One Per Cent

CES: Satellite broadband boost with 12Mb/s service

Peter Nowak, contributor
 
(Image: Peter Nowak)

Satellite broadband has a bit of a bad reputation. It's a view California's ViaSat is hoping to change with two announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week.

The first is a new home broadband service, available next week, that boasts download speeds of up to 12 megabits per second at a price tag of $50 per month. The speed is considerably higher than what's typically been available, with most residential satellite services topping out between one and two megabits. The price is also significantly lower, with other services generally costing between $70 and $100.

ViaSat also announced a partnership with JetBlue. The airline will be testing satellite broadband on flights, with an eye to rolling out service in early 2013. It's too early to discuss pricing, says ViaSat CEO Mark Dankberg, but simple options such as email and web surfing could be free.

The key to both was the launch of ViaSat 1 in October. The satellite has about 140 gigabits per second of data capacity - dramatically more than the single gigabit previous satellites have had.

The extra capacity means satellite broadband is finally becoming economical to offer and it can now match many of the capabilities of its terrestrial counterparts. At CES, ViaSat was demonstrating the ability to run multiple applications at once, including high-definition video.

"People can't really comprehend it unless they use it for themselves. That's why we're here," Dankberg said.

Still, there are some uses where satellite broadband is lacking. There's no getting around the fact that it takes time for data signals to reach the ground, so satellite connections will always have worse latency - or lag - than cables. Applications that require low latency, such as online gaming, therefore don't perform as well.

And even with the expanded capacity, satellite broadband is unlikely to ever provide the same big usage allowances as wired internet. ViaSat's highest-end monthly plans, for example, top out at 25 gigabits per second.

Nevertheless, some broadband experts are bullish on the technology's future. Vint Cerf, who helped design the original protocol rules on which the internet is based, is excited by the increasing bandwidths and believes lower-orbit satellites can help reduce the delay issue.

Cerf, who has been working with NASA for several years on improving satellite transmission networks, says the technology could also be adapted to broadcast internet access far and wide, much like antenna-based television signals used to do. In this way, satellite broadband might be able to reach millions of customers, who each need little more than a small receiver to pick up the signal.

"[It's the] cheapest and fastest way to deliver large amounts of the same content to many targets," he says.

http://www.newscientist.com/