Satellite Internet will be available to the Russians even when traveling.
According to the “Kommersant”, the people of the Russian Federation will be able in three years to enjoy services of a special operator moving by means of transport.
The company “Nebo Global Communications” (“Nebo GK”) will go into creating a satellite constellation aimed to ensure the provision of broadcasting and internet services. Upon preliminary information, the company’s investment in the project will amount to RUR 80 billion.
According to the portal Kartoteka.ru, the company “Nebo GK” passed through registration early this year. All stocks are held by Natalya Melnikova, who previously owned (before the sale of “NTV Plus”) the “Red Media”. At present, the company has been negotiating for the project implementation with domestic and foreign investors.
According to the portal, Vyacheslav Kamnev steps down form the Deputy CEO post at the “Gazprom-media” in order to set about the development of that new operator. In three years it is sheduled to put into operation a satellite communication system under the name “Rosinfokom”. It will incorporate three communications satellites put in high elliptical orbits and one reserve above ground. The system’s signal will be relayed all over Russia, including the Arctic region, as well as China and India.
Thanks to the satellites’ location orbit, the new operator’s signal will be available in areas of complicated topography: in cities, forests and mountains. A distinctive feature of the new project is to provide Internet access services, as well as digital TV and radio broadcasting in moving units like vehicles, trains and planes.
Initially, the satellite signal will be received by a special device, which later on will provide users with access to the Internet services via Wi-Fi. The system developer and chief designer at the “Nebo GK” is Evgeniy Kamnev, Doctor of Engineering Sciences, Professor (Vyacheslav Kamnev’s father), who states that the Internet access speed in a car, for example, will be 3.5 Mbit/s, and up to 60 Mbit/s for mass distribution in the aircraft or trains.
We shall recall that the idea of mass satellite internet is not innovative. The Mediasat reported before about the Google and Facebook’s intentions to address the problem with “white gaps” in the Internet networks. It became known soon that Mr. Zuckerberg’s project “Internet.org” would provide telecom services to the residents of over 100 countries. A little later there appeared information on joining in the game by such players as Apple and Amazon, as well as the company OneWeb, which is eager to design 900 satellites for providing high-speed “space” Internet. Not far behind them there is Elon Musk’s brainchild SpaceX, engaged in own developments and a constellation of small communication satellites. And, despite the information appeared in mass media that Facebook and Google suspended the satellite Internet implementation race, in October last year, Mark Zuckerberg’s company and Eutelsat announced their cooperation, which would be the first step towards the implementation of the “Internet.org” project.
