2. Contents
• Introduction
• Space Internet
• Pros and Cons
• Working of Space Internet
• Starlink
• Features
• Working of Starlink
• Advantages
• Major Criticism
• Future
• Other competitors in market
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3. Introduction
• Internet services are now
part of humanity’s basic
infrastructure
• It is important means of
delivering a wide variety of
public services to the world’s
people
• Still currently, about 4 billion
people, more than half the
world’s population, do not
have access to reliable
Internet networks
• Because the traditional ways
to deliver the Internet —
fiber-optic cables or wireless
networks — cannot take it
everywhere on Earth.
• In many remote areas or
places with difficult terrain, it
is not feasible or viable to set
up cables or mobile towers.
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5. Space Internet
• Internet access provided through communication satellites
• Systems use satellites in geostationary orbit. This orbit is located at a height of
35,786 km over the Earth’s surface, directly above the Equator.
• Theoretical data transfers at the speed of light.
• Involves 3 satellite dishes; one at the internet service providers hub, one in space
and one attached to your property. In addition to the satellite dish you also need a
modem and cables running to and from the dish to your modem.
• Latency: Average 638 ms
• Average uplink rate: 256 kbit/s
• Average downlink rate: 1 Mbit/s
• Maximum uplink rate: 1000 Mbit/s
• Maximum downlink rate: 1000 Gbit/s
• Additional services: VoIP, SDTV, HDTV, VOD, Datacast
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6. Space Internet
6
Disadvantages
• There is a time lag between a user seeking data, and the
server sending that data
• A transmission from a satellite in geostationary orbit has a
latency of about 600 milliseconds
• There is a limited bandwidth
• Terrestrial Blockage from trees, etc. limit the speed
• Weather also factor in change in speeds
Advantages
• Can Reach remote areas
• One big advantage of beaming signals from geostationary
orbit is that the satellite can cover a very large part of the
Earth. Signals from one satellite can cover roughly a third of
the planet — and three to four satellites would be enough
to cover the entire Earth
• Also, because they appear to be stationary, it is easier to
link to them
7. Working of
Satellite Internet
Satellite Internet generally relies on three primary components:
• A satellite, typically in geostationary orbit (sometimes referred to as a geosynchronous Earth orbit, or GEO)
• A number of ground stations known as gateways that relay Internet data to and from the satellite via radio
waves (microwave)
• A small antenna at the subscriber's location, often a VSAT (very-small-aperture terminal) dish antenna with a
transceiver
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9. Starlink
• Starlink is a satellite internet constellation
being constructed by SpaceX providing
satellite Internet access started in 2015
• The constellation will consist of thousands of
mass-produced small satellites in low Earth
orbit (LEO), working in combination with
ground transceivers
• Each Starlink satellite is compactly designed
and weighs about 260kg
• At the current time, 901 Starlink satellites are
operating at 550 km above the earth’s
surface in LEO
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17. Delivering the internet via satellite is so much more
efficient than by wire because the signal travels 47%
faster as a wave through the vacuum of space than it
does traveling along a fiber optic cable
18. Starlink Over
Traditional
Satellite
• Current internet satellites orbited around 35,786 kilometers above the earth which is really far
away
• So the coverage area of satellite is great but the distance also results in a time delay between
sending and receiving data
• Starlink satellites orbit significantly closer at around 550 kilometers above the earth's surface
• This means that they triangulate data much faster with minimal delay but also means that their
coverage area is far smaller
• So we need a load more of them to build up a comprehensive network that offers reliable global
coverage
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19. Major Criticism
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Space debris
• Space debris or space junk is a term for defunct human-
made objects in space—principally in Earth orbit—which
no longer serve a useful function.
• The first batch of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites had at least
5% “dead” or unresponsive units that were expected by
the company to deorbit naturally and burn up in the
atmosphere.
• Once thousands of these satellites rise to a higher orbit,
it’s reasonable to assume that a number of them will
malfunction.
Light Pollution
• The planned large number of satellites has met with
criticism from the astronomical community because of
concerns for light pollution
• Astronomers claim that the number of visible satellites
will outnumber visible stars and that their brightness in
both optical and radio wavelengths will severely impact
scientific observations
• Because the Starlink satellites can autonomously change
their orbits, observations cannot be scheduled to avoid
them
20. Future
• The public Starlink beta began on October 26,
2020, in select areas of the United States and
Canada
• Starlink told its early internet beta testers
"expect to see data speeds vary from 50Mbps
to 150Mbps and latency from 20ms to 40ms
[milliseconds] over the next several months as
we enhance the Starlink system. There will also
be brief periods of no connectivity at all".
• The future goal of Starlink is to create a
constellation of 42000 satellites around the
earth.
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21. Other competitors in market
• Globalstar – an operational low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation for
satellite phone and low-speed data communications
• Iridium satellite constellation – an operational constellation of LEO satellites
for global satellite phone service
• Kuiper Systems – a planned 3236 LEO satellite Internet constellation being
built by an Amazon subsidiary
• OneWeb satellite constellation – a former competitor for a LEO internet
constellation, future plans unclear after bankruptcy
• Orbcomm – an operational constellation used to provide global asset
monitoring and messaging services from its constellation of 29 LEO
communications satellites orbiting at 775 km
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