<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="ltr">For the IoT/M2M stuff that doesn’t require huge amounts of data, there is a Silicon Valley startup that is deploying cube sats for just that.</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Swarm Technologies</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.swarm.space/">https://www.swarm.space/</a></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">-Mike</div><div dir="ltr"><br><blockquote type="cite">On Jul 8, 2020, at 19:49, Denys Fedoryshchenko <nuclearcat@nuclearcat.com> wrote:<br><br></blockquote></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><span>On 2020-07-08 10:05, Mark Tinka wrote:</span><br><blockquote type="cite"><span>On 7/Jul/20 21:58, Eric Kuhnke wrote:</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>Watching the growth of terrestrial fiber (and PTP microwave) networks</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>going inland from the west and east African coasts has been</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>interesting. There's a big old C-band earth station on the hill above</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>Freetown, Sierra Leone that was previously the capital's only link to</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>the outside world. Obsoleted for some years now thanks to the</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>submarine cable and landing station. I imagine they might keep things</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>live as a backup path with a small C-band transponder MHz commit and</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>SCPC modems linked to an earth station somewhere in Europe, but not</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>with very much capacity or monthly cost.</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite"><span>The landing station in Mogadishu had a similar effect.</span><br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>The early years of submarine fibre in Africa always had satellite as a</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>backup. In fact, many satellite companies that served Africa with</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Internet prior to submarine fibre were banking on subsea and terrestrial</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>failures to remain relevant. It worked between 2009 - 2013, when</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>terrestrial builds and operation had plenty of teething problems. Those</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>companies have since either disappeared or moved their services over to</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>fibre as well.</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>In that time, it has simply become impossible to have any backup</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>capacity on satellite anymore. There is too much active fibre bandwidth</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>being carried around and out of/into Africa for any satellite system to</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>make sense. Rather, diversifying terrestrial and submarine capacity is</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>the answer, and that is growing quite well.</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Plenty of new cable systems that are launching this year, next year and</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>the next 3 years. At the moment, one would say there is sufficient</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>submarine capacity to keep the continent going in case of a major subsea</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>cut (like we saw in January when both the WACS and SAT-3 cables got cut</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>at the same time, and were out for over a month).</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Satellite earth stations are not irrelevant, however. They still do get</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>used to provide satellite-based TV services, and can also be used for</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>media houses who need to hook up to their network to broadcast video</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>when reporting in the region (even though uploading a raw file back home</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>over the Internet is where the tech. has now gone).</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>Mark.</span><br></blockquote><span></span><br><span>I don't think traditional satellites have much future as backbone. Only as broadcasting media.</span><br><span>Most are still acting as dumb RF converters, but we can't expect much more from them.</span><br><span>On geostationary orbit, it is not only expensive to bring each additional kg, but also they</span><br><span>need to keep it simple as possible, as it is all above van allen belt, and it needs to run there</span><br><span>without any maintenance for 7+ years.</span><br><span>So if SpaceX managed to squeeze in their satellites at least basic processing (and seems they did),</span><br><span>it will improve satellite capabilities (and competitiveness) greatly.</span><br><span>The only thing i hope, if they had space for some M2M IoT stuff, similar to ORBCOMM.</span><br><span></span><br></div></blockquote></body></html>