites are only 250 or so miles up and travelling at 18,000 mph they don't stay overhead very long. Also, each satellite has a finite amount of radio spectrum it can operate in, which would mean you would need multiple birds overhead at once if you plan on servicing lots of customers. At LEO (low-earth orbit), you would need a lot of birds for continuous global coverage of millions of subscribers.
Satellites are downlink only for small devices. To send to a satellite to enable things like an internet connection would require a dish of at least 1-2m diameter.
Internet only works if the connection is both ways, it's a TCP/IP thing, so the satellite couldn't replace a connection, it would require an uplink locally, with a downlink provided from space. Not feasible for mass production.
Useful things a satellite can do is link data centers and broadcast signals. Internet on airplanes is an option above 10.000-20.000 feet.
Seeing this article "blew me out of the water" because for a few months I have been thinking about Apple buying Iridium, which is valued less $1 billion.
Iridium was a major fail for Motorola in the early 2000's. They sold off an over $1B investment for about $25M. Motorola could not make it work financially at the time and I have no idea how the new buyers have succeeded.
Geostationary satellites will only work well with data. They need to be about 35,000 kms up. The return trip for the signal from device to satellite back to device, in 2000 including switching time, had a latency of about 500 milliseconds (1/2 second delay) which meant voice calls were a problem.
Low Earth Orbit satellites at about 800 kms up partly alleviate this problem, but they have to keep moving at that orbit and eventually drop out of orbit after a period of about 7 years when individual satellites have to be replaced.
However, if there is any company on earth that could now make this technology work, it is Apple.
Imagine if Apple could provide a communication service, data and voice, anywhere on the planet. The worlds telcos should be trembling in their boots. Those recalcitrant governments that obfuscate access can go sing Dixie.
But here is something scary. A fella writing in about 70AD on the island of Patmos in Aegean Sea talks about a time when "those from the peoples, tribes, tongues and nations will see their dead bodies three-and-a-half days" referring to the death of two political "troublemakers" at some time in the future. (Rev 11:9) That prediction now makes sense. All the world will be able to view any event in real time with the technology now available and becoming available to everybody.
Comments
Soooo, an ?Television is back in the mix?
This story is not showing up in the app's main menu. Only appears if your in a story and scroll sideways into it.
IPhone 3GS
Thanks for the good works.
Someone the other day said that Tim Cook is planning to become Pure Energy and wouldn't need space; so that rules out your postulation.
What is the possibility this thing could be used for GPS data / mapping / self driving cars?
None.
http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/156595/thuraya-satsleeve-turns-apples-iphone-into-a-satellite-phone#post_2298378
Latency can affect internet usage but it depends on which distance they go with. High orbit geostationary satellites take 540 milliseconds. The benefit is they can cover more users with fewer satellites. SpaceX plans to use distances of 750 miles:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-17/elon-musk-and-spacex-plan-a-space-internet
That requires thousands of satellites for coverage but it means 1/30th of the latency, which makes it competitive with cable.
This might be what Apple's been talking to Elon Musk about rather than Tesla (or in addition to it). Elon Musk doesn't have any userbase to market to easily where they can provide the hardware - it would need special antennas. Apple is one of the biggest mobile device manufacturers in the world with an eco-system that can deliver content.
They can build Beats with a satellite receiver on top of the headband and it would stream music from the satellite anywhere you go. They can use it for GPS on the Watch because it wouldn't have to talk to the geostationary satellite, the low orbit satellites would do that and the low orbit satellites can tell where the Watch is relative to them.
It allows high bandwidth downloads for all their software updates.
TV delivery this way would be easy. The big barrier to Apple delivering video content is the delivery network because running cables to every one of hundreds of millions of homes takes too many resources and they'd never get complete coverage. A few thousand satellites can get not only 100% national coverage but global and mobile. They can deliver UHD TV to you anywhere on the planet. Tim Cook's up in Yosemite mountains and missing his favorite TV shows.
The downside to satellite coverage is line-of-sight and having a dish/receiver of some kind outside the house and connection might be unreliable in transport but they can always supplement it with other hardware. In a plane for example, they can have special routers inside connected to an antenna outside.
This is how they can expand into developing markets too because to sell iPhones and iPads, they get people to subscribe to the network so paying for the device is not such a big deal.
Hmm... why not both? That is, use the low orbit satellites for applications where latency is key (for example, web browsing) but use the geostationary satellites for applications where bandwidth is key (4k video, etc).
Apple rolling their own proprietary GPS sure would be interesting. They might be the only company capable of earning a decent ROI on that (because of their wealthy, global user base).
Quote:
Called it:
http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/156595/thuraya-satsleeve-turns-apples-iphone-into-a-satellite-phone#post_2298378
Latency can affect internet usage but it depends on which distance they go with. High orbit geostationary satellites take 540 milliseconds. The benefit is they can cover more users with fewer satellites. SpaceX plans to use distances of 750 miles:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-17/elon-musk-and-spacex-plan-a-space-internet
That requires thousands of satellites for coverage but it means 1/30th of the latency, which makes it competitive with cable.
