@linagee wrote:
I'd like to use satellite data to send blockchain data. (Bitcoin, Ethereum, other blockchains.) At first I thought it might be possible to myself use a $50/mo satellite internet to accomplish this. But - if you were able to send your data up to satellite and have it repeated down (and somehow got off the shelf SDR understanding the data), it would only come back down to your spot beam. (Which means you'd only get ~100 miles of repeat since they keep them very small for a $50/mo satellite service.) It seems the $50/mo service I'm talking about is using Echostar 17 (HughesNet) and gives you 5GB of data per month. (plus off-peak data). So since its only 100 miles and you'd need more than 20 sites over the US to go to every spot beam, this seems like a really bad way to do it.
I've seen the number ~$1,000/mo thrown around previously, this would likely get you the ability to send data to a wider area. Multiple satellites for global coverage would be some multiple of this. (Quickly approaching over $10,000/mo+, way over anyone's budget for mere hobbyist stuff unless you have very deep pockets.)
Outernet has taught me how expensive global broadcast of any data might be. 10MB/day suddenly seems like quite a deal. (But, that's not big enough for any entire blockchain, probably big enough if you could subscribe to notifications and then just receive a few bytes when something hits your address. But I guess - this would then be similar to just having a satellite paging service.)
I'm also wondering about the Lantern. Can this device itself receive satellite communication, or does it need to be connected to a dish? (Because if no dish, how in the world can you get any signal indoors as their marketing photos show?)
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