Satellite-based Internet access is no longer just pie in the sky. Just ask Bill Collins, an independent telecom industry consultant. Collins credits StarBand's new two-way broadband fixed satellite service with letting him telecommute full time from a house in rural Oregon instead of spending two days a week at his DSL-outfitted condo in the city. Thanks to StarBand's 150-Kbps-uplink/500-Kbps-downlink speeds, Collins finds he's getting enough bandwidth through the satellite dish on top of his house to put his apartment up for sale.
Satellite services with even faster Internet access speeds are already coming into play. North of the border, a high-bandwidth service from Telesat Canada is now being piloted among 20 communities, with another 20 towns on the radar screen for this year. By 2002, Telesat expects to be offering uplink rates of up to 2 Mbps for applications ranging from telemedicine to distance learning.
Unlike satellite services for mobile voice users such as Iridium or GlobalStar, the emerging Internet broadband solutions are fixed satellite services, requiring the use of a desktop PC, server or dedicated terminal hooked up to an Earth station or satellite dish. Anticipating strong customer demand across the world, companies are sweeping into this emerging space from a variety of technological perspectives.
"At least 30 percent of Canadian households currently don't have access to either DSL or cable, and about 15 to 20 percent never will," maintains Ken Gordon, Telesat Canada's director of future technology development, pointing to Canada's far-flung population distribution, rough terrain and icy winters.
Analysts estimate that as of 2002, about 32 million U.S. households likewise will remain out of reach of either DSL or cable. A recent study by Dataquest projected the number of satellite terminals in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific will soar from fewer than 300,000 in the year 2000 to 7.2 million in 2005.
On the home front, the FCC estimates that the provision of high-speed access via satellite and fixed wireless technology more than doubled to 112,000 lines last year from 50,000 the prior year.
I hope it becomes available in Australia as I will never again use Telstra's broadband service and I can not get Optus as they don't service my area.
I am back to dial up until an alternative becomes available.