Fibre quality internet connectivity over satellite is soon going to be available to majority of population on the earth, including Pakistan.
The service – that is planned for a commercial launch in coming few months – will operate through world’s first ever Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites that are capable of offering fibre like internet speeds to the end users.
O3b networks – dubbed for other three billion without internet – is on a mission to link developing countries via high-speed Internet over satellite where there is no other medium of connectivity.
Firm claims to have financial and operational support from Google, SES, HSBC, Liberty Global, Development Bank of South Africa, Sofina, Satya Capital, Northbridge Venture Partners and Allen & Company.
O3b’s satellites will fly in medium earth orbit 8,062Kms over the equator in comparison to the traditional GEO (geostationary earth orbit) based satellites at 36,000 Kms.
O3b said that it aims at reaching customers in a band between 45 degrees north and 45 degrees south latitude, home to most of the world’s population.
Pakistan’s leading IT and telecom enabler, Interactive E-solutions will commercially launch high speed O3b services in near future in the country.
The spacecraft host KA-Band antennas to broadcast services to customers out of reach of terrestrial broadband networks, boosting data many folds throughput and connection speeds in homes, businesses, schools and hospitals.
O3b claims to have a system with low-latency, higher-speed alternative to conventional geostationary satellites.
O3b’s stands for “other 3 billion,” referencing the approximate number of people without reliable, high-speed Internet connections in developing countries.
While sharing his thoughts over the launch of another 4 satellites of O3b, Shahid Mahmud, Chairman/CEO of Interactive Group said, “We are extremely excited and welcome the successful launch of O3b satellites. Pakistani market offers immense appetite for bandwidth and data in areas of application in health, telemedicine, education, e-learning, e-governance, public safety and many others. Very soon, we will usher in a new era of Internet usage by proliferating the positive effects of connectivity amongst the people of Pakistan.”
O3b CEO Steve Collar while talking to the media at French Guiana stated, “We are thrilled at the successful launch of our satellites. The four satellites launched Thursday will enter service within few months.” He stated.
“We are already looking at the third launch of another 4 satellites which will make constellation of 12 satellites by end of this year, but we can grow to more than 100,” Collar said. “The future is very bright, and we will only be limited by the market. For the time being, we don’t see any stop in the demand for broadband connectivity, so we’re going to keep launching satellites and keep deploying services for as long as there is demand.” He stated in his concluding remarks.
If someone wondering about the speed, then its mentioned on one of their pdf documents
“The maximum throughput for TCP Reno will be 2.1 Mbps”
Its Mbps … not MBps
Is it the Speed Equivalent to Optical Fiber @aamir7:disqus ?
Not by a long shot. Its comparable to the lowest available DSL package.
whta is Mbps and MBps ?
Mega bite per second
No, its not Mega Byte per Second.
Its Mega Bit per Second…
Internet speed is count only in bit but not byte…
MBps is Mega Byte Per second
Mbps is Mega-Bits Per second
divide Mb with 8 to get MB or multiply MB with 8 to get Mb
Thanks
Seems interesting but will it work when Pakistan Govt. stops signals during special days like Moharram, Eid etc?
Satellite Cannot Be Jammed Bro.
Um…Let me google that. “how to jam satellite signals” — About 370,000 results.
in My Case ,those were 24,500,000
Use quotation marks.
“how to jam satellite signals” 1 result (0.21 seconds)
that’s what u get for using bing
Satellite cannot be jammed okay it can be hacked or not???
Satellite signals can be jammed. Countries have been doing it for decades. Our neighbour to the west is world-famous for that.
Exactly
O3b’s fast, reliable, affordable satellite connectivity offers substantial benefits across the Pakistan, especially in areas where broadband costs remain high, the fiber infrastructure remains poor and there is a need for 3G/4G-LTE cellular backhaul across large distances.
Will it be free? I think yes. But I’m not sure. Can anyone answer?
They are spending over $1.3 billion dollars to launch the satellites. WHY WOULD YOU THINK IT WILL BE FREE?!?!?!?
Very much encouraging news, finally we will be able to get rid of PTCL’s monopoly, lets hope its not controllable by local gov so that it is uncensored. Would love to access youtube without any third party app, if you ask me.
Absolutely it will be censored.
I believe this will be a service for ISPs not for direct consumers. Which means PTA will mandate filtering.
I agree with censored part of your comment, however article mentions “homes” so my guess is it would be direct connection to homes/businesses. As ISPs Like LinkDotNet already have backup settlte links along with the bandwidth they get from PTCL
No more ptcl shit
I think Supernet and Clicksat Pakistan are already offering satellite based connectivity.What will be the difference ?
