Subject: [gaia] The race to connect Africa through satellite technology

From: Marco Zennaro <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 18:14:40 +0100

http://www.idgconnect.com/abstract/9292/the-race-connect-africa-satellite-technology

Best,
Marco

Marco Zennaro, PhD
Telecommunications / ICT for Development Laboratory
the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics
Strada Costiera 11
34014 Trieste
Italy

Telephone:	+39 040 2240 406
Web:	         	http://wireless.ictp.it

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From: Arjuna Sathiaseelan <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 20:49:52 +0000

more here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/telecoms/11232599/Facebook-in-talks-with-Avanti-over-Africa-deal.html

This is exciting - we are working with Avanti to explore new
architectures for providing low cost Internet access via one of our EU
projects. So I am personally very excited! :)

Regards

On 13 January 2015 at 17:14, Marco Zennaro <[email-masked]> wrote:
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-- 
Arjuna Sathiaseelan | http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~as2330/

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From: Bezdomny <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 16:22:11 +0100

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/22/daily-report-internet-in-orbit-linking-much-of-world-directly-to-google/?emc=edit_tu_20150122&nl=technology&nlid=60325689

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From: Steve Song <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 11:58:00 -0400

Hi all,

What all these satellite initiatives have to contend with the accelerating
spread of fibre infrastructure.  Not only is latency a non-issue with fibre
but it also has a much longer life-cycle than satellite technology.  The
steadily decreasing cost of fibre deployment combined with the growth of
low-cost wireless technologies to complete the last/first mile paints a
very appealing scenario.  Not to mention the fact that fibre can be
affordably integrated with other infrastructure deployment from roads to
water to waste further reducing costs.  Also, we have not yet fully plumbed
the depths of fibre capacity.  It's current capacity exceeds all current
demand and even then new discoveries like twisted fibre promise even more
capacity.

And then there is satellite technology.  High latency unless you have LEO
satellites which of course have much shorter lifespans.  There is a much
higher risk factor associated with satellite which is a combination of the
very high cost of launching satellites, the terrible cost of failure, and
the comparatively long lead time from technology conception to launch.  O3B
is a poster child for all of those issues.

SpaceX may be a different story.  If launching satellites is simply
piggy-backing on an existing space business, that may change things.

Cheers... Steve

On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 11:22 AM, Bezdomny <[email-masked]> wrote:

> > more here:
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/telecoms/11232599/Facebook-in-talks-with-Avanti-over-Africa-deal.html
> >

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From: Steve Song <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 10:19:24 -0400

And as if on queue, ACE and Alcatel-Lucent announced this week trials of
new technology that will quintuple the capacity of the ACE cable from 5 to
25 Tbps.  Upgrade work on the EASSy cable using the same technology is
already underway.

http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/press/2015/alcatel-lucent-and-ace-achieve-breakthrough-upgrade-africa-coast-europe-system-using-300g400g

Cheers... Steve