KEYWORDS | By Christopher Mims
There are currently about three billion people connecting to the
Internet, most of them through mobile devices and cellular
networks, according to the International Telecommunication Union.
Yet the business of getting bits to people and their devices has
barely begun. Most people don't have access to the Internet, and of
those who do, most are on connections you, the reader, would find
unacceptably slow.
The solution to the related challenges of getting Internet to
the next four billion people, and making it fast, will very likely
be Internet from the sky.
This has been tried before, of course. In the recent past,
Internet from space has been a difficult business. Both Iridium and
Globalstar, pioneers in networks of low-Earth orbit satellite
networks, have spent time in bankruptcy.
Typically, satellite networks have two problems. If they are
close to Earth, they are expensive, because they require many
satellites to cover the planet. For example, there are 66
satellites in the Iridium network, and the satellites orbit at
about 485 miles from Earth. If much bigger and more powerful
satellites are used in geostationary orbit--22,236 miles above
Earth--the planet could be covered with just three satellites, but
it would take so long for a signal to reach them that the latency
would be unacceptable for many applications.
But a new generation of launch and satellite technology, plus
new ideas about what constitutes a satellite, are transforming the
sky above our heads into waypoints for data that could reach our
mobile devices as quickly as from terrestrial networks, with the
advantage of global coverage.
Already, traditional players like Intelsat, the world's largest
satellite company by market capitalization, is using the
capabilities of its next-generation geostationary satellites to
deliver Internet connectivity to airplanes, cruise ships, the
world's merchant marine fleet, all markets that "basically didn't
exist five to seven years ago, " says David McGlade, CEO of
Intelsat.
Much closer to Earth, competition is coming from unlikely
places, namely Facebook and Google. Each is exploring ways to
deliver Internet access from objects that remain within Earth's
atmosphere, including drones and balloons.
Google's project Loon aims to deliver Internet to Earth's remote
areas through fleets of balloons. Mike Cassidy, who heads project
Loon, believes the total cost for Internet from balloons could be
10% or even 1% of Internet from satellites.
Google's balloons, of which the company says it can now launch
20 a day, float in a layer of Earth's atmosphere above conventional
weather patterns. The high-altitude balloons are, in a way,
satellites that don't have to be launched from rockets.
In the stratosphere, about 12 miles above Earth's surface, winds
push the balloons east to west or west to east, depending on
altitude. In theory, this will allow Google to create a continuous,
globe-spanning belt of Internet-delivering balloons at any
latitude, though it will require thousands of balloons. Mr. Cassidy
says that, through the telecom companies Google is teaming up with,
he anticipates paying customers to be connecting to its web of
balloons by 2016.
While project Loon is using modified versions of the same
balloons that have long been used to study weather, Facebook (and a
separate division of Google) are pursuing an even more far-reaching
approach. Solar-powered drones the size of Boeing 747s could
someday compete with both satellites and balloons to deliver
Internet access.
"I will say [drones are] really hard," says Yael Maguire, head
of Facebook's Connectivity lab. Challenges faced by Mr. Maguire and
Titan Aerospace, which is also working on high-altitude drones and
was acquired by Google in April, include the need for better solar
panels, batteries and autonomous navigation systems, as well as
regulators willing to let gigantic pilotless drones share the sky
with passenger aircraft.
Other contenders in this race include medium-Earth-orbit
satellites, like those launched last week by O3b Networks, which
orbit 5,000 miles above Earth. These satellites are large and
powerful like their geostationary counterparts, but aren't plagued
with the issues of latency. Hedging its bets, perhaps, Google has
plans to invest more than $1 billion in satellites for Internet
access. The former CEO of 03b, Greg Wyler, who was briefly at
Google, is now collaborating with Elon Musk's SpaceX to create a
network of hundreds of low-Earth orbit satellites.
Satellites can last decades, but balloons and drones must be
constantly replenished, and many more are needed to cover the
Earth. On the other hand, the communications equipment in them can
be constantly upgraded, says Mr. Maguire.
Given that the demand for bandwidth is growing at such a rapid
pace, Facebook's and Google's ecumenical approach on which
technology to use makes sense. It's likely we'll end up in an "all
of the above" world, in which distant, powerful satellites provide
for streaming media while an assortment of balloons, drones and
close-in satellites will provide more responsive Internet.
Satellite Internet is already becoming faster and cheaper at a
rate that is "retarding the growth of [ground-based] fiber and
microwave systems," says Mr. McGlade. In the U.S., about 1.5
million people get home Internet through a satellite connection,
though globally only 0.2% of people in developed countries
connected through satellite in 2012.
Of course the one advantage terrestrial networks have over
wireless ones is sheer bandwidth. Those networks can always lay a
new fiber optic line when the existing ones get crowded.
In the meantime, business travelers have this to look forward
to: The near future will bring Internet access on planes that's as
fast as what we are accustomed to on the ground, says Mr. McGlade.
In other words, streaming Netflix at 30,000 feet could be a side
benefit of the push to connect the next four billion people to the
Internet.
Follow Christopher Mims on Twitter @Mims or write to him at
christopher.mims@wsj.com
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