Here is the doc pic
its 2.1 MB/s = 16.8 Mbps
lol it’s already 2.1 Mpps showing in this Image not MB/s
ap mb MB men atke rehna???
good answer same to you
lol check this its 4mb :p
Replying to your own imposter, aint a good idea :D
Still confused between mb and MB :D
hahahahahah
Stop comparing satellite internet with fibre optic! Satellite internet is probably even worse than copper based DSL.
Its “Satellite” internet. Its not broadcasted via your local boosters. The last thing a satellite internet can be, is worse than a copper based DSL.
So latency on satellite internet will be better than wire based DSL?
I didn’t know you were explicitly comparing them on the basis of latency only. Still, you don’t use a Satellite Connection for gaming now do you :S
Latency greatly effects web browsing as well. A 150ms ping response to a website versus 300ms will nearly double the time it takes for the page to load.
You are jumping in the “Quality of Service” zone. That really doesn’t impact the speed of bandwidth transferred as much as you are making it to be.
Usually Sattelite Internet Has Lesser Ping Than Others
How is 2.1 Mbps = fibre quality???
I want 91Gbps
Our normal hard-disk cannot transfer data faster than 50MB/s, what will you do with 91Gbps?
Well for starters I’d throw that hard disk in the trash and get an SSD.
SSD cannot transfer data faster than 7 Gbps, what will you do with 91 Gbps? :D
Have you ever thought about the word “parallel”??? Who says you only need one computer/server with the drive? Have several.
Great Notion! I fancy it is an expensive plan. :)
For anyone who can afford 91 Gbit link, that much SSD purchase is peanuts.
The rationale would be that anyone who can affoard such a hi-speed connection, can also affoard faster means of storage such as SSDs. The price per GB for SSDs may not be ‘cheap’ … but then we are not talking about a cheap network.
I know about that, that’s why, I used normal hard disk.Even SSD cannot transfer data faster than 7 Gbps. The price of 240GB Corsair Force Series GT SSD is about Rs.24,000.Even if you have 1Gbps internet connection you can download 275TB of data per month. If you have 91Gbps internet speed connection then your would download 27500TB of data. Your total cost goes around Rs. 660000000000.LOL :D
Bhai PCI-E slot wali SSD dekhi hay kabhi? The New Intel’s PCI-E SSDs announced a few weeks ago, PC3700 series … can utilize the full bandwidth of a PCI-E (3.0!?) slot, theoratically going upto 3GigaBytes per second (yes that “bytes”).
That, and the fact that you just don’t wish for such connections to be affoardable. So again, anyone aiming THAT high, is assumed safely, to be a holder of hi-speed drives to use this network’s power.
Besides, i can only imagine if any ‘consumer’ would ever need such a thing. This is more of a “corporate” thing, and it’ll most definitely be shared amount hundreds of users in a network.
That’s amazing news! Thanks for share.
PCI-E SSD!! Nice Idea What about the price?
Well the idea is not really new per-se. It has been in development since quite a few years now, and the technology itself wasn’t mature enough. Until a few weeks ago when Intel showed off its PC3700 series offerings. Here is the picture of that release, taken from Anandtech:
[img]http://images.anandtech.com/doci/8104/Screen%20Shot%202014-06-02%20at%2010.39.45%20PM_575px.png[/img]
It may seem a LOT, but the “price per GB” is actually very VERY good.
Agree!
Apna net cafe khol leta!!! :)
91Gbps
…
Lol I thought the speed will be even more than current maximum dsl packg but it disappointed me. Its not only a slower connection but expensive too. PTCL monopoly itni asani se khtm nhi hogi
you can use that even at k2 , the comparison is just wrong. mostly it is not for home use and obviously 3g and dsl will be cheaper option. But if you require internet where there is no 3g and ptcl or landlines , satelliete internet remains the only option , though expensive
Pakistan mei 3g k signals nhi aate seatelite Internet ke sugnals kahan se aayen ge :-P
Can any one tell what is the highest internet speed a person can get in Pakistan?
PTCL is offering 100Mbps and 50Mbps internet speed in some major cities of Pakistan.
highest speed internet or highest affordable internet? for me the 8mbit dsl from ptcl is affordable, even though it has 100 gb/mo soft cap.
K2 base-camp, here I come… I’m gonna need a solar charger too, any suggestion?
it is drifting satellite .. so service will not be that much satisfactoy as compare to fiber optic but can replace traditional TDM backup lines .. Telcos may use it as backup line … When a satelite drfit from one orbit to another you will feel stalled connection for few seconds or more.
Speed is not the issue .. speed depends on transponder capacity. Speed depends on Satellite dish and other equipment use to terminate the SAT signals
ah internet warriors are here umm!