[CWN-Summit] Buy this satellite

[Paul Gardner-Stephen]

Hi Mitar,

On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 1:17 PM, Mitar <mitar at tnode.com> wrote:

> Hi!
>
> > We have been talking about how mesh networking and ultimately all forms
> of
> > community wireless networking are complementary to having what would
> > effectively be a community satellite.
>
> Exactly. I also see all this as just different approaches to a common
> goal: a people-owned Internet, Peoplenet.
>

Indeed.  This is very much what buythissatellite.org and its genesis in
ahumanright.org is all about.


> It would be great to be able to interconnect community networks together
> over a satellite. Maybe this is what I am missing from this project.
> They are talking about giving basic access for free and selling the rest
> commercially. Maybe they should add another segment: community use. I
> think it would be viable that communities would pay some regular fee to
> use the satellite for their use. Less than commercial users. And they
> would also be able to provide services and content to other users of the
> satellite. Not to mention to provide uplink for the project (which cost
> is one of the concerns of the project and could be in this way lowered).
>

I think that this would be viewed favourably.  Of course, the more you
hookup community networks, the closer it becomes to being the internet
itself, so the lines grey eventually.  It really will depend on what
satellite capacity and capability is obtained and what the running cost of
that will be.


> (Of course this depends on reach of one this satellite - would be
> possible to cover both Africa and Europe?)
>

My gut feeling is that it would be difficult to cover +50 to -35 latitude
with a single geostationary satellite that was designed to cover continental
USA.  Not saying it can't be done, just that it would be difficult.


> For sure we should all cooperate on this satellite. At least with
> sharing gathered knowledge and experience. It would be great if their
> experiences would be documented. Also from a technical side. I would
> really like to learn how it is running a satellite and what all it is
> required for that.


Yes, it will be an interesting journey.   All I really know at this stage is
that you use your oribtal maintenance thrusters as rarely as possible, you
need a suitably located ground station with bucket loads of bandwidth
available, and that it will all be more complex and expensive than first
expected, especially when it comes to space-to-earth spectrum licensing.
 But after all, if we aim for the moon, we might just wind up with a
satellite instead ;)

Paul.


>
> Mitar
>
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