Globalization: A Look-Back
There are over five billion internet users in the world today, with an average of half a million new people joining every day. And it’s not just people – businesses, educators, and government agencies also rely on the internet for communication purposes.
Telecommunications has come a long way in the past 100 years, evolving from the days of the telephone and telegraph to the digital communication technology of today. But how far will it go? While some people argue that this technology has reached its peak and that there’s nothing new left to invent, space technology has already offered new ways to communicate and share information in ways we never thought possible just 15 years ago. Here’s how telecommunications internet will take us to the next level, thanks to space technology.
The New Frontier of Internet Communication
The internet can be slow at times, there is nothing worse than being in the middle of watching your favorite YouTube video and suddenly having the connection drop out or your video freeze up. But that’s all about to change thanks to space technology that’s making internet communication faster and more reliable than ever before. This new technology has the potential to revolutionize everything from our personal lives to the way we do business, so get ready! Let’s look at how space technology will make the internet faster and more reliable in the years ahead.
The Emergence of Satellite Technology
As we know, nearly half of the world still does not have access to the internet and the available internet is constantly changing and adapting to meet the needs of those who use it regularly. Its development over the past few decades has been rapid, with new technologies being introduced all the time that make it easier and more convenient to use on different devices and in different locations. As technology advances, space-based internet communication technologies are making it possible to send information faster than ever before, while using less power and providing more reliable connections than previous technology could provide.
These new advancements are boosted due to the new space race making space pay-load transportation easier and cost-effective helping companies to launch constellations of small satellites into Earth’s orbit. As the space race began, projects such as SpaceX (Starlink), Amazon Kuiper Project, OneWeb, Telesat, and others aimed to provide consumers and businesses with fast and reliable internet. One of the leading players in constellation-based internet providers is SpaceX, which plans to provide endless internet access anywhere on the planet. utilizing a constellation of 42,000 small satellites (Star-link) orbiting the earth to provide fast, reliable, and instantaneous internet access
How does it work?
Traditionally, space-satellite internet communication was provided by a bus-sized single satellite that orbited around the earth. It provided internet access to areas where cable-based space technology was unable to reach or was expensive to operate. But there was a downside to it. As a single satellite providing internet access to a lot of users at once, it raised an issue in the computing capacity of the satellite. Along with that, covering huge distances the satellite created an internet-latency problem. To solve these issues constellation-based small satellite technology came into existence.
Let’s take Starlink as a base to understand how satellite-based internet works. In a nutshell, Starlink consists of
The Ground:
These are the base stations that control the satellite positions and the data it sends. They are accountable for all the workings done by the constellation of satellites and managing internet traffic.
The Satellite:
These are the small satellites that orbit around the Earth in Low Earth Orbit. They are interconnected with each other forming a grid of satellites, each aware of its position and its neighboring satellites, allowing them to dodge any rouge satellite or space debris that comes in their orbiting path. They are the mediator between the base station and the user.
The Starlink Dish:
The Starlink is a data receiver and sender dish installed on the roof of the user’s home/business which self-adjusts its wavelength to receive internet data from the nearby orbiting Starkink satellite orbiting around 550km away.
These three sections of Starlink space technology help provide instant internet communication.
The Future is Here
The internet has become one of the most essential parts of our daily lives, especially when it comes to communicating with other people and sharing information online.
The future seems very promising. The upfront cost of satellite-based internet technologies is very high but as it expands and scales, we can end up having a revolutionary communication technology. The Internet now has made us achieve remarkable invention and innovation, one can wonder how this space technology will change everything.
