“Internet access anywhere on the planet Earth!” Possible???
Yes, it is possible with the technology called satellite internet. Satellite internet promises internet access at any part of the world. The difference between conventional technology is that the satellites provide internet access and to use it the user needs an antennae to receive the signal from the satellite similar to TV communication.
The technology uses a network of satellites placed at an orbit called geo stationary orbit which is 35,786 Km above the Earth’s surface
So the satellites will move along with the Earth and when viewed from ground the satellites seem to remain fixed at a same point. So the antennas may remain fixed focussing the satellite.
Spacex has come up with a solution for this. Starlink is Spacex’s satellite internet technology which promises low latencies and competitive pricing with that of other terrestrial counterparts.
Starlink uses satellites placed at Low Earth Orbits. Satellites will be placed at 300Km to 500Km orbits. Satellites at 300Km orbit will cover narrow region and the others at 500Km orbit will cover wider region.
As this tech uses Low Earth Orbit satellites, they don’t sync with that of Earth’s rotation. So the antennas at ground need to be tracking the satellites continuously to send and receive signals. A special type of antenna is used here. The antennas are called Phased Array Antennas. They contain arrays of small antennas and changes the direction of signals can be changed by making a phase difference in signals transmitted by each array of antennas, without wanting to physically turn the antennas to focus a satellite.
The company has started its beta testing and few beta users have got their hands on using this tech. The company aims to provide latency below 20ms and network speeds upto 1Gbps in future when it expands its network all over the globe.
The company started launching satellites for this tech from 2018 and it is still launching and recently 52 satellites were launched on 16th of May this year. Currently there are 1578 satellites working out of 1677 launched.The company plans to have 40,000 such satellites in future covering the whole Earth. The failed satellites will be made to fall towards Earth in such a way that it would burn off completely during its trajectory