So much for cellular backup

[tmbrown97]

It's so true, network guys pop up like Meerkats when we see a surprise backhoe working near the building.

Best analogy! I used to have a few buildings in a large office park (ex air force base) where I had paid 4" conduit between them all... whenever the Air Force or Comcast or anyone else showed up with a bahoeck, I had to go babysit.

 

[drozwood90]

Lou,

You are right. I just read that as a general swath of satellite is not reliable. In my work, I actually find that most of the satellite stuff I work with is more reliable than cellphone. I would say that iridium and Global Star is about AS reliable as cellphones, maybe more depending on location. Even for surfing. However, 9600baud for Global Star and 2400baud for Iridium limits you to about what the OP was discussing...alarms and such.

Most of my work, we end up with a little better stuff than Huges/DirectTV/Etc., so I tend to trust it more than a cell phone.

--Dan

 

[apostolakisl]

Lou,

You are right. I just read that as a general swath of satellite is not reliable. In my work, I actually find that most of the satellite stuff I work with is more reliable than cellphone. I would say that iridium and Global Star is about AS reliable as cellphones, maybe more depending on location. Even for surfing. However, 9600baud for Global Star and 2400baud for Iridium limits you to about what the OP was discussing...alarms and such.

Most of my work, we end up with a little better stuff than Huges/DirectTV/Etc., so I tend to trust it more than a cell phone.

--Dan

Kind of interesting tidbit, Iridium went bankrupt and at the last second the US military bailed them out with a bunch of financing with agreements for the military to use the system. They were literally within days of starting to de-orbit the entire batch of satellites (crash them in the Pacific). They ran out of money just as they put their last satellites in orbit and before they had actually gone operational. What a devastatingly sad thing that would have been to have put all those satellites up there and then just crash them without a day of use.

 

[drozwood90]

Agreed. I wonder if Global Star had the same issues? I know they are mostly only over the Americas (N/S. America) due to their "figure-8" flight path, where the Iridium traverse the entire planet. They have some really cool animations showing how the network, works, and the flight paths of the sattelites.

It's funny, with the way Iridium does the network, it is almost the opposite of cellular...as you move, you go from cell tower to cell tower. IN this network, they are going SO fast, you end up going from hexagon coverage area to coverage area on the same satellite, then passed to the next sat. And once your transmission is IN the network, it gets bounced around the planet until it lands in...I think somewhere in Texas...I'd have to look it up.

To be honest, it always amazes me that all of this can be coordinated enough to make calls. I mean, 100's of miles per hour (or more?), you place a call that takes 15+ seconds to connect, your information is passed from sat. to sat., over and over and over. Yet all the coordination happens and you get a voice/data link. It is AMAZING to me.

--Dan