SpaceX’s Starlink program caught a lot of attention when first announced as a concept, as it promised to bring high speed broadband Internet connection in a different way. You are probably aware that there are plenty of locations where such a service is unavailable or perhaps unreliable which is where Elon Musk’s original concept comes into play. By providing satellite driven Internet, it would be easy to provide proper Internet access to even the most desolate of places on our planet.

At the time of writing this, first testing results of the infrastructure are coming in and the numbers are very promising. Official SpaceX’s tests show download speeds of up to 103Mbps and upload speeds of 40.5Mbps, which is what one would call an appropriate bandwidth for simple, most common online tasks. Third party tests are averaging at 37Mbps download (with the upper extreme being 91Mbps), with upload speeds reaching 42Mbps. Latency is proving to be no problem at all, as it averages at 18ms, which is totally acceptable in any case scenario.

These results have been accomplished by making use of 775 satellites launched by SpaceX, which is only a fraction of the planned 30,000 satellites in total. Obviously, as the number of satellites increase, the results would show lower latency, higher download and upload speeds and, most importantly, more coverage around the entire planet.

Source: ZDNet

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With the ongoing trend of satellite based Internet and data transmission, Lacuna Space looks into joining the fun. The company is based in United Kingdom and is showing exponential growth in terms of media coverage. Currently there are two satellites orbiting our planet, launched by the company on a Soyuz-2 rocket, with the third one being in preparation for launch. Lacuna Space has launched their first testing satellite in April of 2019, with operation satellites following after all the approvals went through. The operation satellites will be launched in sequences, with the technology demonstration of commercial services to happen by the end of this year.

Lacuna Space’s satellite technology is looking into improving the planet’s coverage for IoT purposes, so there won’t be any uncovered areas anywhere, regardless of how desolate and difficult to reach that area might be. This is a major benefit coming along with satellite Internet, but keep in mind that IoT satellites are designed specifically for research purposes such as barometers, GPS guidance for farming machinery etc. Depending on Lacuna’s policy regarding monthly data plans, we are already looking forward towards competition in the IoT satellite space, which usually benefits the end user. We are particularly excited about asset monitoring as you might be able to put trackers on your car or bicycle and track its position in case it gets stolen – the options are numerous, even with limited bandwidth and speeds.

Source: Capacity Media

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