OMG! According to AP, if it works the Internet satellite “Kizuna” should bring Internet connections to global subscribers at speeds of 1.2 gigabytes per second.
Whoa! On a good day, my high-speed Internet service provided by Comcast can barely do 2.5 million bytes per second.
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), one of the project’s partners, says that that the service is going to focus on the Asia-Pacific region near Japan first. The project’s other partner is Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (very appropriate name).
It looks like the project plans to bring the technology to remote areas at low costs. JAXA said (via CNN),
“Among other uses, this will make possible great advances in telemedicine, which will bring high-quality medical treatment to remote areas, and in distance education, connecting students and teachers separated by great distances”
This is so cool. If it’s successful, it could transform both my life and rural farmers in India making under $2 per day.
Think about this: Once they invest in the overhead of developing, building, launching and routinely maintaining the satellite, every new subscriber past the financial break-even point is just extra. This will allow them to provide high-speed Internet to places that might have not been viable to do so in the past.
Update: Tom Evslin over at Fractals of Change posted a great write-up about the potential ‘latency’ issues with Internet satellites.