Who provided the transcription for Mr. Simpson's words?
Anybody proof-reading articles at AI?
Semi-funny schrankschande for a tech-focused news site.
None.
And there we have it.
They can build Beats with a satellite receiver on top of the headband and it would stream music from the satellite anywhere you go. They can use it for GPS on the Watch because it wouldn't have to talk to the geostationary satellite, the low orbit satellites would do that and the low orbit satellites can tell where the Watch is relative to them.
Or not.
Yes, those "bytes" are a riot of spelling errors.
It's not quite clear what the use case would be for Apple with one of a few of these, so I would have appreciated some suggestions on AI's part regarding potentials.
Totally "cut the cord" for all of North America? Or Europe. Phones with the form factor of an iPhone have been offered with dual satellite/cellular function: have a smartphone/iPad/Mac whose function is independent of cell tower distribution?
I'm with you on this. I'm drawing a complete blank as to how this would benefit Apple. Sure, I can see how Apple can do what others have done but I fail to see how this would benefit their operation over simply utilizing the satellites of others.
How many billions is Apple spending on data centers? Why not just lease those of others? They get total control of the specs and details and run the thing themselves for themselves and beyond that this particular satellite is a jump in performance/capability over what others have up there.
The next logical step in vertical integration is UP after all....
I'd understand if they were already controlling their terrestrial communication, but don't they still use Akamai, Amazon, and others quite regularly?
I think it's interesting that Apple could bypass the entire cable industry to provide satellite internet service via its own hardware and ecosystem.
That would be wonderful!
Life is too short to dig into typos ... most of the time. But seriously now: This is an IT news site!
Please fix it. This schrankschande has been online for hours. Thanks.
Geo-synchronous satellites orbit more than 22,000 miles out. Any message sent via that route traverses more than 44,000 miles. A fiber connection between Apple's most geographically disparate data centers would be no more than 10,000 miles long, and far less expensive than a satellite.
Without knowing more about Boeing's technology, it's difficult to say what use Apple might make of it. Motorola's failed Iridium project promised seamless global mobile communications. People still dream of that. I suspect this is the holy grail Boeing proposes.
ETA: Upon reading more elsewhere, it seems this technology is more suited to high speed downlink to fixed terrestrial receivers. Imagine Dish internet on steroids.
The distance would add latency, but that only makes it unsuitable for a very small subset of applications. No, you wouldn't want to play multiplayer games over this, but if you wanted to push a couple terabytes of video to a couple hundred (or thousand) cache servers spread around the continent like so many trading stamps simultaneously, this is just the thing. Because it uses an RF channel, each downlink station listens to that channel to receive the data, and you have a massive bandwidth multicast transmission - everyone receives it all at once, transmitting it only once. I worked for a company that used this to send large digital video files and other large transfers (VM disk images) to 2300 sites simultaneously without burying their datacenter, and it worked magnificently.
4000 satellites? That seems like a lot.
The earth is a big place, and when your satellites are only 250 or so miles up and travelling at 18,000 mph they don't stay overhead very long. Also, each satellite has a finite amount of radio spectrum it can operate in, which would mean you would need multiple birds overhead at once if you plan on servicing lots of customers. At LEO (low-earth orbit), you would need a lot of birds for continuous global coverage of millions of subscribers.
Final Fantasy, more like.
Internet only works if the connection is both ways, it's a TCP/IP thing, so the satellite couldn't replace a connection, it would require an uplink locally, with a downlink provided from space. Not feasible for mass production.
Useful things a satellite can do is link data centers and broadcast signals. Internet on airplanes is an option above 10.000-20.000 feet.
Seeing this article "blew me out of the water" because for a few months I have been thinking about Apple buying Iridium, which is valued less $1 billion.
Iridium was a major fail for Motorola in the early 2000's. They sold off an over $1B investment for about $25M. Motorola could not make it work financially at the time and I have no idea how the new buyers have succeeded.
Geostationary satellites will only work well with data. They need to be about 35,000 kms up. The return trip for the signal from device to satellite back to device, in 2000 including switching time, had a latency of about 500 milliseconds (1/2 second delay) which meant voice calls were a problem.
Low Earth Orbit satellites at about 800 kms up partly alleviate this problem, but they have to keep moving at that orbit and eventually drop out of orbit after a period of about 7 years when individual satellites have to be replaced.
However, if there is any company on earth that could now make this technology work, it is Apple.
Imagine if Apple could provide a communication service, data and voice, anywhere on the planet. The worlds telcos should be trembling in their boots. Those recalcitrant governments that obfuscate access can go sing Dixie.
But here is something scary. A fella writing in about 70AD on the island of Patmos in Aegean Sea talks about a time when "those from the peoples, tribes, tongues and nations will see their dead bodies three-and-a-half days" referring to the death of two political "troublemakers" at some time in the future. (Rev 11:9) That prediction now makes sense. All the world will be able to view any event in real time with the technology now available and becoming available to everybody.