What will win the internet war, satellite or fibre?
By ANDREW LIMO
Since University of Michigan professor C.K. Prahalad wrote 'The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits', investors all over the world have stopped ignoring the poor.
Suddenly, people realise that there is more business within the big numbers at the bottom of life’s pyramid.
Global space communications, long defined by satellite technology, has lately not been raking in profits because of what some people consider a wrong business model — targeting rich nations and shunning the others.
Most of these “space bird” companies, which sprouted in the 1990s, later wilted away when undersea fibre optic cables started competing for continental connectivity, taking away communication business from the satellites.
But now a UK-based satellite company plans to offer cheaper, high-speed internet access to developing countries, in Africa.
The Economist of October 18th says O3b Networks (short for “other three billion”) will sell bulk internet services to service providers) and other organisations at Sh35,000 a megabit a month instead of Sh280,000 currently.
Considering that a number of African countries now have submarine fibre optic cable projects to connect to the rest of the world, will new investments like O3b make any money?
The East African Marine System (Teams) is expected to land in Mombasa by next April and cheaply connect Kenya and the region to the world through the United Arab Emirates.
For many years, satellites have served the world’s needs in telephony, broadcasting (direct broadcast satellite) weather forecast, military intelligence and, more recently, internet services.
The glass-threaded fibre optic cables can do the same job even faster — at the speed of light, as compared to satellite’s speed of sound.
The problem, however, is that with the cables, a physical connection has to be established, whereas single satellite up there can beam down and have its footprints over a large area.
Satellites, therefore, have the advantage of reaching remote places.
Interestingly, God’s creations provide the best environment for setting up of satellite communications along an equatorial belt, in which, at 22,282 miles (about 32,200km) the centrifugal force balances out with the force of gravity, allowing hundreds of satellites placed above the equator to orbit the earth once in 24 hours.
Most geostationary satellites, or GEOs, live in this troposphere also known as the Clarke belt, after British futurist Arthur Clarke, who predicted (in Wireless World, 1945) that such satellites could keep a constant elevation to the earth.
GEOs are also easy to track and are concentrated around the tropics.
The problem is that GEO signals encounter a quarter-a-second delay as it makes the 70,000km round trip. A signal loss (or attenuation) can also be caused by atmospheric conditions such as heavy rain.
For voice communications, such a delay is manageable, although quite clumsy. International calls used to have some delays where one would speak and pause for a while to hear a response.
For interactive media like TV and even the internet, it is chaos. Most calls in our part of the world still go through the satellite anyway, but use the low earth orbit satellite systems (LEOs) — Globstar, SkyBridge, Teledesic and so on.
Because they orbit as low as 1,400km, the signal loss is negligible and maintenance costs low.
Satellites can easily cover the earth but a single cable of fibre can transmit the information carried by a constellation of these metal birds circling our skies.
There are lots of undersea cables linking Europe, North America and Asia, which have made telephone calls and internet services quite affordable.
Unlike the satellite, there are less maintenance issues with the optical fibre. You never can compare this to the copper wire.
I have always thought the connectivity war would be fought underground using cables, but with O3b entering the digital stage, the battle will be over land (terrestrial), sea (submarine) and space (satellite).
I am listening to Telescom guru George Gilder: “Terrestrial wireless and wireline service is available everywhere at a price below the cost of satellite minutes.
“Isn’t that why Iridium failed miserably and Globalstar and all other LEOs will fail as well?”
Who will win, satellite or fibre?
By ANDREW LIMO
Since University of Michigan professor C.K. Prahalad wrote 'The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits', investors all over the world have stopped ignoring the poor.
Suddenly, people realise that there is more business within the big numbers at the bottom of life’s pyramid.
Global space communications, long defined by satellite technology, has lately not been raking in profits because of what some people consider a wrong business model — targeting rich nations and shunning the others.
Most of these “space bird” companies, which sprouted in the 1990s, later wilted away when undersea fibre optic cables started competing for continental connectivity, taking away communication business from the satellites.
But now a UK-based satellite company plans to offer cheaper, high-speed internet access to developing countries, in Africa.
The Economist of October 18th says O3b Networks (short for “other three billion”) will sell bulk internet services to service providers) and other organisations at Sh35,000 a megabit a month instead of Sh280,000 currently.
Considering that a number of African countries now have submarine fibre optic cable projects to connect to the rest of the world, will new investments like O3b make any money?
The East African Marine System (Teams) is expected to land in Mombasa by next April and cheaply connect Kenya and the region to the world through the United Arab Emirates.
For many years, satellites have served the world’s needs in telephony, broadcasting (direct broadcast satellite) weather forecast, military intelligence and, more recently, internet services.
The glass-threaded fibre optic cables can do the same job even faster — at the speed of light, as compared to satellite’s speed of sound.
The problem, however, is that with the cables, a physical connection has to be established, whereas single satellite up there can beam down and have its footprints over a large area.
Satellites, therefore, have the advantage of reaching remote places.
Interestingly, God’s creations provide the best environment for setting up of satellite communications along an equatorial belt, in which, at 22,282 miles (about 32,200km) the centrifugal force balances out with the force of gravity, allowing hundreds of satellites placed above the equator to orbit the earth once in 24 hours.
Most geostationary satellites, or GEOs, live in this troposphere also known as the Clarke belt, after British futurist Arthur Clarke, who predicted (in Wireless World, 1945) that such satellites could keep a constant elevation to the earth.
GEOs are also easy to track and are concentrated around the tropics.
The problem is that GEO signals encounter a quarter-a-second delay as it makes the 70,000km round trip. A signal loss (or attenuation) can also be caused by atmospheric conditions such as heavy rain.
For voice communications, such a delay is manageable, although quite clumsy. International calls used to have some delays where one would speak and pause for a while to hear a response.
For interactive media like TV and even the internet, it is chaos. Most calls in our part of the world still go through the satellite anyway, but use the low earth orbit satellite systems (LEOs) — Globstar, SkyBridge, Teledesic and so on.
Because they orbit as low as 1,400km, the signal loss is negligible and maintenance costs low.
Satellites can easily cover the earth but a single cable of fibre can transmit the information carried by a constellation of these metal birds circling our skies.
There are lots of undersea cables linking Europe, North America and Asia, which have made telephone calls and internet services quite affordable.
Unlike the satellite, there are less maintenance issues with the optical fibre. You never can compare this to the copper wire.
I have always thought the connectivity war would be fought underground using cables, but with O3b entering the digital stage, the battle will be over land (terrestrial), sea (submarine) and space (satellite).
I am listening to Telescom guru George Gilder: “Terrestrial wireless and wireline service is available everywhere at a price below the cost of satellite minutes.
“Isn’t that why Iridium failed miserably and Globalstar and all other LEOs will fail as well?”
Who will win, satellite or fibre?