Suppose you are wandering in a deep forest like the Sundarbans or the Amazon. After wandering in the forest for a long time, he got tired and sat down to rest. Then he took out a router-sized device from the bag hanging on your back and switched it on, then opened Netflix from your smartphone and started watching an episode of your favorite web series, again in 4K resolution, without any buffering!
Or suppose you read in a newspaper 5-6 years ago, Bangladesh's position is at the bottom of the rankings based on internet speed. How much he regretted in his mind, 'Ish! If only my home internet connection was as fast as in America or Korea-China! ' However, today you are getting the same internet speed as a human being in New York-Shanghai, whether in Oz neighborhood or in the deep jungle!
What? Surprised? Sounds like a science-fiction movie story? Oops, not the story, absolutely true!
4-5 years from today, these stories will become our daily events. And that will be possible because of low-orbit satellite broadband connectivity like Starlink.
Low-Orbit Satellite and Starlink
By satellite we usually mean geo-stationary satellite. Such satellites orbit the earth from a fixed position about 35,800 kilometers above the earth's surface.
Currently, many companies are providing satellite internet services using these geo-stationary satellites. However, these have many limitations. Low-orbit satellites, on the other hand, are satellites that are much closer to the Earth's surface than geo-stationary satellites, and these satellites move steadily from place to place. This low-orbit satellite will be used for projects like Starlink or the like. Due to the use of low-orbit satellites, it will be possible to overcome all the limitations of geo-stationary satellites and establish them as the broadband of the future.
There are currently a number of projects underway for low-orbit satellite broadband connectivity - overseen by all the world's leading tech companies. Such as:
SpaceX's Project StarLink
Qualcomm-Airbus project OneWeb
Amazon's Project Kuiper
Today we will talk about 'Project Sterlink' by Elon Musk, one of the best tech icons in the world today.
You already know what Starlink is. This is a low-orbit satellite broadband project like any other. Sterlink's goal is to ensure the provision of low-cost high-speed broadband Internet services worldwide.
Now you can say, we already have a worldwide fiber-optic cable network. Also, after a while, advanced high speed mobile network like Five-G will come, through which it will be possible to provide unlimited broadband internet! So what is the need for this Starlink?
The purpose and requirements of Sterlink
If you are familiar with the concept of 'Digital Divide', then you can understand the real purpose and importance of this project.
Simply put, a person living in a village does not get digital benefits like a person living in a city. A person living in Dhaka city can easily do a lot of things using digital internet technology, can get many benefits, people in the hilly areas of Rangamati but get nothing. As a result, they are far removed from this rapidly evolving digital world.
Or let's say, internet is not as readily available and cheap in Dhaka city as it is in Panchagarh city. For one person in the same area, broadband internet may be a luxury, but for another, it is a luxury!
Again, think broadly, Internet infrastructure in the US-China is similar to that in Bangladesh, but not as advanced, advanced and readily available.
For all these reasons, despite the fact that the Internet is universal and one of the most important issues in the world today, people everywhere cannot take advantage of it and benefit from it. And this is how the 'digital divide' is created.
Yet more than half of the world's people are deprived of Internet access. Providing broadband internet services to these huge population through optical fiber or mobile network is a very difficult, time consuming and expensive task. And so projects like Starlink are being implemented to provide universal Internet services worldwide. Through which both a person living in New York and a person in the hilly area of Rangamati will be able to enjoy equal internet facilities.
Is there anything more?
Of course, Starlink's goal is not just global connectivity. At the same time ensuring high-speed, low-latency, next-level internet connectivity is also one of its main goals. As a result, Starlink will compete directly with current optical fiber connectivity, and may one day even be phased out!
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, hopes that SkyNet will be able to transfer data at gigabit speeds, and that its latency will be much lower. Initially, the latency of Skynet will be around 25 milliseconds, and later it is expected to drop to 10 milliseconds or less.
Latency (ping) is becoming a very important issue in today's internet system, and low-latency high-speed internet will become an important requirement in the future.
Everything is understood, but what is this latency?
Latency is basically a measure of how fast a computer can connect to another computer, or how fast it can respond to each other. Now the question is, why is this latency important?
Suppose you are playing a shooting game with your friend in online multiplayer. Your internet speed is good enough, but the latency is much higher. So whatever happens in this case, maybe you shot as soon as you saw your enemy, but since the latency of your internet connection is high, it will take some time for your shooting instruction to reach the server. And in the meantime, maybe your enemy has moved away and is shooting at you! You were supposed to win, but you are the loser!
Got it? Not only in games like this, but in many other cases too latency is a very important issue.
Latency is a major and critical issue in online gaming (which will create huge demand and market in the future), stock exchanges, live streaming, etc. Also, in the future, the implementation of revolutionary technologies like IoT will also require uninterrupted low-latency high-speed internet.
So it will be possible to ensure high-speed as well as low-latency internet through Starlink. And after all this, Starlink will be cheap, readily available and broadband connectivity. Cum, the internet will be universal!
How will Starlink work?
As mentioned earlier, Sterlink will use low-orbit satellites to implement the network. But why use this low-orbit satellite? What is the problem with geo-stationary satellite?
Geo-stationary satellites are located far away from the earth. For this reason, if you want to exchange any information through this satellite, you have to travel a long way. As a result, the speed is less, and the latency is much higher. As a result of which these satellite internet has never been popular or convenient, the future is far away!
Low-orbit satellites, on the other hand, are only 500-1,000 kilometers above the Earth's surface, while geo-stationary satellites are 34,000 kilometers above! Due to its close proximity to the Earth's surface, these satellites make it possible to exchange data very quickly. And the latency is much lower because of the proximity.
The fiber optic cable we currently use transmits data using light signals. But in optical fiber, the speed of light is reduced by about 40% as the light has to pass through the glass medium. Low-orbit satellites will use laser-lights to communicate with each other and exchange data. Since the light has to pass through the air instead of the glass, the speed of light does not decrease. The speed of data transfer is also higher as the light can travel at its full speed.
However, because low-orbit satellites are constantly moving at high speeds, they are arranged with a certain calculation so that they do not collide with each other. The Starlink project is expected to use about 12,000 satellites. Then understand, how complicated the work is!
But this is not the only challenge. The question arose as to why so many satellites would cause so many problems for scientists in space observation and the exchange of other satellite and radio signals. However, SpaceX said that Sterlink will not have any such problems, and they are working on potential problems and challenges.
Will SpaceX be able to overcome the challenges? Will Starlink succeed in solving all the problems? Will the world really get its future broadband? We will have to wait a little longer to get the answers to these questions. Hopefully, Starlink will succeed. The world will get a real 'World Wide Web'.
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